Jodythinks

My ghost is

It has happened. Three different doctors, without consulting each other, have (actually written down in those prescription pads!) prescribed that I lose weight. You know that phenomenon when three people who see the same ghost don’t talk to each other but described the same entity makes it true? Well then my ghost is 20+ extra pounds on my apparently weak frame who can’t (and shouldn’t) support it.

Suffice to say I feel very attacked right now and wanted immediately to dive into a plate of cookies and a jug of half and half as I headed home, but nooo, my rehab doctor (who seems quite strict) said explicitly that the next time I come in (which is in 7 days from now), I should weigh less. Remind me to wear my lightest dress and eat AFTER the consult to help myself without starving myself.

I know I should stop complaining because this is the result of my own choices in overloading my maw every time decent food is in the horizon. I am an emotional eater, and when you work from home AT NIGHT and are trying to stop buying jewelry (which is another issue altogether, I KNOW), the easiest way to get a rush of endorphins when your knees won’t even let you climb STAIRS like a normal 30 something, said cookies and half and half jug sound really good.

I could go on and on and blame my upbringing, my incessant need to have my worth validated which is satiated by making my family food, or everything else, but I am a full grown woman and I know that whining myself through this isn’t the answer. If I want to avoid surgery (which, 2 doctors have said is a very close possibility), arthritis, or further constant pain, I need to get my eating habits out of the gutter and in control.

I will whine myself through this for the next few days but ultimately, I know my stubbornness and fear of disappointing a medical professional will get me through the late night soda cravings and my new recipe for mac and cheese itching to be made and eaten. I don’t think it will ever be this easy like I’m making it sound, but it has be easier than getting my knees sliced open to correct them, or to be constantly hindered in movement.

While my body and I won’t have the perfect relationship and ice cream will always tempt me, this body and I have some 40+ or so years or so together, and that won’t be easy if I have to have outside implements to get it somewhere.

Now to find a doctor who’ll prescribe weight loss surgery (I kid).

 

Gratitude · Thanks

Thankful Tuesdays

This Tuesday I am grateful for:

  1. Globe’s quick turnaround for our backup internet. Finally on Fiber after 6 months!
  2. Life hack that saved me from buying a replacement travel tumbler. 200 and a very helpful salesguy and my beat up Starbucks tumbler is back in business!
  3. Queer Eye. I love each and every one (but have a soft spot for Bobby and Tan) and they are now my new go to happy show.
  4. Anthony Bourdain. He would have been 62 today (June 25 US time). The world is grateful and we miss you.

What are you grateful for on this gloomy Tuesday?

Gratitude · Jodythinks · Love/Life

We miss you AB

As I am still reeling in the news of Anthony Bourdain’s passing, I am again rereading his books. While we the fans mourn and try to find answers, I think we should just be happy of what he was able to share with the world, the happiness he gave us and how we were all able to experience just a bit of him with his writing, hosting, cooking, and all the other things he’s given to the world.

A Cook’s Tour excerpt

I guess what I’m trying to say is not to focus on how his life ended but how his life touched others. His works will not fade if we continue to explore, love, travel, and be kinder to others different from us. Already something good is coming about, from prominent personalities being more open about their struggles and giving it less of a stigma. Just being able to have that conversation and reminding ourselves that there’s always hope. That this permanent solution to a temporary problem isn’t really a solution.

So even if we may never find the answers we want because we are not privy to the inside, let’s be comforted in his words, his legacy, and live life a little kinder, not just to others but ourselves. I know I will try to be.

food

A bid at eating better: Overnight Oats

I am not known for my healthy eating choices. In fact, I’ve had not less than four people tell me expressly that they avoid my social media feed so as not to get hungry. And I do admit that it’s my vice. Some people drink, some people smoke, I eat. And it’s not pretty and there are several chins and wasted wardrobes to attest to the fact that I am a woman who really likes to eat.

But I digress.

In a bid to offset my binge periods (of which there are many), I try to eat better when I am working. There have been several months of chicken in salt free marinades roasted in a turbo broiler (none of which can be called anything else than sad chicken), sugar-free cold brew coffee, and now overnight oats. 

