WANTED: LIFESTYLE CHANGE

Yesterday, I found four life-altering things: first, I’m morbidly obese; second, I’m borderline diabetic; third, my blood pressure is dangerously climbing; and fourth, my cholesterol level is probably in the dead-man-walking category.

Great, quite a way to start 2008, right? Basically, I found out that I was a prime candidate to join the dead-before-30 fraternity. What’s sad, though, is that I should never have reached that point. I became a victim of my own lifestyle, my own choices, my own stubbornness, and my own excesses.

So my doctor gave me this knee-bucking warning: Shape up or die young! (OK, OK, those weren’t her exact words, but that was basically what she was trying to say.)

Shaping up means doing the following: exercising regularly, dieting, and avoiding alcohol. The first one is easy; the next two, quite difficult. Me going on a diet is like a crackpot trying to quit smoking crack. At least I can say no to alcohol, but to food? Let’s just say that it’s going to be a Herculean task.

But I have no choice. Hey, I want to live until I’m at least 50, and the only way I’m doing that is by heeding my doctor’s advice. So ring the bells for new year because I’m now officially in diet mode. And diet mode means avoiding liempo, lechon, nuts, soda, juice, sisig, bopis, pancakes, hotdogs, hams, and basically everything that I love to eat. No more Coke and Pepsi products, too. Alcohol, as I’ve said, is also off-limits now.

This, to say the least, is the ultimate lifestyle change. And I have to do it.

Do I have any other choice?