THERE’S that one person at the gym who would always tell you, Wow! You’re here daily!

That’s his favorite line each time he sees you. Not good morning. Not how are you? Not hi, hello. But you may not like the last one if it’s “Hi, hello, you’ve been running circles in my head/You know, you said we were gonna take it nice and slow/And now I’m telling everyone I know/And it’s looking alright with me, so.”

On second thought, you’re better off with, Wow! you’re here daily!

If you don’t want to be disturbed, wear headphones and a hoodie. Let’s see if someone will still dare talk with you.

There we were again on Friday morning, prepping for the Fitness Strength Training group exercise (GX). When we asked Coach Paul how intense this class would be, he said it’s going to be light. Oh. Please define light. As light as San Mig Light compared with Pale Pilsen?

Coach Paul is now known as Coach Sally at the gym for using the “Bring Sally Up Workout” song for his GX’s finisher. Imagine doing pushups, planks, squats, and lifting weights with these lyrics: “Bring Sally up, bring Sally down/Lift and squat, gotta tear the ground.”

Yes, tear the ground with our fists, feet, and knees.

After the Zumba, GX, and personal training, the last thing we, gym classmates, should do is eat out. Because it’s easier to follow a diet through home-cooked meals whose ingredients we can control. Restos may be using vegetable oil, margarine, MSG, soy sauce, sugar, flour, corn starch, high-carb veggies, fruits, and other ingredients not allowed in a low-carb diet, thus, it’s safer to cook our own meals.

But I guess it’s like after school when classmates would drop by milk tea shops before going home.

That’s the milk tea that’s selling like hotcakes. But it’s time to change that phrase to, selling like milk teas.

A few weeks ago, we were at a milk tea shop where I ordered a sandwich. I didn’t eat the bread, though, which went to a gym friend who was carbo-loading for a marathon two weeks before that marathon.

The milk tea there was selling like milk teas not only to walk-in fans but also to online fans care of food delivery services. And then, I saw cheesecake on the menu. Only to be told that it’s one of the milk tea’s flavors.

Cheesecake milk tea. Wish ko lang I could taste-test that. But I’m back to carnivore again after experiencing another round of side effects, no thanks to the various kinds of halo-halo in the universe.

I’m still trying to find out why I was craving for halo-halo. I didn’t even like halo-halo when I was in a high-carb diet. If it’s because of deprivation, deprived of what exactly? Carbs?

There’s this tip in the low-carb community that says we should look at the other side of deprivation: deprived of maintenance medicines, hypertension, rhinitis, allergies, body aches and pains, brain fog, etc. Doesn’t look like deprivation anymore, eh?

So, combine daily gym with a 24/7 diet that works for you, and these may finally convince you that good health is the true wealth.