2017 and beyond

Happy New Year! If you search through the net, here are the top 5 new year's resolution: stay fit and healthy, lose weight, enjoy life to the fullest, spend less, save more and spend more time with family and friends.

Stay fit and healthy.  Actually, all of it boils to number one and everything will follow. If one gets fit and healthy, automatically he or she will lose weight, but remember losing weight is just a bonus.

Enjoy life to the fullest. When you are fit, you can enjoy life, do more stuff and move around more or perhaps do things that you aren’t able to do like joining a fun run or even a full marathon. One can also enjoy the outdoors like trekking, mountain biking or camping. There are also some available indoor activities like boxing, wall climbing, ballroom dancing or dancesport. Once you are fit, the possibilities are endless.

Spend less, save more. They say it is expensive to get fit and healthy but mind you try getting sick and you will know how expensive it is. Spending for medication or maintance for your high blood, sugar etcetera is no joke. Then there are the never ending laboratory testing. But don’t get me wrong, you must still have your annual checkup and regular visit to your doctor as prevention is better than cure. Eating home-cooked meal is much cheaper than eating out. Some restaurants always add more salt, more sugar to make your food taste better. Compared to eating at home where in the ingredients are in your hands. Still you need to control on how you cook your food and intake. Like the recent post from my favorite Biggest Loser Philippines food/nutrition coach Nadine Tengco “Life is too short to look and feel like CRAP. "Everything in Moderation" is a boat load of B.S. Crap is crap. Moderate or not. Eat crap in moderation and you still look and feel like crap. So there stop eating CRAP.” C.R.A.P simply means C-Carbonated Drinks, R-Refined Sugar, A-Artificial foods, P-Processed food.

Spend more time with family and friends. Being fit and healthy is not guarantee that you will live longer. But the chances are far greater than those who live an unhealthy lifestyle. So most likely you will grow older and spend more time with your family and friends. "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are gonna get." A quote from the movie Forrest Gump, it simply explains that life is a mystery. Tomorrow is a new day and no one knows exactly what will happen next.

The rest of the New Year’s resolution revolves around good fortune, good business and more financial stability.  The best investment that one can make is health because health is wealth. It is the best investment one can make that is assured to have the fastest ROI but the success rate of having a good health are often marred by inexcusable excuses. So start this 2017 right. Stop making excuses: “I am tired”, “it’s too cold or hot”, it’s too early or late”, “naa koy lakaw”, “Gisugo ko’s balay”, “Pasayuhon ko og uli” or the all time famous excuse “I am very busy". Throw them all out and leave them all in 2016.

Sideline.Tomorrow marks the 10th anniversary of the Cebu City Marathon. It features a new route that passes through the cities of Cebu, Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu. This will be a more challenging route for the 21 or 42km runners as they have to pass by Marcelo Fernan Bridge twice. Good luck to all runners and to our team Christian Marc Demoral, Coach Lem Co and Sarah Lucero who will race in the 21km distance.