What happens when you show up in life

A couple of weeks ago, I had to go to Benilde for the second day in a row for yet another transaction that would take less than half an hour. I live two hours away, traffic-wise, and I was a little frustrated that I had to go back. I've been holed up in Las Piñas City most days, thankful that I don't need to make any long commutes just yet, and I dreaded wasting a full day to do something I could have done in half a day if I'd been properly informed of the accounting office's schedule.

But anyway  --

To psych myself up, I decided to make a little food trip out of my excursion into the city of Manila: I decided to look for The Counselor's Cafe, this little vegetarian cafe near The Adventist Hospital in Pasay that I'd read about, and have an early dinner there.

So I went to Benilde, applied to graduate, and then took a jeep to Buendia, from where I walked to where Google Maps told me the cafe would be. It wasn't likely, but I hoped I wouldn't run into anybody I knew.

These days, I've been happily on introvert mode, talking only to close friends, but I've also been wary that I was getting used to being in a little bubble again. I know I need to be "out there" for my career, for my personal growth, for my relationships, and I always remind myself to do the work.

That particular day, however, since I was already stretching my personal geography, I wasn't looking to stretch my comfort zone, people-wise. 

Of course, with new places come new people. And I was reminded of that soon enough.

The cafe was empty when I walked in, and I was thrilled to be alone. But I had arrived early, and as soon as dusk settled, people started coming in. I had a big table all to myself, and as I was eating, an elderly gentleman, neatly dressed and looking very healthy, asked if he could share my table. 

I smiled, nodded, and soon we were immersed in the smallest talk: he said that he was eating seaweed because it was healthy, that he didn't want to eat too much (meaning he would be leaving the baked beans the waitress gave him untouched, while I was almost done polishing off a plate of red rice and tofu sisig and a side order of nachos, washing them down with a strawberry banana shake) because he was watching his health. He also told me that it had started raining. 

I worried about staying longer than intended -- I had wanted to leave before dark because Pasay City was unfamiliar territory and I'd have to walk back alone to Taft Avenue -- but he was a really pleasant man, so I lingered awhile and got up to leave only when he found someone else to talk to.

Before leaving, I passed by the store in front of the cafe to get some vegetarian sausages. The elderly lady manning the store was also very friendly. She asked me whether it was my first time to visit the cafe, and when I said it was, asked how I had come to hear of it. She thanked me for visiting, talked to me about their business hours (they're closed on Saturdays before sunset), and said she hoped I'd come back. For sure, I said.

While we chatted, a girl who was sitting by the door joined in. I'd seen her come in earlier; like me, she had also eaten alone. "Are you going to walk out?" she asked me. When I said yes, she asked, "Can I share your umbrella?" I had a small umbrella, but it wasn't raining that hard and she seemed like a nice person, so I said, okay.

She held my arm as we walked. I didn't mind so much because it kept us both dry. Besides, I welcomed the company since the street, while not really crowded, was already a little dark. I said I was walking to Taft, and she said she just needed to get to her car, which was on the way. 

She told me about herself as we walked in the rain. She was flexitarian for health (eats vegetarian mostly, but also fish and chicken, rarely), worked in BGC but studied law in a school nearby, and was happy to have found The Counselor's Cafe because they served good, healthy food. When we finally got to her car, she already felt like a friend.

On the bus ride home, I felt like I'd had a full, productive day, that I wasn't even the same person who'd left home. My world was a little bigger, my heart a little more fuller. I hadn't counted on meeting new people, and while the people I did meet were people I'd most likely never see again (except, perhaps, the lady at the cafe), they'd somehow changed my life forever. All because I'd decided to make a little adventure out of what would have been merely a dreadful chore.

In today's journey to kindness

I was a bit mean to the female server at Burgoo when I asked her about their lunch set that said pasta and nachos. I asked if I could choose the type of pasta and she said no. I asked if it had meat in it and she said, "Parang ganoon na rin." What the heck of an answer is "Sort of"?

So I snapped a little and said, but still nicely, "Importante ito. Meron ba o wala?" I just wanted a simple yes or no. But the manager stepped in and asked, "What is it that you would like to order, ma'am?"

Maybe he thought I was having a difficult time understanding the lunch sets or the server was having difficulty explaining it to me (it's relatively new). Or maybe the server herself was new.

But I started my sentence with "I'm vegetarian" and he already knew what I wanted. "There's no meat in the pasta and we'll serve the cheese on the side," he said.

This is why I love Burgoo. And I left a tip for the server I snapped at.