I would like to precede this conversation by revealing that I hate oatmeal. It’s mushy, sad, and feels like glue after half a cup, and for some reason, makes me ravenous for “real” food after an hour. I did have a ton of granola ingredients from my trip to the US last year in which to play with so I figured, how could half a mason jar worth hurt? So I assembled the following in a jar and put it to stew in the fridge:

  1. A third of the jar full rolled oats
  2. A layer of flaxseed meal
  3. A layer of hemp hearts
  4. A layer of dried fruit (raisins, blueberries, figs)
  5. A layer of unsalted nuts
  6. Drown all of it in milk

It’s not very scientific but I figure the flaxseed meal adds a bit of nuttiness that makes it less glue-y, and the hemp hearts and nuts add bite and texture (again to counteract the glue-y). So far I have been eating this at least three times a week for the past three weeks. It’s not helping me lose weight (especially when I forget and eat a whole bottle in one sitting), but I figure the oatmeal helps counteract all the bacon, bagnet, chicharon that I have been consuming due to great opportunities and the lack of self control that comes with vacations.

It’s great. It keeps me full at least four hours, and it doesn’t make me feel like I’m restricting myself. It’s not very cheap and it will be a challenge to find replacements to some of the ingredients when I run out, but so far, I like it.

I’ll let you know what I find to replace when things run out.

What do you eat to counteract all the bad things you do to your body?

Gratitude · Love/Life

The beauty of doing (almost) nothing 400 kilometers from home

This was actually a less rainy time

(Don’t tell my mom) this weekend was probably the most nerve wracking road trip I’ve ever been on. The furthest for sure (Ilocos Sur), and certainly the most rain. At the heaviest point, with our wiper blades already quite out, we could only see the car in front of us. The drive was more than 400 kilometers and I could feel every single one as the rain pounded down. And it didn’t stop. It was raining the whole time we were in Vigan and Sinait, and it was a relief to be dry indoors so we spent a lot of it just staying in our hotel room the first day in.

It is a testament to how laid back/we actually like each other that we didn’t kill each other on this trip. We had our share of being lost, sick and hung over. There was trash talk over the card game we kept playing. We couldn’t find decent coffee. It was, a lot of time spent in a small space with not a lot to distract us, because even the internet was difficult to come by.

However I am grateful to have spent this time with friends, even through all this dampness. We had really good, inexpensive, local street food (I am currently obsessed with Chicken Pipian, this congee style dish w

ith toasted rice, epazote, chicken, squash and kamias). We got a little stir crazy. We went body surfing in the storm. We got pelted with storm level rain in weirdly lukewarm ocean water. It was great to see what we could of the city through the eyes of my friend whose mom grew up there, and meeting her relatives that were nothing but helpful and always smiling at us, even if they were a little weirded out that we went to the city in this much rain.

Getting rained on

It was wonderful. When I wasn’t tearing up about Anthony Bourdain or eating extra pork in his memory, my warm and fuzzy heart was full. (And my heart isn’t usually warm and fuzzy, just ask my friends) The simple joy of spending time with people I loved, not necessarily doing anything in the same space. I know of very few people that can say this about the people around them, and I count myself lucky to have these folks in my life. Not to say I’m going to stop beating them at Organ Attack or trash talking them for the fun of it, because I’m still me you know.

 

 

Do you have people in your life you can just be with? Hug them today.

Jodythinks · Love/Life

Anthony Bourdain 1956-2018

I can’t believe I’m writing this. The world lost Anthony Bourdain today. I say the world because his travels and work brought him to so many places and touched so much lives in the process. While this feels surreal and devastating for fans like myself, I cannot even imagine how it is for the people in his life.

Not this way. Not like this.

If you’re having difficulties, or having thoughts on ending it, please reach out to a loved one, a friend, anyone.

There is also Hopeline, the Philippines’ crisis intervention hotline:

(02) 804-HOPE (4673)
0917 558 HOPE (4673)
2919 (toll-free number for all GLOBE and TM subscribers)

You are not alone.

 

 

Jodythinks · Love/Life

On inner demons

Kate Spade, designer of bags and apparel that I’ve loved for years died by suicide yesterday. She was a multimillionaire, had a husband of 24 years, and a daughter, and she had inner struggles. I am very sad to know this, as her talent, her ability to share the beauty in the world is now lost, and now her family and friends also have to deal with her loss.

It only goes to show that no matter how shiny a life looks on the outside, the inside can be quite different. I am not blaming her for her struggles, only feeling sad that she had to go through them. Many people are struggling with their inner demons, and sometimes even getting up is difficult, and sometimes it’s hard just asking for help. The strongest people on the outside can be the most to struggle on the inside, this I am uncomfortably familiar with.

