So, due to the weather, I had to change my plans for walking today.  After I finish writing this, I will ride my stationary bike for a while, tough, in order to continue with increasing my exercise.  I prefer walking to riding an exercise bike, though, so I am looking forward to the storm passing.  I find riding the exercise bike to be painfully boring!  There is nothing to look at and such.  When out walking, even if you pass the same streets every day, there are changes in what is going on.  Different people.  Different activities, etc.  It is always interesting!

But, after only one day, I can’t stop exercising today just because the weather is bad.  If I did give myself the day off, I would not be getting the exercising as a daily habit.  In order to do that, I need to exercise every day for at least a few weeks, before settling into a normal schedule.

Well, I better go ride now!

As far as I can recall, I don’t think I’ve missed a single day of riding the jeepney somewhere since I started last week.  I’ve had mostly good adventures on the jeep, but the one bad one that I wrote about a couple days ago.  Today, I need to go to Union Bank for some business that I need to take care of there… so I’ll take the Jeepney again.

Riding on a Jeepney

Actually, riding the jeepney has really made me re-evaluate a number of things about my life in the Philippines.  It sounds silly, but I’m serious on that.  Normally, if I am driving, I hate the jeepneys.  They are constantly blocking traffic and such.  Now, riding in the jeepney, though, I can see it from their side.  I still may not like it if I am driving… but I think I’ll cut them a bit more slack in the future.  There have been some other things as well that have come from riding the jeep, which I think will make me re-address some of the things about my life here, and, I believe, make me a better person.  All from such a simple thing as riding on the jeepney!  Ha ha… funny, but true.

I have to say that I have enjoyed the experience overall, and I have made a firm commitment to myself that I will be riding jeepneys on a regular basis in the future too.  When I first started, I didn’t think I would be doing that, but I have felt that riding the jeepney has been a good cultural learning experience, and I’ve enjoyed it too, so why not continue?  My only complaint is that it can get hot in the jeepney, so I will have to adjust to that still.

Yesterday, on my way home from an errand, I had a fun experience.  After having rode the jeepney to take care of some of my errands, I had already gotten off and was walking the rest of the way home.  Two young boys, probably like 8 years old started waving to me, yelling “hi, Joe” and such.  I spoke back to them in Bisaya.  I passed by them and kept on the way home, and in a few more minutes they had chased me down and wanted to talk to me.  I stopped and talked.  Here is how the conversation went:

New Friends

Boys:  Sir, can you speak Tagalog?

Me:  Dili, Bisaya o Ingles lang ko. (no, just Bisaya or English)

Boys:  Ah, OK.  Wow, you can speak Bisaya?

Me:  Oo, sigurado.  (yes, for sure)

Boys:  Sir, naa kay bola? (sir, do you have a ball?)

Me:  Wala koy bola, sorry. (I don’t have a ball, sorry.)

Boys:  Ah, sige.  (Oh, OK)

more small talk… then after a few minutes:

Boys:  Naa ka bay kwarta? (Do you have money?)

Ha ha.. I never give money to beggars, but these boys were not begging, they were just curious and friendly, so…

Me:  Oo, naa koy kwarta. Kong hatagon ta ka ang kwarta, pagbahin mo. (Yes, I have money.  If I give you money, you share.)

So, I gave them P20 (almost 50 cents US) and they told me they would buy some crackers for a snack.  We said goodbye, and I headed home.  I am sure they will be watching for me to pass again… there might be more money, after all!  Anyway, looks like I have two new friends in the neighborhood.

So, as you can see, it’s been fun traveling the Filipino way.  I’m going to keep it up!

Actually, I have been thinking about it for a while now, wanting to be back on the road.

It’s been a few years now since I have seriously progressed on this journey, but I am ready to get it going again.

I am talking about a journey down the road to better health.  Primarily, I am talking about weight loss.

I have struggled all of my life with excessive weight, and in my adult life with obesity.  I have made progress in the past decade, though.  I first moved to the Philippines in May 2000.  While still living in the States, in the late 90′s, I reached my maximum weight of 430 pounds.  By the time we moved to the Philippines I was at about 395.  Since then, I have lost a fairly significant amount of weight, but still have more to lose.

Heavy - The show really motivated me!

Since I graduated from high school, in 1980, my lowest weight was 269 pounds, which was in 1981 or possibly 1982.  From 269, I went as high as 430, as I said earlier.

