Diet 101 : Lettuce a saver

I was actually diagnosed of LVH or left ventricular hypertrophy the last physical examination I had. According to wikipedia, it is the thickening of the myocardium of the heart's left ventricle which is a pathological reaction to cardiovascular disease or high blood pressure. A little sad but true, that me being hypertensive must have caused it. I have a lot of stresses in life to endure plus a bad diet. The doctor who examined actually advised me to get myself a checkup with a cardiologist. He even scheduled me for a blood lipid screening. He gave me a maintenance drug as well to be taken every morning and for a lifetime I guess. I did know then what to do. All I know is that I don't want to take any medication in a form of a drug. I just thought that two tablets a day might have serious side effects when I grow older. So I searched over the net of what are the food that I needed to eat and not. I knew that I have to stop eating junk food. I knew that I need to stop if not minimize my intake of red meat. I knew I had to go organic - simply back to basics. I scoured the internet and there were many results. There is this high fiber diet, banana a day or apple a day regimen. They all talked about fruits and vegetables. The one thing got my attention was the garlic cloves a day. I checked about the health benefits of garlic. I read through about it. I took my chances of take a clove of garlic before bedtime. I sort of had my hypertension from 150/100 to 130/90. I included eating carrots raw and all the salad recipe every dinner for five days. It got my blood pressure under control to 130/90. I was satisfied with the results. I decided to eat wheat bread and oats for my breakfast. It has helped me maintain everything. One thing I noticed was I smelled awful with garlic. So I stopped the garlic clove diet as a night pill. So I checked on-line about how to go vegan. I tried cavendish banana which was helpful for my potassium and vitamin C needs. Not satisfied of it, I always buy myself cantaloupes or honey dew melons at least once a week. In short I was eating seriously healthy. I also bought a China made sphymomanometer for my blood pressure monitoring. By the way, I lessen red meat like pork or chicken in my meals, so boneless milk fish was in. If ever I eat tuna in can, I put in fresh tomatoes on it. I then added lettuce to my healthy diet. What I have noticed is that, it has some calming effects on me. I checked my blood pressure like three days ago and it was 120/80 which was so normal already. I was so happy about it. If I ran out of lettuce supply, I made it a point to go to the supermarket to buy myself with one. I mixed it up with grapes for a sweet taste. I also bought cheap wine, not made in China. I drink wine if I need to eat red meat instead of carbonated drinks.

For some nutritional write up about lettuce, you may want to check these links I found on the net.
1.) Lettuce health benefits
2.)How stuff works : Health benefits of lettuce

Of course I found this link when I started wondering what could have improved my condition for the better and I am totally convinced that lettuce made the difference. It's because I only eat lettuce with grapes and bread for my carbohydrates needs and sometimes just lettuce. Though I crave for hot and spicy chicken meals, I made sure that everything is in moderation. Hope I can sustain this diet and become a habit of mine to pick the right food to eat.

Bryanboy.com

I bumped into this site and it's quite entertaining: http://www.bryanboy.com/. I actually don't read fashion stuff but this thing is unique. It's witty and wicked. I don't know much about fashion, A-class rate fashion in that sense, but upon reading his blogs I knew names such as Balenciaga, Chanel, Lanvin, Marc Jacobs, Christian Dior. Checked those nouns on the net and they are huge in the fashion world. I haven't seen any site as this. Though some words used are kind of R-18 but who cares, the blogger is far more real than anyone acting clean. This blog has never failed me from tickling my ribs. Try to watch his video it's really funny. Try to check his dedication corner and enjoy how people around the globe made some "i love you" notes to him. One question though: Is there any fashion for the geeks and nerds courtesy of Marc Jacobs? Bwahahahaha. If he is the Picasso in fashion I think he can come up with something good or even great.

NBI Eeewscapade

I got another doze of NBI phenomenon. Really, the place was very chaotic!

Last Monday was a holiday for us because we had it swapped with the official holiday last October 1. Olga and I went to NBI located in Carriedo. I woke up early of course so everything will be done just within the day.

