CAGAYAN de Oro’s SM Northwing used to have Vamoose A Comer, Hugo, and ‘L Buono which were among the restos I used to go to as part of my ‘cafeteria’ trips at the height of the challenges I was facing in the last three years.
There was no one at home then since they were all at the hospital. So, I’d eat at these restos. Or at the hospital’s canteen. Or inside the hospital room with takeout. Or go to fast-food drive-thrus.
Other restos in that list were Fat Chef, Tadakuma, Out of Nowhere Kitchen, and Mag Sugba ‘Ta which are also located at SM Northwing, and Roadhouse, Bigby’s, Boy Zugba, and Panagatan which are at SM City CDO Uptown.
I was already a low-carb dieter then, so, I usually ordered beef, pork, chicken, fish, and eggs.
Nowadays, that list has been reduced to beef, pork, and salmon. With the addition of bulad and Spanish sardines in olive oil. These are the only food items I can tolerate for now.
To say that I’ve become a picky eater is an understatement. With no rice, bread, pasta, and eggs to tame the taste of the viand, the latter’s taste becomes stronger and, therefore, more noticeable if it’s not yummy.
The bulad’s saltiness is now the one that tames the viand’s taste. That role used to be handled by the eggs.
Carnivore is not the strictest diet, though. The Lion diet is: beef, salt, water.
This health journey that began in January 2021 is now four years old and nine months. It began with no-red-meat in 2021, and it morphed into low-carb in February 2022, and carnivore in September 2025.
The carnivore phase actually began in October 2024 but it lasted for only 21 days then. It resumed in March 2025 but was stopped by Centrio Mall’s “Big Bite” which featured Jacks Halo Halo. I mean, how could anyone ignore its taro-ube overload? Heart in my eyes as I now remember the yummiest halo-halo I’ve ever tasted.
The carnivore journey continues to evolve and that’s, of course, without the halo-halo. I now know that there are beef and pork cuts that I don’t like because they’re not fatty enough. A ribeye is the best beef cut but that requires a meal budget of corrupt-government-contractor proportions.
Ground beef is way much cheaper but I’m now getting tired of it. Other carnivores cook it with eggs which I’ve recently become allergic to. Eggs make me sneeze, complete with a runny nose, the morning after. Chicken gives me the same side effects. Fine with me since I don’t like the taste of chicken anymore unless I’m eating at restos which I’m sure are adding so many ingredients to make it yummy.
Carnivore is definitely an elimination diet, it’s easier to observe what food does to health. That’s why fasting enables the body to focus on the healing process since there’s no food interfering as a distraction.
For those whose only goal is weight loss, low-carb and carnivore won’t be sustainable. A dieter needs a deep why in adopting this journey, and weight loss is not deep enough because once the goal weight is achieved, there’s the craving to return to the high-carb diet. But if healing is the deep why, the dieter will do everything he can to achieve that even if it means not having his favorite halo-halo.
