Anyway, I have to shamefully admit that I’ve only recently realized that the battle against fat is a battle you have no chance of winning unless you have a solid plan of attack. You can’t just decide to lose fat, you have to learn how to effectively fight fat. Any half-assed attempt to fight the villainous fat will always end up in defeat. Always. Trust me. I’ve tried and failed so many times because I simply didn’t know what the hell I was doing.

Tired of being a complete total fitness and health moron, I decided to learn more about diet and exercise. Like a great many number of people who want to learn about stuff, I turned to the Internet for answers.

My quest for a healthier lifestyle led me to some really interesting YouTube channels focused on health and fitness. I just started with a search on how to to a pull-up/chin-up if you’ve just started exercising again, and it snowballed from there. Here are my current favorite YouTube fitness channels:

1. Fitness Blender

I stumbled upon this channel when I was looking for a good beginner kettlebell routine and then I found out that they have tons of great workout and advice videos. TONS. Did I mention that they have tons of great fitness videos?

2. Scott Herman Fitness

This channel has tons of workout vids to help you get ripped. Ripped. Yeah. Lots of help here if you want to get ripped.

3. Omar Isuf

I actually frequent the channel he made specifically for women (sexychefbuff) than his main body building channel for manly men because I’m still just beginning; great workouts to tone and sculpt one’s body. He offers great weight loss and bodybuilding advice.

4. Elliott Hulse

Lots of great advice here for developing one’s body and mind; excellent videos. Also, the art of breathing into your balls.

5. Twin Muscle Workout (aka The Hodge Twins)

For all sorts of GAINZZZZZZZ.

6. Scooby

Known as the father of fitness videos in YouTube, Scooby offers great home workout plans and weight loss advice. He’s 51 and he looks great so he probably knows what he’s talking about.

These are the channels that helped me learn more about diet, exercise, and overall fitness. I’m not claiming that they are the best fitness channels out there but they do offer a great wealth of knowledge for those who want to improve their current fitness level.

Being fit is hard but it’s harder if you don’t know what you’re doing!

Anyway, the main reason why I kept failing before, now that I really thought hard about it, was because my goals and motivations for exercising were… well… stupid. Really stupid. Here they are:

1. ???
2. Get thinner.
3. ???
4. Abs.
5. ???
6. ???
7. Muscles.
8. ???
9. ???
10. Abs.

As you can see, they are, indeed, stupid. And when you’re goals are that stupid, you’ll only end up feeling defeated… alone… and fat. Well, unless getting washboard abs is enough motivation for you to get healthy as f*ck. Then, kudos to you sir or ma’am. Good job! Anyway, since getting abs isn’t motivation enough for me to exercise, I decided to really think about why I wanted to be fit.

Here are my less stupid reasons now:

1. I Don’t Want to Die
I’m not saying that I want to be an immortal. I just don’t want to die prematurely. People live to a hundred now and I want to be like one of those people. I can’t live that long if I don’t start caring for my body now.

2. I Want to Still Have Fun When I Get Older
If I don’t take care of my body now, my adult life would suck. I want to be able to run when I’m 60 or older. I can do that if I start taking care of my body now.

3. I Still Want to Eat the Things I’m Eating Now When I Get Older
I don’t want to contract a disease that will limit the food I can eat when I get older. I’m taking care of my body now so I can still eat burgers (among other things) without worry in the future.

4. Abs
Simply because I really want to know what it feels like to have abs. =)

Being fit takes a lot of effort and an awful lot of time. It’s hard. It’s boring. It’s tedious. But when you find the right reasons to do it, it’s not so bad.

Last month, my sister and I got to see the Deftones live in concert. She covered the event for Spot.ph and I tagged along as her photographer. Not the kind who has VIP passes and access to the photographers’ pit kind of photographer, though, just the kind who is capable of operating a camera and taking pretty nice pictures with a workable point-and-shoot camera cause he’s not really a hired photographer to cover the event. Actually, I’m not 100% sure if my sister even had to officially cover the event for Spot but I’m not one to refuse free tickets to see my favorite band.