We got to "the place" at around 9:30 A.M. on board the MRT. I have been to the place once like it was year 2004 so I was trying to recall where exactly NBI is when we got off the train. The one thing I could remember was, it was at the right side corner with a long alley packed with all sorts of people selling dry goods and it's noisy. Heck I am right the markers were still there. Nothing had changed I guess. By the way, NBI stands for National Bureau of Investigation. Anyway Olga and I managed to locate the entrance of the NBI building. The facade was still crowded and dilapidated, but not much because it was still livable. What caught our attention was lots of people there were selling pirated DVDs, CDs, probably electronics like phones, digital cameras and the likes were rampantly being sold. Take note there's a police station nearby the NBI building. Piracy was everywhere and it's a slap to these officials who should be maintaining fair competition. I knew then why piracy hasn't been cracked down. Well, we got to the building and it was on the third floor but before you could get there, you'll have to pass by in a maze. The place was a big maze with those markers - cartolinas where arrows being drawn as to where the right directions were. There was a queue at the entrance so we jumped on the line and paid 20 pesos. When I got the ticket, I just smiled and laughed at the back of my head as it was something like not related to NBI. Well to my surprise it was sort of a ticket for a mall which I don't have any single clue as to what it was about. Then we just proceeded to the office and noticed that the guards were checking the tickets. Then we got a form and the one person assigned there also checked the ticket. After we filled out the form we paid of course and proceeded to the next step. The place was packed with lots of people with different facial expressions - some were grouchy, others looked like they were lost and some were looking just odd. I guess it's because of the place. I failed to tell you that aside from it being crowded, it was hot and not well lighted and freakingly noisy. What can you expect of a public place? Olga and I went ahead for the checking of the forms like there was another queque where they will check if you have filled the correct information on your form. The line was a kilometer's long. It took us around 45 minutes before we get our turns. After that, we proceeded to another line where they check your police or criminal records which was termed as "hit". It was already 12 noon and were were hungry. When we got to the line we noticed that we were moving fast unlike the other three lines. It was a stupid mistake! We lined up ourselves to some never endling line because it was a circular thing. That's why it moved too fast without ever reaching the goal of checking your records. We broke from the line and went to the right queue. Of course there were those who continued to form their own separate queues joining the circular queue. Amazing the whole computer science thing just happened with people at NBI. Olga and I just laugh it out and remarked if it's okay to collapse. Olga told me she would want to collapse so she could be entertained and get to the line first. I refute that she won't because she will have to be brought to the hospital so she will be dead last. Hehehehe. Anyway, we waited again for another hour before we were actually served. We were so hungry and I felt so irritated already. To no surprise, when it was our turn to be checked, we were hit. Darn! It's this DOST scholarship again. Anyway I had my clearance from DOST already so it should not be a problem as well as Olga. Olga and I decided to just not take our lunch and continue to have our faces digitally captured. The queue there was fast and thank God it took us like 5 minutes to wait. So we proceeded to the next step where they had to get our finger prints like all of our fingers. What about if you have like eleven or twelve fingers? How would they do that? Boxes were available for ten so maybe one or two extra fingers will be exceptions. Anyway, the finger printing was also fast as there were lots of officers assigned on that section. After that, we had to submit our forms to be scheduled for the release of our NBI clearance. Olga's schedule was different with mine and so I proposed that she come with me on my schedule and she agreed gladly. I will have a separate blog as to what happened to my second NBI encounter. Well, we decided to just go home and take another Manila tour with MRT.

After what happened, I swore not to set foot on that place but do I have a choice? I need to get there again for the releasing of my clearance. Well NBI Cebu was way better in lots of aspects. So good luck to me for the next trip.

Fun with disaster

Not that much disaster as the end of the world though and this is how it happened.

Supposedly, we were to have our company team building this Oct 4-5 somewhere in Rizal but then, due to unwanted circumstances, it was postponed. My condo mates who turned out to be my office mates as well, decided to have a drinking session at our place. And, since we still had a bottle of Absolut Kurant Vodka and a fourth of Tequilla, we decided to just get two liters of Sprite and some snack-ous. That was a Friday by the way. We decided to invite some of our officemates and four of them came. Robert voluntered to bring in their sound system. So basically, we were going for a sing-a-along - videoke thing as well.

I went with Robert to get the sound system at his condo at G.A. Towers which is along Boni-EDSA. Everything was set up for the event at around 10PM when we arrived at our place in Pasong Tamo, Makati. The place was already tidied by my mates. So after we watched Survivor Philippines which is aired in GMA-7, the sound system was fixed and ready for the ride. We sang, we danced and laughed the whole night until dawn. I was the host which in our tongue is translated as, "Tangero". At around 4 A.M., almost everyone was already drunk or tipsy. The Tequilla was already emptied and the Vodka was almost dried up but, we decided to just call it done since it's already morning. Well everyone went to get their comfortable places and slept.

10 AM was waking time and my mates were cooking some noodles with egg. Well it was delicious as always. My office mates bid goodbyes and we decided to sleep again. We woke up at around 3Pm and ate then slept, again?

