I reward myself with three things- tech, nice clothes and food.

Since I really need to think about retirement, I’ve put a sensible brake on the 1st two and as for the third, it’s kind of tricky, very tricky. In the Philippines, you can eat cheap, and it’s healthier. A bit of rice, heaps of vegetables and fish. I could live on that with pork barbecue and lechon once a month.

But eating healthy in New Zealand is expensive. You can count with your ten fingers, how many vegetables there are at any given time and even less in winter when your best bet is frozen. Seafood is not a staple and more of a luxury unless you were willing to rent a boat or go on a charter to catch your ow which is ridiculous. I love salmon but it’s not something you can eat every day and I’ve seen the price go up and up and up since 2008.

I avoid processed carbs, sugars and some fats (!), so essentially, my diet has come to consist of nothing but espresso in the morning; there was a couple of weeks at the start of this year’s lockdown when I had an oat-meal run, but I got sick of that; I would have the occasional bread, but would pick those fancy sprouted variants; for lunch, the previous night’s left-overs if there’s any would do; more coffee during the day and then dinner which is normally a protein and some carbs like rice or vegetables. I think I average less than 2,000 calories a day.

It’s a bit more than that during the weekend where I do have a proper lunch (sushi or a meal called Katsubi which is like sumo wrestler food but with more meats and veggies and less or no carbs; and then for dinner we rotate around chicken (baked chicken wings or air-fried), pork (belly) or beef roasts. And snacks! I love what they call crisps (potato chips) which I’ve started to lessen and ice-cream- I’m not completely lactose-intolerant and can finish off a whole container.

And because I don’t get enough vegetables, I’ve taken to taking fibre supplements along with four other supplements which I’ve been taking for the better part of 15-20 years.

But I’m hungry..I’m a hungry man…