Once a very active person, Michelle used to run a lot, aside from swimming, playing tennis and hiking. She was an avid runner in university and she absolutely loved runnig as it helps her to clear her head and gives her space to think about other things other than work. “I tend to get brain blocks often so heading out for a run helps with that,” the 32-year-old marketing manager said.
However, when she moved to Hong Kong in 2013, she became less active and started to gain weight due to a change in lifestyle. For one, the apartments in Hong Kong are relatively small so when you stay home for quite a bit, you don’t have to move around a lot as everything is within reach.
“My husband and I did start to walk a lot more from place to place since it’s quite walkable, unlike Singapore, and we also started doing more hikes on the weekends. However, food there tends to be more unhealthy with all the roast goose and pork!” she recalled.
Her biggest downfall was when she got a full-time job with long hours and a lot of time spent sitting. “That’s when I got lazy with fitness. In addition, with space being a commodity there, gym memberships were expensive and so I didn’t spend a lot of time exercising.”
In 2017, Michelle returned to Singapore and no one really commented or said anything about her appearance, but she saw a big difference in her photos. That gave her a wakeup call to get active again. “It is something that I do struggle with once in a while, but my mentality for training has definitely changed – it’s not to lose weight, but as long as I’m happy with where I can fitness-wise, that’s fine.”
She soon got bored of the fitness classes in Singapore though – and while running is still a way to clear her head and re-focus, it does take a lot of energy because of the humid and warm weather here that puts her off running.
Having to find different things to stay motivated, Michelle took up various things like Crossfit, cycling, yoga, Pilates, and tennis. But nothing really stuck with her. Her current fitness regime includes HIIT workouts at home and either cycling or inline skating to work.
She wanted to join the OUTDO YOURSELF programme by 100PLUS Singapore so she could commit to an active lifestyle and push herself to train towards her goal of running a half-marathon again.
“My goal for this training programme is to push myself to do a little more than I usually would in running and also to meet new people with similar fitness goals,” she said.
Photos by Tim Yap
