My weekly excursion to the supermarket was enhanced by my efforts to read the content labels on the foods I purchased. It got to be quite the strain.
I purchased some San Miguel Zero beer for use at The Rite Spot. I checked that label too:
Anyway, I didn’t purchase any of my normal temptations like ice cream. So far, so good.
My other Tuesday routine is the walk to Baloy Beach to visit the Kokomo floating bar. As I walked along Baloy Beach Road I came upon this disconcerting sign:
Yesterday’s experience was not a good one. The music was blaring when I arrived, which I despise. I asked the bartender if she would turn it down, and she did. I was the only male customer, but a group of women at one of the tables were partying loudly, and their shouts and screams were pretty annoying. One of them got up and raised the music volume higher than its previous level. None of the bar staff said a word, so I just waited for Swan to finish her wine (she is a notoriously slow drinker–I drink three for her one), and we departed before sundown.
Since it was still early, we walked up the beach to McCoy’s. There was definitely a much friendlier vibe there. No music was playing (we were the only customers), and I asked if I could connect my Bluetooth to the speaker, and they agreed. So, I had no complaints about the playlist!
I noticed that the Wild Orchid Barefoot Beach Bar had reopened next door following extensive remodeling. They had no customers, but a live acoustic band began playing anyway. I turned off my Bluetooth and listened to them from McCoy’s. Damn, they sounded great. And they were playing some of my old favorites from the sixties. Swan went next door to have a closer look.
When Swan returned, I asked her what she thought of the Barefoot Bar. She said beers were 150 pesos (the most expensive I’ve seen in town), and a glass of wine was a whopping 360 pesos. No wonder they don’t have any customers. It’s a shame because otherwise, it appears to be a nice venue.
I was feeling no pain when we got back home and I went to sleep early—and woke up to another beautiful day in paradise. Keep ’em coming!
The Quora Q&A for the day:
Q: Does it get lonely after you retire?
A: I’m not sure “lonely” is the word I’d use, but I definitely missed the daily interactions with my co-workers. It turns out it was the people I worked with that mattered more than the actual work I did. Go figure.
Your daily dose of humor:
Oh well. That’s all I’ve got for now.
I have no idea whether you want to transition to something like a keto diet, but the best generic food advice I’ve heard is to make sure your food is as close as possible to wherever it came from—straight out of the ground, from the ocean, off the farm, whatever. It’s the processing that introduces all the bad stuff. While the keto diet would be strict about eating fruit (berries are okay because of their high fiber content, but other fruits aren’t so good), I’d say fruit is generally healthier than candy, cookies, or—dare I say—pecan pies.
If you’re going to try strict keto—and I know you’re not because of your attachment to beer, but if you were—then you’d have a carb budget of about 20 g of carbs per day. At 2.5 g of carbs per bottle of your favorite beer, you could have eight bottles of beer, but then, you wouldn’t be able to ingest any other carbs from anywhere. A less strict version of keto would give you a carb budget of 50 g per day, and if you skip keto entirely to just go generically low-carb, you could budget yourself about 100 g of carbs per day. Foods that are fibrous and not calorie-dense are your friends, especially leafy greens and cruciferous veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, bok choy, radish, turnips, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, etc.). Unprocessed meats have almost no carbs. Certain fermented foods are probiotically good for gut bacteria, such as kimchi and sauerkraut.
And if you’re desperate for bread on such a diet, here’s my favorite keto-bread recipe. You’ll need to buy some specialized ingredients, but it’s essentially a simple soda bread, and you can ask your caretakers to make it for you. It’s a bit on the heavy side, not the greatest for sandwiches, but you can make decent canapés with it.
Of course, you’ve done your own version of a “low-carb” diet before, and that definitely shrank the gut, so maybe try that again (no cheating!). Make it a 30-day project and see how that works out.
Thanks, Kev. Yeah, when Swan served me the fruit plate, I knew it was not really low-carb. Still, it was a healthier alternative than the bowl of cereal I used to eat on some mornings. That’s sort of where I’m at–making better choices. No ice cream, no candy, and sadly, no pecan pie. That’s the hard part for me–the sweets. Having a burger patty without the bun, a side of veggies instead of mashed potatoes, and other carb-avoiding decisions are not that difficult for me.
I like that beer diet of 8 bottles a day! I’ll definitely try that for the next 30 days! But seriously, I am motivated to live a reduced-carb, low-sodium lifestyle to maintain my health and lose weight. If I’m not making sufficient progress, I’ll use the carb-free alternative to beer I’ve used in the past.
Thanks for your support!