Before 2018 ends, it is time for my year-end essay! I will compensate for my inability to update the last few months with this mega post.
Compared to the holidays of the previous years, this year is quite laid back. It was not as frantic as before.
Ayala Malls Circuit’s Christmas decoration
One of the things I am proudest of this 2018 is that I was able to make better choices for my health. This includes a change in my diet, and a better drive to exercise regularly.
Friday is wash day but I still ended up wearing these pants again instead of jeans. I think it looks good with this leather mailbag and it was as far as I can do to be color-coordinated. It rain when I was already in the shuttle, though, and I was really worried because I was wearing suede shoes! LOL
Mon and his teammate, Joselle, will be both celebrating their birthdays in Sunday. In connection to this, his team decided to throw a mini-kiddie party, complete with a chocolate fountain and hotdogs on a stick most especially. Even if there were already a lot of us inside the pantry, we still ahd a hard time finishing everything. Well, most were girls and they eat relatively less ravenous than the boys so that was slightly expected.
I stopped eating rice for dinner since Tuesday and Faye has stopped eating some since… I don’t exactly know when. LOL Most of the people I was with inside the pantry were the “jogging bunch”, diligently getting their cardio fix before the day ends. I also wanted to join them but I am too lazy to bring workout clothes in the office. Excuses, I know. But I do my own share of exercise at home too!
It is a Wednesday and we are officially back to reality and must go back working. Before leaving the house, I thought that it would rain but barely 20 minutes off from home, I was cursing under my breath the humid weather. For a start, I’ve decided to pair again my khaki pants with these Red Wing boots because I think they were a perfect combination. Besides, I know that I should be more smart and stop spending on clothes and there’s nothing wrong with repeating to wear the things you love over and over again. =D
I arrived in the office and saw that Mon was wearing almost the same thing as me again. However, his was on red while mine was on… whatever color mine was. It was not the first time that such thing happened because last September, we had the same thing on. He also began wearing his glasses because of astigmatism. And again, we have the same style of frame but in different colors.
Of course, just like everybody elese, I had to drag myself to work because four days of rest seemed very short. =D Not that I wanted to start the year off in the office marred with laziness but I just can’t stop thinking of my bed, our dining table and our fridge. LOL In all fairness to me, I was able to exercise for an hour by riding my bike again, and even gave our two dogs a bath. I think I’m off to a good start because I seem to start shaking the lazy bug off and get a move on with the things needed to be done.
The last thing to do before reaching work was walking the length of the sidewalk from KPMG, the underpass near PBCom, until our office building. What I hated most about this was, in spite of the heavy breathing from rushing, I usually had to endure two bouts of ‘Marlboro Country’ or a group of smokers having their nicotine fix.
But recently, I have noticed this interesting signage affixed in front of SMART Building. It was very clever and diplomatically-worded, not to mention that the smoking skull illustration was very apt. I laud the building administration for putting up such a reminder. Now, I only have to endure the group of smokers in front of PBCom. Interestingly, that building also has something posted in their building and even has the city ordinance number reminding people that smoking was prohibited. But alas! It fell on blind eyes and was blatantly ignored. There’s nothing much I can do about it but cover my face just to prevent myself from inhaling second-hand smoke. Ugh.
On another health-conscious note, I have decided to give this new product a try – CarbTrim. I’ve seen its commercial (featuring Angelica Panganiban) and I was curious to give the product a try.
Now, let me begin by saying that I began exercising again two weeks ago after a long hiatus. I’ve been very eager to get on my stationary bike again. But as there were people working on the construction of the rooftop of our house’s extension, I thought that it was very insensitive of me to exercise comfortably in my bike while watching videos, while they go up and down bringing construction materials and concrete. It did not sit well with me. As I can no longer wait for the long construction initiative to finish, I decided to just be ready and wait for them to go during lunchtime to have just an hour of exercising. I have to squeeze everything in an hour, though I know I can push myself to 30-minutes more.
So for CarbTrim, their tag line “Stop watching carbs, start blocking them!” pulled me in badly. Whenever I try to go on diet, the carbs are always the first to suffer. I know that it’s not exactly good but I can’t keep the idea of ‘carbs will make you fat’ our of my head. I knew that it was false but I still believed it anyway. CarbTrim was purported to contain the carb-blocking ingredient Phase-2 white kidney bean and was ‘clinically-proven’ to help blocking carbs.
