Your lovely BelleToday team, plus all our other co-workers will be joining the Run and Roll at the Palms this Sunday. We'll be live-tweeting during our run, so follow belle_today on Twitter. More details to come!

I started my preparations as soon as I decided that I would join the five-kilometer route. It's been nine years since my last 5-km fun run, so I'd really like to find out how I would handle it now, now that I'm 20 lbs lighter and in better shape than before.

I've had to put basketball aside and go back to my early morning runs. I'm still getting accustomed to waking up at the crack of dawn once again. That's been the major hurdle for most of my other co-workers, but I can't blame those who'll need to commute that early on a Sunday morning. So far so good though—the initial muscle soreness is gone, so I hope to be conditioned, both mentally and physically, by Sunday.

The training is also doing well for my Fitbug stats, although I'm (shockingly) not even in the top 20 in the company competition. Before this, I was just content with getting my workouts from basketball and exercise videos, which weren't really focused with achieving a high number of steps.

The biggest downside for me is that I can't wear high heels until the run! I don't want to needlessly stress my legs any more, and I want to try to be as comfortable as I can during a long run.

Anyway, I had lots of indulgences over the weekend. One of them was when my beloved alma mater lost to the archnemesis. I had to console myself.

To my credit, I only had a few bites!

Friday
Breakfast: Banana chocolate chip walnut cake, coffee with low-fat milk
Lunch: (at Pancake House) Golden smoked tinapa, rice, mango salsa
Afternoon: Black coffee
Snack: (at Starbucks) Ensaymada
Dinner: (at Myron's Place, GB5) 1/3-lb US angus burger with french fries and onion rings, San Miguel Cerveza Negra

Saturday
Breakfast: Ube chiffon cake with queso de bola icing, coffee with low-fat milk
Lunch: (at Taco Bell, Gateway Mall) One soft, one crispy taco
Snack: (at Coffee Bean) White Chocolate Dream Latte, French apple pie
Dinner: (at Causeway, Libis) Xiao long pao, siomai, asado siopao, buchi, oolong tea

Sunday
Breakfast: Banana chocolate chip walnut cake, coffee with low-fat milk
Lunch: Turkey casserole
Dessert: Chocolate ice cream with Dark Chocolate Dreams peanut butter
Dinner: (at Eat Well! Delicious Kitchen, Greenhills) Sweet and sour pork, yang chow fried rice, siomai, fried wanton, prawn balls in orange sauce, spinach and tofu soup, birthday noodles, oolong tea, masachi with white chocolate

Two things first:
1. I hope everyone's all right, after the storm.
2. Please do welcome Tanya to the BelleToday team, and check out her blog. She deserves a better introduction, but I've sadly been procrastinating on it.

I've mentioned my arm injuries last year, which have had the unfortunate setback of making me hang up my boxing gloves and badminton racket. When I just started to pick up playing basketball a few weeks ago, I worried that the required stance would aggravate my injuries:

My favorite NBA player, Paul Pierce, demonstrates correct shooting form

Notice, it requires me to keep my arms up high, a position that I thought I couldn't sustain with my injury. I did suffer a few days of muscle soreness when I started playing, but not related to my old ailment.

I would play outside in our garage whenever the weather would allow me, and I would only be too happy to be spared from jump rope or Jillian Michaels.

I then realized—I was barely feeling my injury, despite playing basketball almost every day! For some reason, this particular activity was helping out my condition instead of hurting it.

I'm not completely pain-free; I still suffer slight bouts of numbness when I sit at a computer for a long period of time while I play Plants vs. Zombies.

Still, I'm relieved that I've found a fun new activity that actually does me good—except for incidental injuries. During one week, my brother rammed his shoulder into my arm during a charge that left my upper arm sore for days, and now, I'm nursing a thumb strain from when the ball was tapped out of my hands. Well, that's life.

* * *

Over the weekend, my family tried Max's Chicken-All-You-Can promo on the last day. The damage? A total of 20 chicken quarters by my family, and of those, I could only manage 3. It was the grease-induced headache that did me in, rather than the feeling of fullness. Still, it wasn't the worst act of gluttony I've committed, and I'm confident that I can manage this big cheat day, because I look after myself for most of the week.

Carnage!

And my mom made a magnificent ube chiffon cake with queso de bola icing. Again, it's a miracle I can stay slim, when I have a mom who bakes as well as she does.

Have a great week!

Friday's meals
Breakfast: Old-fashioned oatmeal with peanut butter, coffee with low-fat milk
Lunch: Chicken tocino, ginisang sitaw at togue, brown rice
Snack: Chef Tony's Dark Chocolate popcorn with almonds (half a large tub! ARGH!)
Dinner: Nilagang baka, brown rice
Dessert: Fresh white peach

Saturday's meals
Breakfast: Bacon, fried egg, whole-grain bread, coffee with low-fat milk
Lunch: Spaghetti
Dessert: Homemade ube cake with queso de bola icing, vanilla macadamia nut coffee with low-fat milk
Dinner: (at Max's) 3 fried chicken quarters, rolls, chop suey
Nightcap: (at Starbucks) Coffee with low-fat milk

Sunday's meals
Breakfast: Homemade ube cake with queso de bola icing, coffee with low-fat milk
Lunch: (from Pizza Hut) Cheeseburger supreme pizza, sausage roll
Snack: Chef Tony's Dark Chocolate popcorn with almonds, Fox's mint, a few Sun Chips
Dinner: (at Pancake House) Southern fried chicken strips, olive salad, rye waffle with butter and syrup, banana split

Hope you had a great weekend, Belles! I did...even if my alma mater lost their opening UAAP basketball game.