I’d like to come clean that I struggle too sometimes. When that inner voice is screaming. When you just want to crawl into bed and not deal with the day. However hard it is, I do my best to get up and get going. Some days it’s harder, some days it’s easier. You can be in a room full of people who love you and still be broken, and sometimes you just need to squeeze someone’s hand and you’re okay. Sometimes you’re overwhelmingly happy too. It’s okay to be broken and to feel it. It’s okay to want to strive to get through it. It’s okay.

If you’re struggling yourself and want to get help, there are people who can get you through it. If you feel like you need professional assistance, there’s the Philippine Mental Health Association or if you’re feeling at the end of your rope, the Philippine Suicide Hotline. There is no shame in asking for outside help, and if anything, emotional well being is something we need to recognize as a real concern for people at all walks of life. Conversations are more open now to the struggle, and we’re dealing with it as less of an abnormality but more of a reality. But we’ll always, always find a way through it.

If you feel like you can’t, let someone, anyone know. Don’t go through it alone. Your inner voice isn’t the most forgiving and you need to be able to forgive yourself when it feels like it’s too much to deal with. Don’t let the bad win.

 

funny · Love/Life

On awkwardness: Ballet fails and learning to sing

For those of us who were kids in the early 90s in Metro Manila, one of the few things you could do during the summer was either 1. take ballet lessons at SM for girls, or 2. take taekwondo lessons at SM for boys. I was a hyperactive child, and my mother really wanted to burn that energy out in the summer, so she enrolled me in the ballet lessons girls were supposed to take at the time.

It was a mistake. She recalls that every time she picked me up, she would see the whole class all lined up in the front of the class while I was in the back playing by myself. She was even told by the teacher after a while that I may have been better suited to enroll into taekwondo, and my mom felt so bad for the teacher, she didn’t enroll me in ballet the next summer. She didn’t enroll me in taekwondo however, maybe because that involves a lot of discipline too, and sitting around being quiet.

Growing up, I was never a great dancer. My hips never popped, my moves stiff, and I have always been self conscious on the dance floor. I never auditioned for the Dance Club even when it was the coolest club around, choosing instead to join the Book Lovers Club (I was so cool, even back then) where we could sit and read books while earning credit. I hated field demos, when the whole grade, or the whole school had to perform by level dance numbers for our parents. There’s even video of me during a presentation hitting the guy behind me at our third grade field demo instead of dancing. (To defend myself, I remember him giving me a hard time and whispering “Wow, great dancing!” very sarcastically the whole time) Any kind of movement in public I don’t much enjoy, as I’ve never grown into the movement or rhythm required for it to look any kind of normal.

But singing was different. I have loved to sing in as long as I can remember. My nursery school gave me the award “Best in Song and Rhyme”. I memorized all the princess songs from the Disney movies from tapes our mom bought, and we played over and over. I actually volunteered to take singing lessons in the summers between school. Singing was where I found meaning and until now, a way to express myself. A few times here and there I’ve even sang in public, and when I’m particularly stressed and/or happy, I sing.

So I consider myself very lucky to have found an outlet for my energy and stress, even now, and working from home, I get to indulge in the de-stressing as long as I’m not too busy or in an actual meeting. Even if my rabbits hate it, I have conditioned them to associate it with a good thing, as I bribe them with treats when I want to turn on the speakers they actually run to the bowl expecting the bribe.

So maybe I will never be a graceful ballerina, and the closest I’ll get are the cute flat shoes that I keep buying. But I have my singing and now my bunnies have it too.

So what were your awkward lessons you attempted growing up? Did you end up going the opposite way like me?

Jodythinks

Sentimental Monday thoughts: Letters

When I was younger, I was infatuated with a boy who wrote letters. Honest to goodness pen and paper notes that we would pass between classes or he would drop off at my house. They were thrilling to get, this was at a time when my idea of romance I got from the cutesy movies or teen romance television shows that always showed a milkshake, diner and two straws. Honestly they weren’t so much romantic but they took effort. I hated the phone and I never was comfortable being on it (which continues to this day), but letters I could respond to, and take my time doing so.

Since then I’d always considered writing a way to get closer to people. I still write letters, but have now accepted the fact that emails are the closest I can get to passing notes, especially as now, giving out your actual home address can be such a trusting thing to do. While it hasn’t caught on yet, and it’s been a bit awkward overall, I still believe in the magic of a well written letter.

When was the last time you wrote a letter?