Fitness/Fatness

Keeping fit while on vacation in the Philippines is a challenging proposition.  The caloric ratio of the bakasyonista (vacationer) skews almost completely toward the "intake" part.  The reunions.  The buffet lunches and dinners.  The meriendas (snacks) in between.  The relatives saying kain ka pa (eat some more)!  The drinking sessions.  Sometimes all in the same day.  One's guts expand to near-epic proportions while the metabolism struggles futilely to burn the overabundant fuel.  Time, the most precious commodity of all during a two-week vacation, is carefully rationed between friends and family, and the intention to exercise gets violently shoved aside in favor of another gimik (outing).  Weight maintenance becomes nigh-impossible and weight loss becomes LITERALLY impossible.

Since I have a 5k lined up for the end of January, I forcibly carved out some time to run.  Jet-lagged and woozy for the first few days, I sadly couldn't bring myself to run at all.  When Gianina and I went to Singapore (a story for another post), I was at least able to do a quick treadmill 3-miler at the hotel: my first "run" of the year.  I was only really, really able to run a little over a week in.

Afraid of getting chased by askals (street dogs), I opted not to run within the borders of our village.  But I heard that there were plenty of "exercisers" at the local SM Southmall, so I decided to drive out there and do laps.

Amazingly, there was a fantastic amount of activity going on in the SM parking lot.  For the uninformed: SM is the name of a chain of shopping malls scattered (or rather, placed strategically) throughout the Philippines.  These huge edifices usually have massive parking lots to accommodate the multitude of shoppers that arrive every day.  Prior to opening, said lots are almost completely empty, making them prime areas for activities requiring lots of space.

There were runners/walkers, who looked like they had been there since the crack of dawn.

There were kids playing volleyball.

There was a group of what appeared to be police or private security company recruits marching around in formation.  I didn't take a picture of them in fear of being labeled some sort of security risk and subsequently detained.   One can't be too careful about these things.

Most interestingly, in two separate areas of the parking lot, there were some sort of dance classes/sessions going on.  I would say Zumba, but I'd just be guessing.

Everybody seemed to really be into it.  Unfortunately, I had no context whatsoever for what was going on.  Were they organized classes that the participants had signed up and paid for?  Or did they just "organically" start from a small group of people clowning around, accruing a bigger attendance as time went by?   Personally, I wonder if this is the Filipino version of "Tai-chi in the park" like they do in China.  I did an internet search about dancing in SM parking lots but didn't come up with anything.  Perhaps we could market it as some sort of tourist attraction.  If it turns into a global phenomenon, you heard it here first!

With much difficulty (I'm not accustomed to running in 85-degree heat with 100% humidity), I slogged through a slow 4-miler.  My performance wasn't too shabby, all things considered.  For the remainder of our vacation, I ran three more times, although never again at an SM.  I don't know if my efforts actually paid off in terms of weight maintenance (all told, I gained 8 pounds in two weeks... perhaps it would have been more if I had been completely sedentary?), but at least I tried.  We'll find out at the 5k if there's been any improvement in my fitness level whatsoever.

Dancers in the background