Now, I’ve only just finished the whole box (containing six sachets, I think). I drink just a sachet during the first meal of the day (usually a brunch), then after resting for more than 30 minutes, I usually head right away to my bike. What I’ve noticed was that during the rest of the day, I began to eat less than I would normally eat. I don’t exactly know if it was psychological because I have a tendency to extremely restrict my eating when I’m dieting.
The tricky part was that I already ditched the weighing scale as weight loss was no longer my ultimate goal. I still want to fit better into my clothes but I no longer want to be stick-thin.The upcoming winter on our December trip will surely send me crawling if I were emaciated. I’m just trying to build my resistance because I also do not want to end up with a botched vacation, like what happened last September.
As I’ve already finished drinking all of the sachets, I will be buying another box later just to continually observe its effects. At the back of my mind, I knew that it might not be working as it was purported to be. However, I’m still going to continue for the heck of it.
Once the clock struck 12, I felt extremely happy because it was already the start of the -ber months. Here in the Philippines, it usually signals the start of the Holiday Season. And true to form, while we were waiting for our food to be served in “French Baker” in Ali Mall, the Odyssey kiosk nearby was already playing English and Filipino Christmas carols on repeat! Christmas is nearly upon us, and once All Saints is over, the Christmas fever will be on full-throttle.
French Baker goodies: clockwise – Chicken Pesto Cream, Chicken Parmigiana, Mango Crêpe and Soup in a Bread
It’s 2:00 AM and I almost had a fainting spell. I left the office feeling okay, but on my way home, I had this familiar feeling of non-hunger. I can’t exactly explain what was it but it was when I know my body was running low but felt no hunger pains. I said that it was a familiar feeling because that was what I used to feel when I used to take suppressants. I no longer take them because I did not like the effect on my body and I know that in the long run, it will be very detrimental.
Anyway, I did not know why I even felt that way because had I known that my stomach was about to rumble, I would be immediately getting something to eat. I then bought this steaming bowl of goto because it was the quickest fix I could find. My body is now singing Hallelujah Chorus to me. LOL
I got home starving a bit from a whole day’s work. When I dropped by the kitchen, this is what I saw:
I had to fight a strong urge to eat my favorite Piattos (Sour Cream & Onion). I generally prefer chips in sour cream, garlic or plain and salted. But I know that the moment I open the pack, I would not be just tasting but emptying it down. I just got a banana and drank two glasses of water.
Mind over matter as I am about to sleep and I did not want to feel guilty after. I know very well that I have a delicate relationship with food, which I last described in my previous entry.
Runway shows are the best source of getting good workout music. Almost half a decade has elapsed dopo questa sfilate da Versace Primavera/Estate 2008 and I still never get tired of it It has the perfect music!
They also had a good mix a season after for Fall/Winter 2008. For quite some time, I literally played the video about thrice per session while doing cardio because the music was insanely workout-friendly.
And lastly, can you not love seeing Tanya open the show and marvel at how wonderful Coco, Natasha, Magda, Vlada and Carmen moved on the runway. Sasha’s walk was admittedly busted, but I still love her.
To describe this day as exhausting is mere euphemism!
The weather was very indecisive whether it will rain or not. I was very uncomfortable the whole day because of the humidity. I had lots of things to do in school just for enrollment.
I woke up early at around 9:30 AM just to be able to exercise. I was already feeling bad that unlike most of the students who were surely in school even before I had woken up, I still chose to skip the morning rush against them and did one hour exercise at 10:00 AM. It felt extremely wrong not to exercise, given the quasi-feast of the day before.
Then, off to school I went.
Egg, hotdogs and rice on a sizzling plate
Dairy Queen sundaeI’m fine with cheat days. Saturdays and Sundays are admittedly the scariest days of the week because I know that I can’t escape eating with my SO, Mon. He’s extremely eagle-eyed of what I take in and we even had a heated argument last Saturday because of this. I was finally able to voice out my feelings about him watching over what I eat and the reasons why I have an ideal body image. We were finally able to find a middle ground, but just an extra measure, I reiterated that I did not want him mentioning anything about whatever it is that I’m doing and we should just carry on with our normal lives. Case closed. Hopefully.
But yesterday, without three days of exercise, I felt quite guilty of eating this grease fest on a sizzling plate. The caramel sundae from Dairy Queen was okay, though. However, what followed inside the cinema was different — it was junk food galore. I opted not to drink any iced tea and brought water instead.