I've started eating a whole-food, plant-based diet

Back in October last year, I decided to commit to 30 days of eating mostly vegan. I wasn't feeling my personal best and was at my heaviest weight ever. I'd also finally seen Forks Over Knives, after a friend recommended it to me in 2014.

I had my hesitations, of course. I'd always been a satisfied omnivore. Would I last without meat? Could I possibly give up meat for good?

But my brain felt safe knowing I was only going to do it for one month, so the initial resistance quickly melted away.

After 30 days, I was feeling so good I decided to go another 30 days. And then another. Now, I'm over 20 pounds lighter and on my fifth month as a transitioning vegan.

Except my diet isn't really just vegan. It's more whole-food, plant-based (WFPB), as prescribed by Dr. John McDougall. You can read about the diet here.

I'm not yet very good at my new way of eating, especially when I eat out. Added oils aren't allowed, for example, but there aren't a lot of oil-free vegan choices in this country, so I usually end up ordering some form of vegan pasta dish that usually comes with lots of oil in it.

I also still have my little slip-ups. I've had some milk chocolate, some cheese in my pasta, and a yogurt drink at Swagat that I couldn't pass up. I've also had some cake and whipped cream. And marshmallow that I'd mistakenly thought was vegan.

I have a lot to learn and unlearn. But I choose not to sweat those slip-ups. I think I'll always be a transitioning vegan the way alcoholics are always recovering alcoholics.

But let me celebrate this: In almost five months, I've managed to avoid any form of meat. I'm happy to say I no longer crave meat and dairy.

I'm also getting better at eating out. I count it a success that I've only had to order salad once. When I started, I told myself I wouldn't default to salad, because I do not particularly enjoy salad without protein. Salads also feel cold in the tummy, and I've developed a preference for warm food, especially soup.

It's still a long journey towards good health and my ideal weight. There's an exercise routine that needs to be established. There's my needing to learn how to cook vegan. And there's the need for meditation, maybe, or yoga.

It's a long road, but I'm glad I decided to go on it.

Still vegetarian for another 30 days

Since I started eating vegetarian and almost-vegan (things I ate that weren't vegan: oyster sauce, some birthday cake with egg and milk, and cheese) on October 1, I've lost seven pounds and two inches off my waist. The weight goes up and down a little depending on my water intake, so my main metric is the inches.

I'm going vegan for two reasons: it's good for my health and good for the planet. I will do my best to be 100% with it, but with the way my brain works, I'm going to leave room for some tiny, tiny cheats and recommit every 30 days.

That means there's always a possibility I'd go back to eating some animal products. I'll be approaching it like I'm a forever recovering carnivore. (Hi, my name is Althea, I'm a meat eater!)

Just a note on how I'm eating: I'm more or less following Dr. John McDougall's diet plan, which is a whole-food, plant-based (WFPB) diet. That means no animal products and no added fat (including oils extracted from their sources, like olive oil and sesame oil).

Whole-food, plant-based

McDougall doesn't call this way of eating vegetarian or vegan because it doesn't allow many things vegetarian or vegan diets allow, but I use those terms because the diet is vegetarian and vegan, and I'm getting a lot of support and tips from vegetarians and vegans. I'm not yet 100% on following the McDougall plan, but I'm working on it.

What got me started on reading up on McDougall was watching Forks Over Knives. The documentary struck a chord because my dad died of a stroke in his early 50s, which is less than 15 years from my age now. More recently, my uncle from my mother side had to get heart bypass surgery. Cardiovascular disease is in my genes.

Also, after working in a job that made me unhappy more than it made me happy in my last two years on it, I was in my worst state of health ever. I must have gained close to 40 pounds since 2009. (Hi, my name is Althea. I'm also an emotional eater.)

Then I had gout, and I learned that medicine for gout is really bad for the kidneys, so managing it with medicine was not an option.

I still love good food

Anybody who knows me knows I love good food, and I thought I'd have a hard time staying off animal products. Well, the only difficulty I'm experiencing is in finding vegan options when I eat out and learning to cook WFPB. Given the choice now, I'd choose the WFPB dish over any meat dish and not feel deprived, really, as long as I have my starch.

To be honest, meat still looks and smells tempting. Maybe I'll never get over that, or maybe as I become more exposed to the ethical side of veganism, I'll be one of those people who feel bad when they see animals on the dinner table. I don't know yet. I'm still new to this.

