About

My name is Mutiara and I’m the managing editor of this website.

I’m super thrilled to be able to share my love and passion for health, wellness, fitness and fun with you. I’m also a proud mom of 2 beautiful girls, a smart girl and a happy super active little girl. And when I’m not managing my website, I co-manage our marketing consulting business with my super hard working hubby.

Why Health and Wellness Circle?

I gained so much weight during my 1st pregnancy that to lose all that weight that I had gained, was really challenging for me. It took me three years to finally lose all that baby weight and then some. During those three years, it seemed like I tried everything to lose all that baby weight. Unfortunately, none gave me the results I wanted. I tried Personal Training for 3 months, did the calorie counting, worked my buns off on several fitness equipment like the treadmill and the climber. The more I spent time on the equipment, the more I felt discouraged about achieving my goal. Why? Because I did not enjoy the whole process. I felt like it was something I ‘must’ do instead of something I ‘wanted’ to do. The results? Mere 5 lbs lost in 3 months. Woohoo! 😉

And then I found Zumba. This is where my healthy journey started.

First, to put it into perspective, I was never a group fitness person…hey…I was never even a gym person 🙂 Before Zumba the only times I ever set foot in the gym is for my personal training sessions and those times like once a week when I had to drag myself to the gym to workout on the equipment. That’s it.

When we moved to Colorado, I joined a gym just because it looks nice, not necessarily because I wanted to work out. After experiencing how much of a drudgery it was on the equipment, I decided that perhaps it was time to try something new – group fitness. I saw Zumba on the schedule. Not knowing what Zumba was, I came to my very 1st Zumba class, spent one hour of movin’ and groovin’ to bunch of world music (like salsa, merengue, reggaetón, Bollywood, bhangra, and some top 40s) and was pleasantly surprised that an hour of ‘working out’ had actually passed and I was drenched in sweat. Zumba is Latin infused dance fitness. And since I have always loved singing and dancing as they have always been my preferred ways to unwind, that was when I fell in love with Zumba. The inside and out feeling post a fun workout was the cause of me expanding my fitness horizons to other group fitness formats like Body Pump, Step Aerobics, Insanity.

The results?

Few months after my first Zumba class, I’d lost 25 lbs! All that because of I did super fun workout and incorporated a healthy diet. It was a ketogenic diet to be exact. I’ll talk about this more in my blog in my website.

After the birth of my 2nd girl, to get back to my pre-baby weight, I did some HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training, Insanity to be exact) trainings, lots of Zumba and Body Pump. I also incorporated the ketogenic diet I did before.

What’s the result this time?

I got back to my pre-2nd baby weight in 9 months and gained more lean muscles.

I love food too much – the healthy and once in a while, the not so healthy, when the time is right, like during the Holiday seasons. I usually don’t hold back on eating the not so healthy food, like the sugar based stuff, okay…chocolate, cake and ham….my fave food ever! I do this because I’m a firm believer in keeping things in balance in everything I do. I do this also because I know that the regular intermittent fasting (IF) and high protein, low carb/good carb diet that I started incorporating in my life a year after my 2nd baby girl, coupled with my regular fun workout (Zumba and Body Pump) never fail to empower me to get back to my pre-holiday weight.

After taking numerous Zumba classes, I then decided to become certified as a Zumba instructor as I want to share my passion for fun fitness with anyone that never does or does very little fitness but feel intimidated to do that. Below is a picture of me with my fellow Zumba instructors sharing our passion for Zumba at the biggest outdoor fitness event in CO, Fitness on The Rock.

Couple years after getting my Zumba instructor certification, I decided to get certified as a Body Pump instructor.

Body Pump is my 2nd fitness format that I fell in love with. Body Pump is a total body workout using light to moderate weights with lots of repetition. My love for Body Pump grew when in several of my 1st Body Pump classes, the songs that I love to listen and sing along to, the 80s Rock ‘n Roll songs, were in the playlist! I could not believe that weight lifting could be that much fun!

Because of the results I got from incorporating super fun fitness and healthy diet in my life, via this website, I want to share my experience with those of you who feel like to achieve your fitness goals, whether it is to lose weight, to have more lean muscles, or to be healthier in general, you have to ‘endure’ regimens of painful and boring exercises and diet. The key thing is to find a workout that’s fun, fits your lifestyle and fits your personality 🙂  It goes the same with diet. What I mean is if you’re a busy and active person and want to minimize the amount of cooking you have to do, you may want to look into the type of healthy diet that emphasizes more on ease, convenience and practicality. On the other hand, if you’re someone with ample time in your hand, and actually love cooking, you may want to look into the type of diet that emphasizes more on creating/cooking your food from scratch. Whatever diet you decide to do, make sure it’s a healthy one 🙂

If you have any comments, questions or just want to say hi, you can contact me here. I look forward to embarking on this fun healthy journey with you!

Blessings,
Mutiara