My name is Carlos, and I am food-aholic.

Yes. If there was indeed a foodies anonymous I’d be the first one to sign up. Oddly enough, with all the things happening in my life, it makes exercise a bit more difficult.(As if running already isn’t a hard enough task) You see having work and actually running is not really conducive to living a healthier lifestyle. For some odd reason, the universe deemed that eating healthier, (read: vegetables, tofu, and other forms of healthier snacks and lunches) one should pay a premium. But if you choose to chow down on those oh-so good, deep fried, slathered in cheese or batter, fast food joints they give you discounts. This is the definition of evil and hell. I think this is satan’s greatest weapon; fast food joints. He makes them really good, really cheap, and really unhealthy.

Good one Lucy.

Over the Holy Week break, and even the weeks leading up to it, I have time and again found an excuse not to wake up at 4am and run with Wil. (I’m sorry Wil! The mind is willing but the body can’t!) And I do admit that waking up at 4am just to run is already a bit cooky, even for my standards, but it was something I had to do. After reaping what seemed like a tiny reward of losing a little weight, I have again fallen from grace and off the proverbial wagon. I am again a food-aholic.

From the sumptuous lunch of Bacalao Fish to the simple Easter Lunch we had, it was non-stop eating over the holidays!

Bacalhau

Hakaw and Beef w/ Brocoli

Chicken Wings & Crabs

Hakaw

So I guess I should start my pledge again? How to motivate myself? If you seriously are a good friend of mine, please leave me a comment here. Help me motivate myself again! Bora trip is too close to actually aspire a bora-body for. (Unless I starve myself! But I love food too much!) I started my no rice for lunch diet today. So far it worked pretty fine I didn’t get sleepy right after lunch which lifted my productivity. I have a few more tasks remaining and not as stressed out as before so I should be able to run on Wednesday and Thursday. I should really look to getting in shape! If anyone wants to pledge a D300s or a 40″ LCD to me if I lose a certain number of pounds I would gladly take you up!

On a side note, I had a long meaningful and inspiring as well as educational talk with a good friend of mine. He showed me career alternatives and he thinks I have what it takes to do what he’s doing. I like how he shares his knowledge and actually wants you to succeed and do well. I appreciate people like him.

Project:Carlos is now officially resuming!

This year’s birthday was a bittersweet birthday. It was bitter because of all the memories and underlying feelings of loss and emptiness it brings due to recent events. I used to use my birthday as a time to spend it with the person I loved the most and for the past 2 years I have. The first one being the day I first said “I love you” and the second when I woke up to someone special in my life. Just like life, the latter phase was full of sadness. Thinking about how happy I was before, the sadness was inevitable, somewhat expected I suppose. No one can live happily ever after. Those are just reserved for movies and fairytales. The very lucky few that do experience that happily ever after are the few blessed individuals. Just like how some people are incredibly smart or good at math or a musically gifted, some are blessed to have their own happily ever after.

Strawberry Shortcake

But oddly enough, the most unexpected sweetness arose from the entire situation. Due to the loss I experienced, I saw the simplest gestures from some friends as both opportunities to re-evaluate my life and what it means to be a friend. My was pretty much an ordinary day. From talking to someone till 12am just so she could greet me happy birthday, to walking into starbucks and having the baristas sing happy birthday, and finally, my co-workers whisking me away for a lunch despite my vehement cries of being busy, and preparing a small surprise for me, the day was actually served as a venue for me to actually feel, even if it was just in a small way, what it was to be special.

Strawberry Shortcake

As I had my cake (and I ate it as well!), I was uber grateful for the friends I had around me. I may not have a shit load of friends, but the quality of people I keep around me speaks volumes for the kind of person I am. I may not have been a good friend for the past 2-3 years, but look at these people going unexpectedly out of their way to actually plan something and take time to think about it. With every strawberry I swallowed, (I had strawberry shortcake as my bday cake), it was both bitter and sweet and I thought, “how apt that it was the cake they chose for me.”

Nuffies Lunch

Friends asking me what my wish was!

Conti's for my Bday!

I will thank people in order of the surprises they actually gave me.

Jan thanks for that late night pick me upper during my bday.

Danes thanks for the incredibly embarrasing gift. I will not be going back to that place anytime soon.

Patty thanks for making me kulit to go to lunch. I know you told me already that you guys were going to treat me to lunch but you didn’t have to and despite my enormous amount of work, you made me take a break even if for a little while on my birthday.

Judd, Marcelle, Anne, Mikey and Alex, Maki, thanks for sharing my day with me. You guys are really awesome. To the nuffnang team, thank you for bearing with the growing pains of our company as well as bearing with me trying to get everything done in the best way I know how. The molave peeps, Mikey and Alex, you guys didn’t have to, but you were there. I know Jenny would have wanted to be there as well. I’ve grown to look past what we do and see you guys for the people you really are and I like what I see. Maki we haven’t known each other for a long time, and yet I feel like we’re one of the closest friends. I enjoy taking time to teach you and build your confidence back to how it was before. I enjoy seeing you grow and learn both as a manager as well as a person and friend. I will always be here if you need help both for work or life.

MY Nuffies!

Thanks to MY and SG Nuffies. You guys are awesome. Nuffnang is indeed more than a company, it is a family. Thanks to Tim for the MY Celebration of my Birthday! Grabing the BB pic you took from twitter!

