ONCE upon a time, in a place far, far away, I was in-charge of cooking breakfast, because my cooking skills were—and still are—limited to frying and boiling. Plus the rice, with much thanks to the rice cooker, of course.

The low-carb diet has even made that simpler—no more rice. Memorize na lang.

Nowadays, the cooking-challenged may need Enderun Colleges to learn how to boil an egg. If you ask me how many minutes are required to boil an egg, I need YouTube for that.

Aside from learning how to cook, another thing I have to learn is how to stop talking, which I’ve noticed I’m unable to do lately as I tend to talk and talk about anything. What the…? People who don’t know me yet are better off learning about something else, like how to boil an egg. Whew.

But there I was on Monday afternoon, talking and talking like there’s no tomorrow. I should have sipped my coffee and savored the Korean cream cheese garlic bread and listened to other people’s stories instead of sharing my own.

There was a time when I would stay in one corner and read a book. My talk-to-my-hand phase. But that was actually a defense mechanism since I already knew even then that I might say it as it is. No filters. Good thing that was the Jurassic era—no Facebook Live and camera phones yet.

Now, people tend to share a lot, and since I’m low-tech and can’t seem to level up from my Jurassic phase, I make up for that by talking and talking as if the next second will morph into “A Quiet Place: Day One.” Where any noise can mean a life-or-death situation for the noisy, forcing me to keep quiet forevermore.

At the gym, though, I could laugh like a hyena during workouts. Laughing at myself. Because I couldn’t lift my legs during the Abs Workout. Couldn’t fight like Manny Pacquiao during Fit-Punch. Couldn’t keep up with the Zumba instructor.

But I could keep up with the feasting after gym. Yum! A new resto opened on Monday, and we were there. We’re already planning the next feast—the opening of another resto at the mall.

Some gym classmates hold their birthday parties at the gym, making the feasting much nearer to our tummies. No need to go out.

On Tuesday morning after the gym classes, I was so tempted to drop by Mang Inasal or Chow King to buy halo-halo. But I did not. Congratulations to me.

Halo-halo has been my obsession this year. Since January actually. I should not behave like I’m deprived of food since beef, pork, fish, and eggs are more satiating than sugar. But here I am, taste-testing all kinds of halo-halo in Cagayan de Oro.

And then, a friend mentioned Yakimix where I could mix my own halo-halo. Yum!

Weeks ago, I “caught” a gym classmate with a Llaollao yogurt, and I instantly became the diet police: Hala ka!

I need a diet police, too, to stop me from eating halo-halo and other carbs.