Lose some, gain more
The current situation had made us learn things that we thought we never had time to do or can’t do. We had found ways to break sweat like manually do the laundry, had cleaned the house so often that it actually won’t be needing any cleaning for a while. Basing on social media posts, newly discovered culinary skills with lip-smacking photos were shared.
The upside with this newly found talent is that as long as we have the components for cooking, we can satisfy our cravings anytime we want. The obvious downside? We get plumpier than the fattened ‘ihawonon’ supposedly reserved for the Covid-cancelled fiesta celebrations.
My wife Denise and I are not spared of cooking and baking experiments with all the extra time available that in some instances, assistance were asked from Amazon for the needed materials. And where else will the end products get deposited that resulted in a few pounds and inches more. Clothes went a bit tight and our weights have more ups and downs than fuel prices.
A hormone called leptin is made by fat cells in our bodies that tells our brain that we have enough fat stored up. Muscle mass and fats are lost when we lose weight and leptin decreases which makes us hungry so that when we stop dieting and being active, there is a supersized craving and fewer calories will be burned.
Gaining weight back, fat takes the superhighway to our system and builds up quickly. It’s one of the reasons why yo-yo dieting make us much heavier than when we had started the diet and could lead to binge eating.
Not only there will be changes on our physical appearance but also on our insides. We get inflammations which might alter our immune system, there could be insulin resistance, the possibility of gall stones, hypertension and heart disease because our blood vessels are burdened.
This is not to discourage the culinary victories we had achieved. There is also a need to cultivate and improve what we had learned in this time of forced isolation. Cooking will always be a part of our lives and there is that sense of satisfaction and accomplishment when we do it. Our point here is to do things in moderation and be active for at least 30 minutes daily.
Go ahead and conquer the kitchen, be it ‘binuyok’ with humba or ‘utan bisaya’ or maybe ‘dinuldog and ‘buwad’ bolinao or perhaps those fancy sounding French or Italian cuisines. Just don’t forget to exercise.
Quarantine restrictions had eased up a bit and maybe we can slowly get back to what was normal and yes, unli-rice with the oily orange stuff is just around the corner. Losing some but gaining more is not normal.
Self-control will be the key.
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