TYPHOON-prone, flood-prone, landslide-prone, traffic-prone, graft-prone, corruption-prone—that’s Pinas.
But at the gym, the vibe is: “Umula’t bumagyo, ayos lang/Huwag kang mangangamba, ayos lang.” We are there—“Rain or shine / You’ll always be / One in a million.” That kind of discipline.
The gym is the gym rat’s happy place and we’ve been trying so hard to keep it that way. If the gym stops being our happy place, where do we go then? To bars, restos, and cafes, where “eat, drink, and be merry” is the mantra? Hmmm. Not bad at all.
Or to other places outside Cagayan de Oro—Cebu, El Nido, Manila. Other countries—US, France, Italy. Other worlds—Mars, the Moon, Venus.
But happiness is inside us. It’s the product of contentment, although carnivore dieters insist it comes from food—proteins and fats. The more ribeyes, the happier they think they’ll be.
On Thursday, though, happiness was staying in bed all day and savoring the cool, rainy weather. After the carbo-loading that started in December 2025, even my right eye protested, turning red. I had to rest and wait for the redness to disappear.
Yes, carbs can cause all sorts of side effects — from hypertension, rhinitis, sinusitis, eczema, muscle pain, body aches, and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), to depression, bipolar disorder, and even Alzheimer’s (a.k.a. “type 3 diabetes”)—ad infinitum, ad nauseam. Type 2 diabetes is the most common, but it is also easier to reverse through a low-carb diet.
I’m starting to sound like a sirang plaka—always back to Day 1 of my trying-so-hard-to-be-carnivore journey.
Once upon a time, Lao Tzu wrote, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” My highs and lows with low-carb have required so many resets and reboots that they always feel like that single step.
“That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.” Those were Neil Armstrong’s words as he stepped onto the Moon in 1969. Fifty-seven years later, mankind is hopefully returning to the carnivore diet—the caveman’s diet 2.5 million years ago.
So everything starts with that one step, and mine came through Dr. Josephine Grace Rojo-Tan, whose low-carb video I came across on Facebook in October 2021.
I’ve been praying for complete healing since January 2021, and Doc Grace has been the most important answer to that prayer. Through her 12-disease LCF (Low-Carb and Fasting) Masterclass and her Facebook and YouTube videos, she paved the way for me to learn more about low-carb—which eventually led me to other low-carb and carnivore doctors and coaches.
The struggle is real in this practice, and the advice is to always go back to low-carb at the next meal. In other words, don’t let carbo-loading become a hard habit to break.
My carbo-loading lasted for two months—on and off, not daily. But the side effects proved to be more on than off—enough to make me swear, “Never again.” Only to eat carbs again the next day. So if Pinas is typhoon-prone and etcetera-prone, I’m carb-prone. I inhale carbs, and they all settle in my huge butt, mile-wide hips, and cottage-cheese thighs.