What I do know is I feel better, health-wise, and I want more of this better. When I struggle in the shift in my relationships because I've bonded with most of my loved ones on good food that usually includes meat, or when I struggle to introduce myself as my new identity, I always remind myself, hey you're still the old joyful, funny, emotional, food-loving you. Still the same, except with less inflammation and healthier arteries and better calcium retention.

One day, I may get an additional kick out of knowing I contribute to helping the planet too. One step at a time.

Trying to be vegetarian this October

Looking at my blog archives, I see a long history of trying to eat healthy. Some years ago, close to ten, I tried a 30-day juice fast. Then I intermittently stayed away from refined carbs and sugar. More recently, but also too long ago, I also tried eating raw for 30 days. I believe I also avoided red meat for close to a year. I also tried intermittent fasting (14:10) for a couple of months.

Both 30-day experiments were more for cleansing than weight loss, but I did lose a couple of pounds along the way. Still, considering my overall health now, everything that I did hasn't led to any long-lasting success. Eating healthy has, and always will be, difficult for me. I should consider myself always in recovery.

While I have managed to stay away from a lot of bad sugar and junk food since I arrived from the US (that was early in July), I still ate a lot of bad food (bacon, my forever Waterloo).

Then there's the matter of exercise. I've tried going to the gym, boxing, and walking. I also recently bought a refurbished folding bike (I've been using it, though I haven't gone very far). Exercise worked for me, but I also didn't last long with it.

Recently, I've been feeling my age. I'll be 38 in a few weeks and I have to admit I am in my worst shape ever. I want to put a change to that.

Also, I've been considering veganism after meeting up with my old college friend, Jimple, in Albay last April. He's now a vegan, and I marveled at his compassion and discipline when we ate out several times. Another old friend, Joel, whom I've known almost as long as Jimple, is also vegan.

Then more recently, I got to talk to two vegans at a trade fair in Festival Mall in Alabang. They were giving out samples of "Seacharon," seaweed chicharon, and I had a quick chat with them about their lifestyle. One of them invited me to the Manila Vegans Facebook page, and I've been a member since.

I've asked a couple of questions on that page, and I've also been reading up on other vegan's posts. I agree that eating should be cruelty-free and that animals are sentient beings, like humans. My heart breaks at the discovery of the extremely cruel conditions of the animal food industry. But I do not know yet if I can be vegan.

First, I use a lot of leather. I like leather. Second, I do not know if I can let go of eggs and dairy. Most important of all, I am still not convinced that it is unnatural for humans to eat meat. Cruel, yes, but unnatural? I can't wrap my head around it yet.

So, in attempt to improve my health and check if I can live happily as a vegan (as I also try read more literature on it and talk to more vegans about their experience), I am committing to 30 days as a vegetarian (with some room for dairy, eggs and some seafood--if it's part of a spring roll that's largely plant-based).

I'm on Day 4 today, and I've learned that I should definitely learn how to prepare more vegetarian dishes. If my taste buds are happy, I can definitely go veg.

Going semi-vegetarian

I've been considering going part-vegetarian recently. My goal is to have 4 meat-free days in a week. I'm still working on making it to four days. It's hard, but I do feel better when I eat more fruits and vegetables.

I still don't know if I can give up meat completely. I don't know if what that blood type diet says is true, that we Type Os need more meat. I went 30 days meatless once, and I craved it so bad, I broke my diet with barbecued pork!

Maybe I should just focus on what I'll be eating (more fruits and veggies) and not what I won't be eating (all my favorite meat dishes). That's a dieting tip that works for me: Pile on the good stuff, and you'll soon forget about the bad stuff.

Still, I'm not yet convinced that eating meat is bad. But vegans, don't write me off yet. I have been staying away from any animal cruelty videos because I can't watch animals suffer, even if I know they suffer for my food.

Let's see how it goes. Part of my goal is to learn how to cook more meat-free dishes, so I'll try to post my experiments here.

Cooking with moringa and coconut cream

I also discovered the word carajay.

Here's yet another cooking experiment, which gives me a grand total of THREE mostly plant-based dishes in my repertoire.

First, a disclaimer: I am not a good cook. I think I cook with common sense and a little knowledge of chemistry absorbed by osmosis courtesy of the family.

For the longest time, for me, there was only one way to cook moringa leaves or malunggay: we added it to tinola.

In our household, we made a distinction between the two types of tinola we made depending on what leaves were used.

The typical tinola with hot pepper leaves was tinola, while the tinola with malunggay was, well, malunggay.

If I remember correctly, malunggay could also make do without the sayote or its alternative green papaya.