To everyone who greeted me whether via SMS, E-mail, or Facebook. A big big thank you to you guys. I may have not received the one greeting I was looking for but all you guys greeting me more than made up for it. Again thank you very much!

Beef Salpicao

I ended the day on a happy note and yet I do not see the end of feb 24 as the end of my day, but rather the start of a new year; a new me. So raise your glasses, here’s to moving forward. To becoming a better person and a new year, a new me. Hello 2010. 24 years ago, we ousted a dictator who threatened to run our country into ruin. 24 year later, I have decided to pick up the pieces, and from the ashes of my failure, will rise a monument of my success.

In lieu of this, I have decided to ditch my old cologne. It reminded me so much of her and our happy times together and you know how powerful a scent reminds us of everything. If you’ve ever gotten a whiff of something and remembered everything associated with that smell, well imagine having that same experience only it hurts every time. Which brings me to why I do not like D&G Light Blue anymore. (Not that I don’t like the smell, but I love that scent so much but the memories associated with it are just too painful to really tolerate. Funny that my mom used to like it too, but it has gone untouched in weeks now and maybe I’ll just get rid of it altogether.)

As I’ve recently been more focused at work, the amount of success now is growing more rapidly. I will be able to buy the 40″ lcd tv sooner than anticipated as well as a new body. (Looking forward to holding a d300 soon enough.) All this extra money was set aside for “our future” but well, we all know she threw that away and burned bridges doing so. Looking to get an 85mm 1.8 as well once I do acquire the 2 lightstands, 2 40″ shoot thrus, 2 spigots, and a couple of triggers, and well this spending spree is just getting started. I bought a new cologne. I decided enough of this crap. Stop fooling myself that what she tells you is true and that “she cares for you” is just another one of her lies as well as using you to be able to get away from her parents because they trust me is just another one of her tactics. Even as friends she can’t tell you the truth then its not really a good friendship nor is she a good friend.

So Goodbye Polo Sport. I used to love how you smell. I used to love how you made me smell. But now I can’t stand you. Its not because you are a bad scent, like I said I used to love you. But rather, I hate the memories attached to you. Time to really move on.

I love this new smell. Makes me feel all grown-up and ready to move on. To my readers, Thank you for still coming back to my blog. I know I may not be the best person who writes as fluently as some of the bloggers out there. Nor is my life as interesting as some of our more famous bloggers. But I can promise you this, I will continue to write, to share with you, the adventures that come my way. I will share with you if and when I fall in love again, if and when someone breaks my heart once more, and I will write with all honesty, without holding anything back. I will pour my heart as well as my soul into this blog because I realized this blog holds who I am. At the end of my days, I look back and wonder how I got there, I can read. Read what I wrote, along with it the feelings and emotions of a semi-yuppie as he tries to figure out this thing called life and love. Thank you again dear readers. I may not have a lot, but the very few who do read this I want you to feel like you know me. This blog is me. This is Carlos’ Blag.

*Edit: And because I totally forgot about Embs, she deserves a special mention right here! Quick trivia about Embs, back in 1st year college I was late for a Math 20 exam. I was standing at the V.Mapa station of the LRT when they announced that the train wouldn’t be arriving today. Diligently wearing my Ateneo ID, this chinese girl approaches me and asks me if I was going to Ateneo. I thought she was going to share a cab with me. Apparently, she had a driver pick her up and she gave me a lift to campus. Super nice gesture! She didn’t have to. But she did anyway. We ran into each other again when I was 3rd year when she was apparently in the same org I joined! Embs you are awesome! I really do wish you and Vin all the happiness in the world! Its true that sometimes good deeds go unnoticed, but its also true that sometimes the simplest ones can change someone’s life. You changed mine right then.

“are you running today?”

Fuuuu I forgot to text her that I was outside. Today was a very rushed day for me. I quickly replied that I was outside and in 2-3 mins she was outside already. She started talking to me about reading my blog and stuff up until we started our warm-up jog. I realized though when we started the full jog and I began my c25k program that I forgot to click start at the start of my workout program on my blackberry! Dammit! Stupid me. That’s why my distance and time were all screwed up.

I did notice quite a number of cars today as I struggled to overhear my podcast tell me when to run and when to walk. It was quite annoying and I resolved to bring earphones next time even though most of the time I could hear nothing. I tried increasing my pace but my breathing was off today. I also noticed a crazy man along Wilson St which I was half praying wouldn’t start running after me because I didn’t think I could outrun him. On the way back he was more active walking along the streets so I stretched out my 1 min interval of walking and running and actually half sprinted away from him. I did notice though he was a tidy man. Picking up litter along his curb and throwing them at the trash can nearby.

According to my GPS and sportypal.com’s program, today I ran:

• Total Distance: 4.4km
• Total Time: 43 mins and 55 secs
• Avg Speed: 6.07 km/h

Not improving yet, but I’m excited for the weekend run since embs is running with me! I hope I last with this program. I like how attainable each week is and how driven it has maken me. The sleepy part I noticed came very late in the day. Around 8 pm me thinks. Which was just right since I got enough sleep today!

I might not update this on every run (only if something interesting happens) but I will be sure to upload my weekly progress via the sportypal.com application which lets me keep track of my runs,

As for today’s Adidas wishlist, I want this Adidas running belt. I want to carry water since my throat gets uber dry when I run. I think Wil is asking me to check if Adidas has one too. She wants a place to put her iPhone, water, towel, keys and maybe water as well. I’ll ask them during the meeting on Tuesday!