Friday

For breakfast on Friday, I went back to my old mainstay of old-fashioned oatmeal and peanut butter and coffee with low-fat milk

For lunch, my co-workers and I headed to Pho Hoa, and I tried their new vermicelli bowl with chicken, vegetables, and fried rolls. This was really good!

While waiting for Dr. ilegna_csm to finish her rounds at the end of the day, I stayed at the Coffee Bean at the hospital's ground floor, and after much deliberation, had this matcha green tea latte. Small, of course.

For dinner, I ordered eggs benedict. I thank the good doctor for the treat, and will let her know I will exact my revenge. =P

Saturday

Started my day late, as I had to make an online shopping-related phone call to the U.S. in the morning. Had a longsilog and tsokolate breakfast. Gasp! Look at all that grease!

I had my mom's homemade oatmeal raisin cookie in the afternoon, with a cup of coffee and low-fat milk.

Dinner was rellenong bangus, chop suey, and brown rice...plus a few licks of ube queso ice cream. Ssssh.

Sunday

I made french toast with some bad whole wheat bread that I bought, and topped that with real maple syrup. And coffee and low-fat milk, of course.

Lunch was chop suey, kikiam, lechon, brown rice....

...And San Mig Light.

Dinner at Pancake House was their taco salad. It wasn't bad, but I feel ripped off for paying 200 pesos.

Dessert was a 3 oz dipped cone from Dairy Queen

Just two days into this food photo exercise, I'm already observing two patterns:
- I don't think much about what I eat; I just eat what's at home and bring leftovers most of the time...but I am able to adjust with how much.
- I've been eating a lot of cheese lately, but I think that's coincidental.

Tuesday

Breakfast was a homemade cheese muffin and my usual coffee with low-fat milk, no sugar

I had lunch at Café Mediterranean, and ordered a soup and salad...but this tiny cup of lentil soup was already very filling

This was the Turkish salad, with tomatoes, feta cheese, onions, and vinaigrette. I was so full from the lentil soup that I couldn't finish this. I also had some bread that came with the soup and salad, to also cut away the feta's saltiness.

Dinner was fried tilapia, Cebu lechon that I took home, and monggo, and brown rice

I allowed myself a scoop of ube-queso ice cream for dessert, to perk up my mood

Wednesday

Cheese muffin and coffee again

Brought my own lunch of last night's leftovers. Not so glamorous, huh. But notice that the biggest portion of my meal went to the vegetables.

I also had a cup of green tea, but I forgot to take a picture.

Spinach lasagna for dinner

And two of these buchi for dessert

I still think I'm going to have to curb on the simple carbohydrates and fatty cheese, specially since I haven't been able to play basketball as intensely as I would want.

In my several years here on BelleToday, I have promised countless of times to start taking pictures of my food, only to fall by the wayside the very next day.

I keep blaming it on not having the proper equipment, as I only really have a 3 MP camera phone at best, but I don't think I have that photographer's eye just yet. I've tried taking pictures, but I'm rather embarrassed by how they look. When I happen to take a decent-looking shot, I'll peg it to good luck.

But twitch has recently joined the BelleToday community and regaled us with an impressive set of pictures of what she eats and also what she sees, and I regard her blog as a workshop, so to speak, on how to take good (food) photos on the fly. They're really nice, and I'm envious, if I may say so. That takes talent, not just skill.

The benefit, I feel, of taking pictures of your food daily is that it also gives you a visual reminder of what other ways you can do to improve your diet. You'll find yourself making better choices in the future, once you have a clear idea of how you eat.

I have taken a grand total of two photos of my food over the weekend, plus the Monday I took off from work to do some banking errands. This just goes to tell me that I eat too much simple carbohydrates. Now, I'm making a conscious effort to cut down on the simple carbs, so let's see how well I do for the rest of the week.

Merienda at Kopti Roti. I didn't eat ALL of these, thank goodness. Just a cup of coffee with condensed milk, three-quarters of the kopi bun in the foreground, a bite of kaya toast, and one kaya puff.

My attempt at making a grilled cheese sandwich in a waffle iron—two slices of wheat bread, a thin spreading of butter, and one slice of American cheese

I've also been playing basketball every day since Saturday. That sure can work up an appetite!

Friday
Breakfast: Cheese muffin, coffee with low fat milk
Lunch: Stuffed eggplant, brown rice
Dinner: Beef remoulade, brown rice
Dessert: World Market 64% cacao dark chocolate pomegranate

Saturday
Breakfast: Bread pudding, coffee with low-fat milk
Lunch: Chicharon, ginataang kalabasa, brown rice
Snack: (at Kopi Roti) Kopi bun, kaya puff, kopi with milk
Dinner: Fried chicken, Green beans with remoulade, brown rice

Sunday
Breakfast: Fried egg, Kopi Bun, coffee with low-fat milk
Lunch: Fried chicken, baked mussels, brown rice, Stella Rosa
Snack: Hawaiian Host milk chocolate-covered macadamia
Dinner: Spinach lasagna, sausage rolls from Pizza Hut
Dessert: Pecan pie

Monday
Breakfast: Longanisa, fried egg, garlic rice, coffee with low-fat milk
Lunch: Grilled cheese sandwich
Dessert: World Market 64% cacao dark chocolate with sea salt
Pre-workout: Low-fat milk
Dinner: Lechon, ginisang monggo, brown rice, sausage roll
Dessert: Ube-queso ice cream