THE spring cleaning in this corner of the universe began during the pandemic lockdowns in 2020. It’s already 2025, and the spring cleaning is still ongoing.
Who knew then in 2020 that my spring cleaning would soon include the food department. I began my no-red-meat diet in January 2021 and my low-carb journey in February 2022, and here I am now, trying so hard to follow the carnivore diet.
Carnivore can be the simplest of all: beef, pork, chicken, fish, seafood, eggs, salt, lard, tallow, butter. And you don’t get hungry often. You can have two meals a day—brunch and dinner—with no snacks in between.
But I’ve been struggling lately with the diet, no thanks to halo-halo which keeps me returning to Day One of my carnivore journey, and I gotta feeling someone will eventually tell me to eat carbs already and stop this carnivore “nonsense.”
I do notice the side effects right after eating carbs: brain fog, discomfort in the recovering left knee, rhinitis, skin allergies, hypertension, the blues. So, if you ask me why I’m so serious with the diet and exercise, those are my deep whys: to prevent the side effects from happening.
I now feel guilty each time I eat carbs, thus, making them not as delish as I remember them to be. Yes, even if it’s halo-halo. I’d rather have scrambled eggs now for dessert to make sure I can stay with the diet for at least 30 days. Even 90 days—once I’ve reached that goal, I’ll try one year.
A carnivore doctor advised us to write this down: J.O.Y. Meaning, Just One Year. With carnivore, that is.
I’ve been writing often about diet and exercise as reminders to myself to continue this journey, so I won’t stop. After all, it has been almost three years since I began my low-carb diet.
But at least one friend doesn’t believe me anymore when I say I’m carnivore. Because she has seen me eat carbs.
Consistency is one of the keys to a successful diet. If I were consistent and people could see that, there won’t be any lost-in-translation moments.
On Monday, after gym, a friend saw me paying for bread at a bakery’s cashier. The carbs were for the househelp, not for me. I might have sounded defensive when I told her that, but that was the truth. That Monday happened to be my Day One again for carnivore.
I’m already tired of going carnivore, and then eating carbs, and returning to carnivore again. It’s like a rollercoaster of side effects, with my body so confused on how to react to my food intake. So, here’s hoping I can finally stick to this diet.
As if on cue, there was halo-halo on Monday. It wasn’t in front of me but at an event in Manila, presented by a Pinoy chef to Chef Gordon Ramsay, for the latter to taste-test. Rappler posted a video of it on Facebook, and there I was, sighing with my deep why: no to halo-halo, no to hypertension. That’s how my thought bubble should work from hereon.