At around 6PM of October 5, I was awaken by a certain knock on our door. I was already half awake by the way so I got up, shirtless and opened the door. I saw one of the janitors and told me that a certain Mrs. Flores was calling us to her office. I knocked the door of the girl's room and told them about it. Well the three of us, Olga, Agnes and I decided to go downstairs to Mrs. Flores' office. Olga was bringing a trash when we went down and so, I was left to face Mrs. Flores alone since Agnes went with Olga to throw the trash can. Mrs. Flores did not bother to introduce herself nor asked who I was. She just asked me if I was an occupant at unit 303. I replied yes to her. Then she went on telling me that, last night, she was not able to sleep. We were disturbing the neighborhood and that many of them did not have their good night sleep. She then told me that what we did was uncalled for and that parties should be allowed up until 12 midnight only and not to pass that time. She repeatedly told me that she was not able to sleep. Oh she was actually giving me sermon in English with her Tagalog accent. Then I said to her, "pasensya na po", which can be translated to "sorry" or "please consider for what happened". Before I could finish what I have to say she interrupted me by saying that she was not able to go to her doctor for her check-up and that we were to blame for it. My blood rushed to my head quickly and as I was trying to control myself, but I couldn't, so I told her that we were not aware that we have disturbed someone or anyone because when we got out of our unit, you will not really hear that there were some singing and laughing. I told her that no one knocked on the door that night telling us that we were too much and that we need to shut ourselves. I then ended my stupid reasoning which by way was really stupid, by telling her sorry for what happened and promised her that it won't happen again. She then replied that damage has been done. So I just shut my stupid mouth. At the back of my head, I was actually talking to her. Things in my head were like: Why did you not take your sleeping pills? Why didn't you knock on our door and told us that we were disturbing your sleep? Can you give me the units who were also disturbed as you have told me because you said, many of you were disturbed, so I can send them my apologies? Worse, in my head I was actually telling her that you can be sick because your office smelled like cigarette smoke and the office is not really an office but it's a dungeon, lots of piled trash on another corner and the dust were all over the place or it can be compared to an attic or a junk yard with less junk. Mrs. Flores just went on telling me things and lecturing me. She was getting personal she told us that our trash should be thrown properly and we should tie the trash bags before we throw it. I replied that we do threw our trash properly and told her that we don't do those things like leaving the bags open. I was already screaming at the back of my mind. I just wanted to get out of her prison cell. Olga and Agnes came just before she could finalize everything she wanted to tell me or us. I asked myself why was she so angered like it's unforgivable and she seemed getting personal already. Well after hearing her sermons, I just went out of her place and told her, "pasensya na po". Of course this time I was not sincere already.

Olga, Agnes and I went to our unit and discussed things. Ronan suggested that we go out and we decided to just go and dine out somewhere. We went to High Street somewhere in Bonifacio Global City. Along the way, we talked about what happened. We were very speculative. The case was, Mrs. Flores confronted Olga and Agnes when they paid our water bills. She told Olga and Agnes that we were allegedly not paying the association dues for our condo. Olga and Agnes explained to Mrs. Flores that we were paying all our bills to Mrs. Gemma Gerios. She then threatened the two girls that she will cut our electric line. That happened like 15 days ago. I was told about it by the girls and I told them that I will speak to Mrs. Gemma Gerios our condo lady - lessor. With my conversation with Mrs. Gerios, I told her that Mrs. Flores confronted the girls about us not paying the condo dues. I told her that we were paying to her the whole condo rent and including the dues as agreed by and in our contract, so I just continued that she has to settle it with Mrs. Flores. I did not tell Gemma of the threats and all the negative remarks made by Mrs. Flores. Of course I knew that there was a bickering already going on in between Mrs. Flores and Mrs. Gerios. That's when I knew why Mrs. Flores was getting personal. Anyway, our talk became another bashing of words against Mrs. Flores. We ended it with another huge laugh. We even tried to suggest to have another really really loud party and invite her.

Your heart speaks

I want to listen what my heart speaks to me

To make me feel that I am free once again,

And take me, far away from this insolence

Beyond the distant solitude - lovely home,

Beyond the crevice of the lips that are bold.

Bring to me more life and then give it meaning.

This is how I believed simplistic beauty.

That's to endure the time that challenges me.

If there are more words from the heart, utter them

Let me hear them, savor from the only truth,

I believed in them long before they were told.

But how can something that is not real, exists?

The shape of things that are from rote memory,

May not be real but are truths within myself.

I can't further argue nor give a harangue

Because this is an abstraction of beauty.

Where love creeps and soothes, not just your eyes or veins

But to the soul or mind, not just your being.

One can not fully grasp up until it calls,

The swaying chimes and the harmony in dawn

Are two of glorious music to deeply know.

If you have heard them, then listen to your heart!

It tells more than you can imagine your life.