Beluga

I'm not very good at giving advice, probably because I'm not good at following it either.. lol

But I'll try. 

For me, when I was trying to re-educate myself on eating and staying healthy  setting small goals first helped a lot. Like, instead of completely changing in a day, I tried incorporating more fruits and vegetables in my diet first, then I tried replacing sugary drinks with water, always setting goals for myself so I felt like I was actually achieving something little by little, step by step. Eat more vegetables, stop eating sugary stuff, stop drinking soda, drink more water, stuf like that, but little by little. (Am I making sense?) 

For eating new stuff, I was very picky too, I started trying stuff that was not complely crazy for me, stuff that I new I might like it, and then from there I started figuring out stuff that I liked more or less. Honestly, this was very hard at first, but it became easier with time. But I still can not eat broccoli no matter how hard I try. lol. 

For working out, I honestly tried the stuff that trainers do to pets to encourage good behavior. lol Like, I started giving myself treats every time I completed a workout routine. I bought myself a new candle, an smoothie or an day out. Something like that. Basically trained my brain to believe it was the workout that was giving me that good feelings. lol. 

Also, having people around you can help more than you think, so maybe getting someone to go for a run with you or a friend to start going to a dance or martial arts class might help because you can help motivate each other. 

Hope this helps at least a little and that you succeed in your journey! 

I’m not really a new fan or anything, actually I think I might be a pretty old one. My first introduction to Bangtan was during the N.O era, but I was not truly into the hole then. I was a big E*xo and B*ig B*ang at that time. 

My brother was the one that introduced me to both of them and before that I never even heard of kpop. This was back in 2011-2012 and before the P*sy syndrome so the whole concept of ‘korean pop’ was really strange for me and for mostly everyone that I new. (I’m from Brazil and was still living there at that time). So, when my brother showed me videos of these asians girls and boys dancing and singing in strange clothes and make-up I was completely baffled at how he and his friends listened to these songs. But somehow I ended up looking at more videos trying to figure out  how to differentiate everyone and what they were saying. 

I truly only became a fan of the whole genre after figuring out that I actually had watched a few k-dramas, but never new they were from Korea, and after finding E*xo. I really feel in love with them after listening to ‘Wha*t is Love’ and decided that I should at learn the names of the two cute ones that had great voices. In that process I ended up watching a whole bunch of videos and after that there was no way out of the k-pop hole. lol. 

After watching one of E*xo’s appearance at weekl*y idol I saw N.O in my recommendations and out of curiosity watched the video. Not going to lie, I did not fall in love with them then, I kinda liked the whole distopia feel of the video and the message, but the song it self was not my cup of tea. After that I googled them and listened to the whole album, watched a few more videos and after seeing the dance practices and watching the bangtan bombs I really became trash. 

That was it, after falling for them none other groups were able to keep my attention, I was still in love with the other two groups that I already loved, B*B and E*xo, and for me no other group could quite compare to them. 

2014 was a nightmare for me and for most of Ex*o fans, but Kris was my Bias so I was devastated when the news about him leaving broke. After seeing how things were going with E*xo I kinda started to distance myself from them and because of that really threw myself in a spiral of BTS and B*B. (We also moved to the US this year so was hard to adapt and it did not help with the whole sad feeling during that time)

I was starting to think things were going to get really better when 2015 came with a bang and a real nightmare began, really 2015 and 2016 were both heaven and hell. The songs, concepts and everything BTS did at that time were so amazing to see, listen and experience, that was heaven, at the same time all the witch hunt the boys were experiencing sajaegi accusations, Tae singing!, and all the other terrible things, that was hell. 

Really, I never knew that something like that could affect me that much. I was heartbroken seeing all the negativity going around. And that was when I saw just how high the boys came on my propriety list. I had a real fight with my brother because he never really looked up the explanations to all these things and when 2016 came with all the accusations of the boys copying B*B and all that BS, my dear brother came to me and while laughing started talking about how the boys were all this and that. And showing how mature and responsible of a older sister I am, I started yelling at him and telling him to stop talking BS and not just believe what he read on the internet. 

I’m not proud to say that this was how the rest of my family became aware of what kpop was. lol. 

Long story short, after my mother made me calm myself we all kinda started talking about this whole situation. It was kinda of funny really, we had a family talk about how this situation with the boys was so unfair and my father made this long speech about how big companies always try to break the smaller ones and my mother talked about how the underdogs always suffers, but if they are strong they will rise. 

My brother became an ARMY after going to look up the explanations and apologies, he also apologized to me. (I also apologized for calling him a bunch of names. lol) 

After all that I never could call myself and E*xo-l or an V*ip again. I still love both of the groups and still follow them, but I just could not say proudly that I was part of the fandom anymore. 

My family started to ask about how the ‘little asians’ were doing and if they had any new songs. My mother always asks about the cute one with a funny smile (tae) and the baby one (kookie) lol. She really likes them. But other than that, none of them really talked about them, and I just assumed that they forgot about and only brought them up to make small talk. 

I started to realize that I was wrong when my younger brother (not the one that likes kpop) came to my room asking me if I saw that new song of the asians I liked where they exploded a car and yelled Fire all the time and wanting to show me how funny, but cool the song was. He really believed that I had not already seen the MV. lol. Not long after I caught my sister listening to ‘Save me’ while she was on the shower, and funny enough trying to sing together with the lyrics. My Brother and I never even bothered trying to show her Kpop because it really is not like anything she usually listens to. (She likes brazilian songs and listen to mostly genres that are from Brazil.) 

But the biggest surprise came when I got in the car with my father to go run some errands and he played this cd with, I’m not making this up I swear, 11 tracks of the same exactly song. What song? Bapsae. He likes the song and did not know how to connect his phone with the car sound system, so he made my mother buy a cd on a store and burn a cd with only that one song that he liked and wanted to play all the time because it was to har to keep putting the song on repeat. 

When the news about their BBMAs nominating came my father announced proudly during dinner and asked me if I already new. My mother made everyone site and watch the award show that night and she loved seeing Tae walking up to the stage and my younger brother kept talking about how RM learn english watching TV. My sister was the only one that was not that much impressed and despite listening and singing their songs when no one was around, she tried to play it cool. 

My father also just decided he wants to learn the boys names because he kept  trying to call them by their hair colors ‘little purple one’ ‘the one with blue hair’, but it kept changing. My mother still loves Tae and decided we should watch his drama together (I did not tell her I aired watched because she was so excited to watch it with me.) My youngest brother really likes Jin and Kookie, Jin because he likes Mario and my brother just loves video game, and Kookie because they have similar taste in music, so he kept listening to Kookie’s covers and follows his spotify playlist. And my other brother, the one that introduced me to Kpop, still a big fan of B*B, mostly G*D now, and is kinda growing out of groups and going into solos, but still saving money to buy BTS’ next album and to go to their next concert here in the US. 

But the reason why I decided to tell everyone this long ass story is to say that my sister finally came around and for the first time declared she is an ARMY just a couple days ago. She basically started to listen to BTS’ whole discography while driving and when I asked her about it she laughed and said that she just googled about their names and did not know how ended up watching them dancing in costumes and being kidnaped in the US. Then proceed to say that her favorite was RM because he has great taste in TV shows (she is a HUGE Friend’s fan. lol) and truly moved her with his speech at their last Wings concert. 

So, this is the story of how my whole family became ARMYs and I really had to tell someone about it. lol.