Welcome the Year of the Pig!
Diet or die. They are actually the words of my father-in-law. Dad is a bigger foodie than I am, and when he was put on a strict diet following two strokes in 2004, he muttered, "What’s the point in living?" I understood his sentiment.
At the start of this year, a fitness/wellness guru advised in her column in the Inquirer to "declare a temporary ban" on sweets–chocolates, cakes, etc.–since the holidays are over. Excuse me?!? What am I going to do with all the chocolates that I got for Christmas? The thing about addiction is that you can’t just quit cold turkey. I can’t stop eating chocolates and other desserts just because somebody said so. Even when I was pregnant, I still found a way to eat chocolates–I nibbled on those bite-size pieces instead of the whole bar.
Food is my drugs. Chocolates, cakes and other sweets give me a real high. I simply couldn’t help eating heartily. When I hear or think of the word mall, I don’t immediately think of shopping for clothes, shoes and the like. A light bulb in my head goes, "food!" And the tough part is deciding on where to eat, with the whole gamut of gustatory offerings. So many eating places, so little time (and budget)!
Of course, one reaps what one sows (or, for that matter, eats) so I’ve gained a lot of extra weight because of my eating habits. Now if I can’t curb my appetite, I resort to other tactics to keep off unwanted pounds. I do brisk walking (so far, 3 times in the last…uhm…2 months), drink herbal slimming tea at night, and sometimes skip the rice. But I’m not one to subscribe to the South Beach Diet–I can do away with rice but not the sugar.
This blog will be dedicated to my food trips: my virtual food journal. What better time to satisfy my gastronomical urges than this year? So expect a lot of food discoveries and restaurant adventures as we usher in the Year of the Pig. Oink! Oink!