When the band hit the stage, they came out swinging. They opened with the song “Rocket Skates”, a pretty heavy song with the perfect chorus for the crowd to sing along with. GUNS! RAZORS! KNIVES! The crowd went fucking nuts, man. You can almost feel the place shake as the audience jumped up and down for what seems like the entirety of the song. It was insane.

The band’s electrifying live performance aside, the other thing that really caught my attention was the sheer number of people taking pictures (and how much more awesome their cameras were compared with the ones my sister and I were carrying). There were a lot. A good portion of those who were really close to the stage had their cameras out, and the people behind them had their phones out. Heck, the people at the back, who might or might not have been seeing the stage in the first place, had their phones out. It was…something.

While I don’t have anything against taking pictures – I edit and take pics as a hobby and for a living – I often wonder why we subject ourselves to this ordeal of curating everything. Personally, if my sister didn’t need photos for her article, I wouldn’t even have brought a camera. Taking photos of my experiences often feels as if I’m vicariously living my memories and experiences from behind the camera screen/viewfinder. Like I’m just a spectator and not really involved in what’s going on in front of me or, worse, as if I’m literally making memories.

Whatever happened to just being there?

Again, I’m not saying that taking pictures of everything isn’t fun. Because it is. We can now take pictures of everything. That in itself is a wonder, really. But there are just times when I remember stuff and all I can really remember is “I took a picture of that”.

Anyway, while Playmates’ new batch of toys may arguably be the best TMNT figures released so far, there’s definitely room for improvement. The figures themselves are pretty great considering they’re really made for little kids to play with; good sculpt, nice articulation, clean paint application. I’m honestly pretty happy with the figures as they are. Their accessories, on the other hand, not so much.

While the figures they came packed with are detailed and nicely painted, the accessories/weapons for the turtles are rather bland. While I am totally digging that fact that they came in their sprues like the ones from my old 80′s toys did, I really wish they were a little more detailed.

I really can continue bitching about stuff but bellyaching will get us nowhere. Time to make things spiffy!

Michelangelo’s nunchucks look lame out of the package. They kinda look like nunchucks but they’re really just bent plastic sticks – they’re an insult to nunchucks everywhere.

Fortunately, replacing those hideous plastic chains with real ones is a simple process. All you need are some screw eye bails, a length of tiny chain, and your favorite bladed instrument. Simply cut off the fake plastic chains and then replace them with the real tiny chains. If you don’t know the steps between the cutting off the fake chain and replacing them with real ones, you’re probably too young and you need adult supervision; get adult supervision, kid. If you’re an adult and you don’t know what the hell just happened, you’re not worthy to be called an adult; get adult supervision.

Anyway, the same process applies for Mike’s kusarigama (chain-sickle) and Donatello’s three-section staff; just add the appropriate length of chain for each weapon.

Also, for Donatello’s bo and three-section staff, I decided to use some thread sealing tape for their handles. Simply get a length of thread sealing tape then wrap them around the sculpted handles on Don’s bo and three-section staff. Voila! Awesome-r weapons!

Next: PAINTING! But that can wait as I have work to do! =)

A person from the tour group we were part of commented that the houses were “rich and opulent” and I can’t help but agree with her observation. The houses are indeed gorgeous.

Each house is a sort of exhibit displaying several items from colonial to post-war Philippines.

My only real complaint with the tour is that it moves rather fast. I feel like I didn’t really have enough time to soak up everything inside the houses. But with more than twenty houses to visit and around five tour schedules, I guess they do need to speed things up. =)

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Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar houses quite a number of 18^th to 20^th century houses rescued from our modernizing world. With more than twenty houses salvaged and carefully restored to their former glory, Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar offers, quite literally, a pretty good view of our rich and colorful past.

You can go biking or carting around the make-shift town if you’re willing to spend money but walking is more than enough to cover the entire place in less than an hour without breaking a sweat. Be sure to take the tour, though. While it may not be the most informative of tours, it gives you access inside the houses and it provides an overview of the history behind the houses in Las Casas.

