Cebu Calories

June 23, 2005

I was in Cebu again two days ago.  Most likely I’ll head down there again soon.  I’m lucky to have current projects that make me travel down to Cebu often lately. 

There are plusses and minuses in going to Cebu.  The plusses are obvious:   nice beaches, no Manila stress, and the food is good.  The minuses:  The food is good!  I ate three consecutive hotel breakfast buffets.  Luckily, the resort also had a very nice health club and spa, so I did the gym and sauna and massage thing.  But that didn’t burn enough calories.  Nor did my short swim from the shore to a floating deck.  That swim was like 20 seconds and then 20 minutes on the deck getting a sun tan.  Sun tanning doesn’t burn enough calories either.

As a former swimmer, I am so used to consuming calories good for four persons. So, you can imagine my disappointment when I ate dinner at the hotel’s fancy restaurant.  I ordered a prawn salad.  Three small shrimps!  I ordered a salmon steak.  It could fit in my hand!  And why in the world would the chef have to cut the one asparagus stem in half?  It was already only one piece of goddamn asparagus and they had to cut it in half pa!  So, I ate as much of the bread and butter as I can.  I hate leaving a restaurant hungry.  So, I ate the next day at the hotel’s Chinese restaurant and ordered dimsum for four.

If you’ve been a constant companion of my blog, you’ve read many entries about my trying to lose weight.  The badminton has worked to maintain my weight.  But I think I need to lose about 15 more pounds.  I have to make my swimming regular, and more intense.  And maybe I should start running again.  Running burns the most calories for me, I think.  But my age and current weight prevents me from running well.  My knees cannot take the resistance, also my spurs.  The solution:  less calorie intake.

But how can you resist breakfast buffets?  There are breads, cereals, juices, waffles, congee, bacon, omelletes, sausages, sushi, coffee, and yogurt.  Good thing I’m not going to Cebu again that soon.

“Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.“

- Adelle Davis