Good Bar: Health in Every Bite

Health and fitness is a trend today. The healthy-living and the fitness-junky portion of the population is thriving in levels too ridiculous for me to believe. Not that I'm complaining. I'm actually very glad to see people running here and there, finishing their marathons and sweating themselves up. Good for them. My IG is flooded with green smoothies & green juices that just by the mere act of checking my feeds, I feel like I have already took in enough amount of greens that would last me a month. Like I said, it's disgusting ridiculous what people would do to become healthy.

So I'm doing this not because of the hype but because I think I should. I have a heart I need to take care of and a fragile underweight body that needs boosting and nourishing. Since I came to this realization (though it's a little later than most people, don't remind me), I became so hooked to doing researches on healthy habits and healthy lifestyle, in general; which include healthy foods. 

L.A. Coffee: The Verdict

This is a follow-up to my L.A. Coffee post. Yesterday, I was finally able to finish a pack. No, I didn't finish a pack in one drinking. I was too afraid of tummy pain to do that. I took the first half-cup the other day using only half of the pack, obviously. So if the SRP on the pack is accurate, technically, my coffee the other day was only worth 3 friggin pesos! So cute!

I observed how it felt drinking coffee again after a long while. And guess what? It's Low Acid for reals! But the skeptic in me didn't believe it right away. I had to try the other half and see if it still won't trigger any acidity in the stomach. And so I did yesterday. Guess what?! It did not! However, I felt that I really drank something diuretic. You know that feeling when after drinking something, you feel like pee-ing the entire day? That's what diuretic drinks do. They are good in a sense that they somehow force you to cleanse your system if you're someone like me who doesn't drink water regularly even if it's the only thing you're allowed to drink. Downside though is that if you get too much of them and you're acidic like me, it could either lead to hyper-acidity attack or LBM. You decide which is worse.

Now, I won't push my blessing so much at this point. Not because this coffee worked for me now I can already panic-drink. I won't even go back to drinking everyday. And I promise that when I drink, I'll drink only half a serving :) Thank God I'm wiser now. Like any other good stuff, I recommend this coffee to those with the same condition as mine BUT with moderation. As the warning goes: RESPONSIBLE DRINKING IS RECOMMENDED. :)


P.S. I noticed I haven't really said anything about the taste of this particular coffee. Suh-rry. Was too busy obsessing with my APD. Anyway, it tastes like Kopiko. Not as strong as the brown one I used to have in college but neither is it too sweet which for me is good enough.

♥

The Low Acid Coffee

Disclaimer: This post is not to promote any product. Me not paid to do so. :)

Lest doing so brings me to the hospital’s emergency room bed again, I have long since stopped drinking coffee. As mentioned in a post about my first ER experience, I have this annoying gastric condition which the doctors call the Acid Peptic Disease. It was only diagnosed in May last year but I believe it has been existing since college days. It was circa 2008 when abdominal pain and vomiting started, if I’m not mistaken. Boy did I binge eat those days due to stress and inability to eat on time. I blame my university professors for this condition of mine. I’m not even kidding.

If you Google it, APD is not a unique-and-hard-to-explain type of illness. Though there are many types of it, I wasn't able to attend the follow-up check up then so the specification is still for me to find out but basically, APD is an ulceration caused by a stomach that secretes excessive acid. This results to a weakened lining of the stomach which in effect gives us discomfort and even unbearable pain when it's not digesting anything. This is why it is advised that a patient regularly lines his stomach with food. In my case, I eat every 2 hours. Aside from eating more frequently, there have been certain restrictions to my food and drink intake too.

APD prevents me from drinking and eating anything, really. First, those that are too spicy, so I bid my favorite super spicy Lucky Me pancit canton farewell years ago. Nothing sour, which isn't really something I miss because I don’t love that taste either. I just hope I could still eat ripe yellow mango and not have a bitter after-taste in the mouth (that’s a sign of acidity, folks). I find it weird though that I can eat all green mango I want and don’t get any abs pain attack. That’s a consolation to my already awful predicament because losing mango and bagoong (shrimp paste) would be another blow I wouldn't take. I was also asked to avoid anything acidic, obviously. This means I had to avoid soda which isn't so bad because I never loved soda. But what pains me the most is that I can never have coffee anymore.

Don’t get me wrong, I was never the coffee addict. I’m not one of those who resides in Starbucks. And I’m not my mom who uses coffee to beat boredom when there's no household chores to do. I don’t even use it to keep me up when I need to pull an all-nighter because that just doesn't work for me. Coffee to me is like milk, it actually brings you to bed with a good dreamy sleep.  I really just love the taste of it and I was good with 1 cup a day. Unfortunately, APD has taken that away.

Now I have recently discovered this yet-to-be-proved amazing thing in the market. It’s Kopiko’s L.A. Coffee. Kopiko brown used to be my home brand back in the days. This enough makes me giggle of excitement. L.A. stands for Low Acid. Sounds good right? It promises wonderful things: (1) Special low acid formula, (2) Controlled roasting process (I don’t even know what that means), (3) High quality coffee beans. And it’s main tagline? GASTRIC FRIENDLY. Now, show of hands. Who says that’s awesome?! Lol.

I have yet to try it though. I’m just too scared. I remember trying something decaf from Starbucks almost a year ago. It still made me want to purge because the stomach pain was just too much to bear. Since then, I have never believed that decaf thing anymore. It made me realize, as long as there’s coffee in it, it’s no good for my stomach. Now this L.A. Coffee is something. What if there’s hope to my situation? Maybe this is it? I wouldn't know until I try, right?

If you have a condition like mine and have tried this product yet, hit me! I would love to know! Kthanks :)

My kind of diet

Due to that there are so many things to do in such a little time, I am unable to go sweat some tummy fats lately. I think it's been two weeks since I last went out for a jog.

To compensate for the lost chances to burn, I tried another technique to lose some. I was never the diet person. I know nothing about those different types with different names. All I'm very familiar with (and i'm not even sure if nutritionists consider it as a type of diet, how do you categorize an eating habit as diet anyway?) is the After-6 which basically means a person can eat all he likes as long as it's before 6pm. After 6pm, he should be in a complete abstinence to any solid intake until the next morning.


Personally, that won't work for me because I have a gastric condition which I have to be very mindful about. My stomach can't be empty for a long time or I'll start vomiting and then die. Kidding. I'll faint first, then struggle for a couple of hours before dying. Srsly.

OK seriously serious now fellas. I present to you my not so unique nor interesting diet. The fruits-for-dinner diet!

*applause*

This was my dinner last night.

 A bowl of sliced apple and watermelon.

I realized having fruits only for dinner has other perks on top of getting relatively lower calorie intake. First, I don't feel bloated. Second, I don't feel guilty. Third, it also helps me wake up in the morning. Why? Because it's so light hence I tend to feel hungry in the morning even when the reality is that I still have a significant amount of glucose in my system from last night. Lastly, you don't seem like dieting at all! :D

I'm an eater. As in I get hungry every other minute so I have to have something to munch on everytime to line my stomach and stop the acid from going gaga when it's empty. Sadly, I can't eat all kinds of fruits because I also have to avoid the acidic ones. Mostly the sour ones like my favorite mangoes (both green and yellow), strawberries, oranges and ponkans, among others. But I'm just glad there's apple to comfort me, banana to cheer me up (yes friends, I eat banana now!), watermelon to make me feel special, and avocado to encourage me. These are the frequent ones that I devour on. Lol. I hope someday I learn to love veggies too. I eat veggies, but only the select ones like those found in the typical house salads of fast-food and nearby restaurants.

Baby steps fellas, baby steps.