I've always loved both types of tinola, especially during the rainy season. I never thought of any other way to eat moringa, except as tea and capsules specially marketed to breastfeeding mothers.

In April this year, I went with Sherwil to Tabaco, Albay, to meet an old friend and be goddaughter to his child. He invited us to eat at his grandmother's house and we were treated to their family's home cooking. I discovered ginataang malunggay with tinapa flakes. That's moringa leaves cooked in coconut cream topped with flakes of smoked fish.

Now, I am a recent convert to gata or coconut milk. I used to hate it in everything and I couldn't understand why, for example, someone would ruin a perfectly good adobo by adding coconut milk to it. But one day, I tried some laing from this lechon pork belly place near my former office and I was instantly in love.

So when we were headed to Albay, I was looking forward to getting some authentic laing. You can bet I tried to order it as much as I could whenever we ate out! That, and Bicol Express. I wasn't disappointed. Not at all.

Then my sister asked me to bring home some pinangat, which I had never heard of. When I tasted it at home after bringing it in a makeshift cooler over our ten-hour bus ride back to Manila, my love for coconut milk was forever sealed.

I added six chili peppers to spice things up, literally and figuratively. 

Today, a couple of months since I first tasted ginataang malunggay with tinapa flakes, I tried to make it from scratch.

As I wrote in a previous entry, I've been working towards a more plant-based diet, and I've discovered that anything with coconut milk in it makes me crave meat less. In fact, the only time that I considered turning vegetarian was when I was eating meat-free laing.

I bought gata from a neighborhood store (I guess I'm now their suki), then I plucked some leaves from our moringa tree, and then I flaked some smoked fish that's been waiting in the refrigerator. Then I followed this recipe and just added the smoked fish.

It tasted so good, I ate more than I wanted to. But no matter! It's just leaves and some fish. It's healthy!

Healthy, wealthy and wise. But healthy first.

This is my bike. Behind it is Emily's.

One of the things I wanted to focus on when I decided to take a short break from working was my health.

I don't think I've ever been in worse shape in my entire life. A sedentary lifestyle, work stress, poor eating habits, and suppressing many feelings have all led to my being my unhealthiest self ever.

It's not even about looks at all. It's about ensuring that I will be able to do the things I love to do, like travel (trekking in Batad, anyone?) and write (ugh, brain fog) for as long as I live.

So, when I got back from the States (where, I have to confess, like many visiting Filipinos, I ate too much) and after I got over my jet lag (it took me two weeks!), I dragged myself out of bed and made a pact with one of my best friends, Emily, to get healthier or die trying.

We're on our third Wednesday now of walking in the morning.

We've designed Wednesdays to be the day we'd touch base with our progress. We're accountability partners, each other's reminder that we made commitments to ourselves and we should keep those commitments. So far, it's been working for me.

I didn't suddenly turn into a health freak, but regularly talking to a friend about my health goal has helped me be more consistent in my actions.

On our first Wednesday together, Emily and I also bought secondhand folding bikes. Em doesn't know how to ride a bike, and I've promised to teach her. I'm quite thrilled with my bike. While I don't see myself biking long distances, I'm looking forward to at least biking around the village, running errands, and visiting my nieces.

So far, I've ridden it up and down our street. It's taking me some time to muster up enough courage to go on the main roads, but I don't even have a helmet yet, so that's okay.

I've also started taking smoothies for breakfast. It's supposed to, first, help me transition to a more plant-based diet, and, second, give me a palatable way to take in turmeric and virgin coconut oil. I tried making a turmeric mango smoothie and a turmeric ginger smoothie with some avocado.

I'm happy with this steel straw, too.

Lastly, I've also been learning to cook with more vegetables. A few weeks ago, I watched the film Forks Over Knives and was convinced to make my diet more plant-based. I'm still not sure if I will ever turn vegetarian, but I've been feeling better eating more raw and plant-based food.

My first attempt at pinakbet.

I've found that when I prepare my own food, eating healthier is easier and becomes habitual. I also teach myself to come up with flavors I crave so I can whip up my own substitutes. Today, for example, I was craving chips. I looked up some recipes online and tried making my own microwave sweet potato chips, replacing the spices with ground cumin and chili powder.

I shared a picture on Instagram, but I'm so pleased with how it turned out, here's the picture again:

Goodbye, Lay's! I think.

The next recipe I really want to master is laing. Coconut cream is really wonderful when you're trying to cut down on the consumption of meat. It's fatty enough to make you feel you're still eating a rich dish.

So far, I've lost five pounds. It's not much, but it's progress. I'll keep you posted.