When you’re in love, you tend to let go a little. Sure, that’s okay in the beginning, but skipping a workout and ordering a pizza for DVD night too often could lead to gaining the love chub – also known as the ‘boyfriend layer’.

I’ve gained about 10lbs since I’ve got in a relationship 4 months ago. When I shared my contempt about my weight gain on Twitter, the first reply I received was “You’re in love!”  It’s almost like a normal thing that happens to just about everyone else.

The first stage is ‘feeling’ the weight gain. You feel restless and too tired to do anything at all. Continue putting off your workouts and 2 months later, you’ll soon realize unbuttoning your favorite jeans feels a lot more comfortable after a meal.

Once you’ve gained the initial 5lbs, weight gain can take off like a runway and you’ll immediately realize that you’ve obviously been neglecting your body and have gotten used to some habits that were once an occasional treat. So how do you get back into the healthy cycle and keep the boyfriend layer at bay?

Here are 3 things you need to do and remember:

1. Be Happy And Stay content – Love Your Partner, Love Your Body

Contentment is what you hope for after the elation has worn off. Being in love makes you feel happy and whole. Putting on the love chub doesn’t. Feeling insecure about your body and yourself is not a healthy attribute in any relationship.  To stay content, you need to feel good about yourself and that begins with a body you can be proud of. Research shows that people who are more active and happier with their bodies have more satisfying sex lives. If that’s not motivation, we don’t know what is.

2. Fun and healthy activities don’t just happen in bed or on the couch

Staying up late on a DVD night and spending more time in bed sounds more appealing than a date with the treadmill. Make gym time part of your quality time together. People who do things together are more likely to stick to it and you have each other for motivation. Take Jessica Biel and Justin Timberlake as an example; they both maintain a healthy relationship by having each other as gym buddies. Exercise your hearts together, a healthy heart is essential in every relationship.

3. His & Hers

Suddenly, your appetite grew. Your boyfriend eats twice as much as you because guys have more muscle mass, so they require more calories. Women burn 26% fewer calories than men do, so it’s best to stick to your regular petite portions and avoid stuffing yourself with those extra spoonfuls. It’ll eventually catch up with you.

If your boyfriend has a habit of eating chips from the bag or opts for a pint of ice-cream after dinner, it may be hard to resist a treat. However, keeping quantity control can prevent a diet disaster. Serve yourself a small portion of his snack in a small bowl or have a cup of delicious berry yogurt instead. It’s guilt-free and if they’re so good, who knows, maybe you’ll convert him.

Some fun activities you can do as a couple…

☑ Wakeboarding

☑ Pick up a new sport together (i.e. Surfing)

☑ Working out together

☑ Muay Thai

☑ Getting a group of friends together for beach volleyball

☑ Catch some sun 🙂

There are still a few activities we have yet to do together and the list includes:

☐ Golf/ Mini Golf
☐ Tennis/ Squash
☐ Roller-blading
☐ Sailing
☐ Pilates
☑ Hot Yoga

What activities do you share with your partner? Feel free to recommend some!

I can relate to the aggravating struggle to get off your bed or office desk and making your way to the gym. Even worse, the struggle to keep up with your workout routines while at the gym (this is even even harder when you don’t have a personal trainer to motivate you. It’s frustrating.

So how do you keep up? The answer: A pre-workout fuel – Caffeine.

Although I am not a huge fan of coffee (Why would I be? It stains your teeth and gives you the jitters…), I do believe that caffeine is a helpful stimulant that enhances your mental and physical performance. Caffeine enters the body and forces the working muscles to utilize as much fat as possible. When you’re doing strength and endurance training, it’s a challenging effort to keep your mind focused as every rep gets harder. Having caffeine in your system is a pre-workout fuel that provides you with the extra boost you require to complete your sets and push your body to the limits, thus ensuring a more satisfying after-work out feeling.

Most ‘fat-burning’ diet pills contains caffeine and this was what I took in replacement of a regular cup of coffee to stay awake at the office and still have some energy for Muay Thai.

Lipo-6 is my better alternative to drinking coffee as it does not stain my teeth, it does not give me the jitters either. Results may vary with every individual but so far, both Charles and I agree that it’s our essential Starbucks in a capsule.

It is important to know that I don’t recommend consuming a pill each day as this allows for the tolerance levels of caffeine to decrease, thus making the body susceptible to caffeine when consumed. It is important for you to understand their caffeine limits.  If you have never used caffeine for sporting enhancement, then you are unfamiliar with caffeine’s affects on your body.  Make sure that you have used caffeine in a variety of training conditions to understand your limitations.

Basic Rules of Thumb That Follows:

FOOD and REST

– Eat a meal within 3 hours before your workout, with at least 15g of protein.
– Eat a meal within 1.5 hours after your workout, with at least 20g of protein. If you can’t eat a meal until later, make sure to eat a protein bar / protein shake within 45 minutes of your workout’s end, and eat a full meal as soon as you can, no later than 3 hours later.
–  Get plenty of complex carbs and veggies.
– Never be hungry, never be full. Ideally you are eating 4 small-medium, balanced meals a day.
– Get 7-9 hours sleep a night.
– Drink 2 litres of water a day, don’t be afraid of bloating!

(This article is not intended for any advertising, sale or marketing purposes of the brand(s) mentioned.)