Just think of Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar as a museum and a hotel and resort rolled in one convenient package. Whether you’re a history buff or someone simply looking for a nice relaxing place, Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar is a place worth visiting.

Anyway, these are just some of the shots I got from all the walking my girlfriend and I did in Sagada. It’s not much, I know, but that really gives me a reason to visit the place again. =)

To get there, you can either rent a vehicle to drop you off at the foot of the hill (then hike for several minutes to reach the summit) or, if you aren’t averse to physical activity, simply walk all the way from town. The choice is yours. =)

The climb up will take you about 30 minutes to an hour depending on your pace. It’s a pretty easy hike overall and shouldn’t really be a problem to anyone.

The view from the trail alone is actually something and will help lessen the strain you feel from the hike.

Additionally, the early morning fog gives the forest an almost ethereal feel. Or a Silent Hill-y vibe. Both works. =)

Once you reach the top… ENJOY!

This year – after years and years of planning – I finally got to revisit Sagada with my girlfriend. Funny enough, we were both pretty ill throughout our stay but that didn’t stop us from exploring Sagada.

Anyway, over the years Sagada’s got really, really, ridiculously famous for these things: its scenery, its eating places, its burial sites, its caves, and that one movie with Judy Ann and Piolo. While the whole caving/spelunking thing isn’t really our cup of tea, we did spend quite a great deal of time hiking, getting slightly lost, finding our way, then hiking some more.

And eating. Definitely, eating.*

But it is really the burial sites that I associate with Sagada. You can partly blame that on my degree in anthropology and partly in that part of me that goes “Oooh! Coffins! Coffins are cool! Let’s go see coffins! Come on, guy! C-O-F-F-I-N-S!!!”

Situated several hundred meters from the town center, the Lumiang cave is probably the most accessible (and probably most famous) tourist spot in Sagada.

For a lot of people, visiting the the burial cave will be the highlight of this short trek. But the for the more adventurous traveler, Lumiang cave is only the beginning of their journey to Sumaguing.

For people like us who don’t really like spelunking, the Lumiang burial cave is a pretty good place to end one’s trek as it’s one eerily beautiful place.

Seeing the stacks of coffins piled on top of one another is at once slightly creepy and awe-inspiring. The place actually feels pretty sacred. Holy, if you will.

Additionally, the burial site also gives us a glimpse of Sagada’s burial tradition from way back. So, not only do you get a pretty nice cardio workout on the way down here, you also get to learn about the local culture. An exercise for the body and the mind! How fun is that?

The next burial site is on the other side of town, in an area called the Echo Valley. This is where you’ll find some of Sagada’s hanging coffins. While nowhere near as old as the ones in Lumiang, the burial site in Echo Valley is proof that some of Sagada’s older tradition remains. Well, for some local groups at least.

The way to Echo Valley is slightly more grueling than the hike to Lumiang cave. It’s not terribly harder, mind you, just… less easy.

Since my girlfriend and I didn’t hire a guide to help us get to the coffins, we had to trust our guts and simply follow paths that might lead us to the burial site. Obviously, we did find one that led us to the coffins but it wasn’t an easy one. There was point where I actually felt like I was Bear Grylls leading my girlfriend to the path we chose to follow. Well, a fatter Bear Grylls with less-than-average survival skills and less propensity to drink one’s own piss. Anyway, a seasoned tour guide actually saw us ascending to the burial site and jokingly asked us “what the hell are you guys doing there?”

Still, it was all worth it as I did get a shot of the coffins from below. The more adventurous part of me had a field day.

Again, these burial sites in Sagada are a tangible part of their culture – past or present. You owe it to yourself to visit them if you ever visit Sagada. They are must-see locations, in my humble opinion, not just for the sights but for what the locals have to say about them.

*^{Chronicled on our food blog. Click the links to learn more about the Misty Lodge and Cafe, the Yoghurt House, and Gaia Cafe and Crafts!}