Most of you don’t know that I actually took a pre-med course (unless you checked out my partial personal introduction post and my long time friend) and actually conducted some health and diet symposiums for public awareness or information when I’m still in college until few months after graduation. When I was active on this, groups of women and men (young or old) would always seek my advice on how will they trim down, how they get rid of the flabby areas, what’s the cure for this, what is this disease all about, and so on. I would always try to explain to them together with other speakers (doctors, fitness experts and living testimonies of the lifestyle) in full detail and in a layman’s language what they were curious about and most often requested topic for a symposium set up are: aging, dieting, and cancer.

They didn’t probably think that these 3 are co-related but what we do is conduct a symposium tackling all of these together. Usually it takes a whole day but it is a very interesting and fun at the same time that they actually take down notes and actively participates when it’s time for them to raise questions. It’s an eye opener and informative for them that at the end of the sessions some would approach and invite me to speak again for another group of people or their company seminars or thank me for accommodating them, some even became living proofs (embraced the lifestyle) of what I have imparted and had actually participated in earlier seminars. It was fulfilling, kinda overwhelming(positively), fun and interactive for me. At the end of the day, I must have been physically drained, stressed out with a short time table to work on to review and read files of books, journals, researches dating from around 1970s up to the very present. I usually rely on the most present information thru my subscription to science journals and web access to several researches. Science books become out of date really fast but basically still helpful. Just mentioning these now, makes me cringe! I was hard working then, I do my research everyday so usually my symposiums are different and more informative than previous ones. I wanted others to be INFORMED.

So that was back in 2002-2003. Lately, only friends are likely to ask me about health matters and though I haven’t been practicing scientific studies and the likes lately, I do get my rich feeding of sciences still. I love reading and sci-research.

Recently, friends asked about diets. Girl isn’t fat but she wants to be healthy. She’s conscious of her body but she couldn’t do regular exercise or she’s too lazy. The other one is a food addict, someone I call “walang kabusugan” and his diet is mostly of meat but his metabolism is slow and such is really dangerous! I hardly actually gave them detailed advice yet because I know it will be difficult for them and it is not easy for me to instruct them what to do. For now, I let them develop discipline gradually.

To my surprised yesterday, I got a mail from one of my attendees in one of the aging, diet and cancer symposium years ago. She said she couldn’t find her provided materials from the event and all she had was my contact details on her directory, she badly wants the materials again and she actually thought of inviting me for a "talk" to a small group. On her letter, she said she was able to go on and slipped to a healthy lifestyle few times though she didn’t follow the diet to a T. (I myself don’t follow it to a T) She said, she wants to give it again a try-adopting it more this time, since it’s Lenten season.

Hmmm, so timely! I actually have started my way of abstinence before Lent had begun and she gave me an idea. I will probably ask my friends if they will be willing to do religious abstinence (more motivation). I am a Christian but not a Catholic so we don’t have Ash Wednesday. And abstinence is done any day or period of the year for us, not necessarily just during Lenten season. But this season is a good time for the vast majority Catholics.

Watch out for my next post, I’ll introduce (not to fully discuss) you to the lifestyle…..and no I’m not persistently encouraging or persuading you to follow such. To each his own and I have a medically assisted healthy diet so it works well for me and it’s unlikely anyone will actually realize the benefits unless you have attended my symposiums years ago. Scary? No it’s not; it is actually simple and not legalistic. Remember I’m a foodie! Curious? Ever heard of Bragg or Bright? Stay tuned!