I want to be more active

Starting in around 2004 or so, I started doing more physical activity in an attempt to become healthier.  In 2008, I got down to 275, and I was really feeling good.  At that time, though, from a mosquito bite, I got dengue fever, a tropical disease that is quite debilitating.  I basically went 6 months with no energy, and was physically unable to work out or swim as I had been doing.  Because of that, I gained weight.  About 9 or 10 months ago, I was at 318, but I believe I went up to about 330 or so subsequent to that, although I did not weigh to confirm that feeling.

About a month or so ago, I was up one night and could not sleep.  I turned on the TV, and just by chance, I came across a show from A&E, I believe it was shown on TLC here in the Philippines, as I recall.  Perhaps it was on the Bio Channel, I don’t remember for sure.  The show is called “Heavy” and it covers the progress of extremely obese people on their journey toward weight loss and a healthier life.  After watching the show on local TV, I was inspired, and I was able to get a hold of a set of all of the shows in the series.  I watched the shows, and with each episode I felt even more inspired to get back on the road to personal weight loss and improved health.  You can watch a promo for the show below:

So, as I said, in the past months, I know that my weight increased to 318, but I feel that I probably went as high as 330.  After watching the last episode of Heavy, I decided to get back on the road, and my first step was to get my current weight.  I was surprised when I stepped on the scale last night, and I was actually at 292.2, quite a bit lighter than I had thought!

Tuna Sashimi is delicious and nutritious

So, I am exercising more now.  I had been walking already in recent months, but I am walking two to three times the distance now.  I am also moderating my diet as much as I can.  One thing that I am trying to do is to work in some exercise with my meal too.  For example, today, I decided to have Tuna Sashimi for lunch.  We didn’t have any fresh tuna, so I walked a mile to the market, bought the tuna, and walked a mile home.  I ate about 6 ounces of raw tuna, which is only about 175 calories.  So, I got some nice exercise, ate a healthy lunch, and felt good about both!

So, starting this morning, I am back to my journey toward better health, and I’m excited about it.  I feel confident that in a rather short time I can lose the 23 pounds that will be necessary to put me at my lightest weight since I graduated High School!  That will be a milestone for me, and mean that I am getting healthier too!  I want to enjoy a long life, and that is less likely at the level of health where I am today, even though I am much healthier than I was back in the 90′s.

Wish me luck!  And will power!

Well, the farm is not accessible by car, so we had to hike in.  Boy oh boy, what a hike it was!  And, it was all either a steep uphill or downhill climb too!  By the end of that walk, I was really exhausted!  And covered in sweat too!  The walk was well worth it, though, as the place is absolutely gorgeous!

You can read about our trip to ON Farm and see photos of the place at my other blog,

Here is evidence that exercise does good things:

7:15am – just after getting up from bed, my blood glucose was 128.
7:45am – ate breakfast, 2 fried eggs and two slices of ham.
9:30am – went walking for one hour – 2+ miles
10:30am – blood glucose after walking: 108.

Blood Glucose Meter

Nice!

When I walk, I always walk my dogs. We have two dogs, Yeller (pictured above) and Bingo. Yeller is about 1 year old now, and is a female. She is still a pup, and acts like one. Walking her is a job, she is always pulling on the leash, wanting to go in directions where I don’t plan to go, etc. But, she is getting better. Bingo is a little over 2 years old, 2 1/2 I guess. Bingo is a male, and a really good dog. He loves walking (they both do) and Bingo stays right by my side, it is rare that the leash even gets tight, let alone having him pull on me.

Walking the dog

Last week, I bought a new toy, it is a new cellular phone, a Sony Ericsson K750i, with a built in 2 megapixel camera. I have a number of different blogs, and my old digital camera was just too big and bulky to carry around. On the other hand, I always carry my cellphone, which now means I always have a camera with me too. And a 2 megapixel camera is plenty big enough to take a nice photo for putting on the web. It’s a win-win. I love the camera and the phone too, it’s a good piece of gear, and a cool gadget!

One of the big pieces of news here, in my opinion, is that I have a new cat!  I should say that “we” (as a family) have a new cat, but I consider this one to be “my cat” and she stays in my office and in our bedroom, so she hangs out with me all day, so that’s it… she’s mine!  Here name is “Sputnik” or just “Sput” for short.  She’s pretty ugly.  In fact, she is so ugly that it’s cute!  If you know what I mean.  Anyway, Sputnik is a kitten, not very old at all, and she is quite playful.  Unfortunately, our other two cats hate Sputnik, and they even try to kill her!  We have to be very careful about making sure they don’t get together, unless closely supervised, because there will certainly be trouble!  That’s one of the reasons why the area where we keep Sputnik is limited to my office and the bedroom, to keep her away from her two enemies!

My new cat, Sputnik, playing in a cardboard box

Feyma with some Christmas Gifts we will give out

So, as I said previously, it’s been the holidays lately.  But, wait!  A few weeks ago I wrote about A New Holiday, right?  So, did I follow through and do what I had been thinking about?  No, I didn’t.  Feyma and I considered it, but in the spirit of the season, we decided to follow the normal holiday schedule.  I do think it is an excellent idea, though, but breaking traditions is not an easy thing to do, is it?  No indeed.  So, we followed the regular holiday schedule just like most everybody else did, and we had a very nice holiday.  It was nice having the kids home for a couple of weeks to enjoy the holidays as a family.  But, this week they are back to school, which is also nice!  I like having the kids around, but it is more peaceful here if they have school, which means that it is a more conducive atmosphere to getting some work done!  ha ha… I must confess that I like that too.

Another thing that I wrote about recently was the new coffee that I ordered recently, two different varieties, both originiting from the Nyeri region of Kenya.  Well, I am happy to report that both coffees are really excellent.  I have been enjoying them emensely.  I just finished having a cup of the Nyeri Tambaya coffee.  It’s really good, with a tangerine taste to it.  But, the one that kind of surprised me was the Ndiani Kyagundo decaf.  It was my first time to try a decaf, and I was a bit hesitant to try it, given the advice of a friend.  But, to my surprise, I like it even more than the Tambaya!  The decaf has a very strong flavor of strawberries, which I love!  I sent a sample of this to my friend who advised against it.  He didn’t even want any, but I forced him to try it.  And, he loves it too!  So, the decaf is really a nice bean, and I think I’ll be ordering more, as I only have about 3 1/2 pounds of it left. After roasting that, it will easily go down to about 2 3/4 pounds (it gets lighter when you roast the moisture out of it), so I will be needing more of this wonderful bean!

What else is going on?  Well, I just got back from a nice morning walk.  It’s been very hot here in Davao recently, but this morning was pleasantly cool.  Not cold, but not hot either, just cool.  So, I enjoyed a nice walk around the neighborhood.  It’s a nice bit of exercise, and also gives you a chance to see what’s happening in the neighborhood.  There is a lot of construction going on around here.  Plenty of new houses going up around the neighborhood.  That’s a good sign, but also bad.  Good because it shows that more people are appreciating this area, and it makes the neighborhood look nicer to have new homes being built.  Bad because it will increase the amount of traffic in the neighborhood, which is already bad!  Oh well… not much I can do about it anyway, so I might as well look at the good side!

I hope that all of you who are reading this had a nice holiday season, no matter which holidays you celebrate around this time of year!

Well, that was a one day more than 2 weeks ago when I wrote that, and I am happy to say that my readings are holding.  My diet is still under control, and I am feeling very good.  Amazing what a little more exercise and living a reasonable lifestyle will do for you!

When my diabetes was out of control, I had a big problem with infections.  Almost any wound that I got, be it a paper cut, or even a scratch would most likely become infected.  For years, there was really no time that I didn’t have some sort of infection somewhere on my body.  It’s an uncomfortable way to live.  I am happy to say that for several weeks I have experienced no infections of any kind, and that is a good feeling.  Having a badly infected sore on your body is uncomfortable, to say the least.  Not having to worry about that is a big bonus for me.

I have gotten where I eat fish or some kind of seafood at least 4 or 5 times per week, and I am enjoying it.  Fish is good for your body, and you can have a nice meal without having your blood sugar go wild.  Of course, you can’t eat something like sweet and sour fish or anything loaded with sugar like that, but a nice piece of grilled fish, or even a fried piece of fish if you use the right kind of oil and keep it to a minimal amount is a nice meal, and healthy too.

I’ve also lost a few more pounds over the past few weeks as well.  I am not altering my diet to lose weight, but that is a nice side benefit.  I am modifying my diet to keep my blood glucose in reasonable control.  And, it’s working!