A calorie deficit exercise

A bit of context

Right now as I am writing these lines I am in a coworking space in the middle of a rice farm in the city of Hoi An, Vietnam.

We have been coming here for about 4 days now to work, as it is a lot easier to focus here than in the hotel room, especially since Gab needs to work Pacific Time, so he has meetings sometimes going until 3 AM Vietnam time.

I am coming here with him because I want to mentally support him. It is too hard to work after 11 PM, honestly.

So I am doing all sorts of things to stimulate my brain so I do NOT fall asleep, including taking photos of the lizards on the window 😀

Back to the story

For those who don't know me: I am trying to gain mental and physical health after a long time of ignoring it. Right now I am battling with many things, one of them is getting back to my normal weight after all the weight I gained through ignorance.

Facing the truth in the mirror

I am at the calorie control stage. It makes me ashamed to say that, but I was not aware of how much fat I was gaining around my body, especially around my waistline. I only started noticing it when I looked at myself in full-length mirrors that are installed everywhere in our hotel suite.

Now I can see what I have become and I had no idea! It surprised me how much I was trying to unconsciously hide the truth from myself!

I will definitely get two full-length mirrors and install one of them in the bathroom and the other one in the room when we get back home.

It was painful to know about it, but I had to face it! I decided not to buy bigger clothes to hide my fat from me, but instead install big mirrors and be aware of what is going on in my body. No truth hiding.

My plans to eat fewer calories than I burn

My plan is simple: I need a calorie deficit, which means I need to consume fewer calories than I burn per day.

But hell, this is not easy to follow. My body is now used to feeling full all the time. And feeling full all the time literally means gaining weight.

Now I need to train my body to get used to being a bit hungry, not extreme hunger but just a small deficit, which will grow over time.

My body panics when I feel hunger

This is another shocking fact I discovered about myself. The moment I feel hunger, my body panics. I get a strong feeling that I'm in danger, like a fear that: your blood sugar is going to drop so low you're gonna pass out. So rush and eat something NOW or you will be in big trouble.

Eating journal

It is hard to believe how ignorant I have been about my internal impulses. It feels like I have been blind. I am saying that because I did not even know about this feeling of panic that comes with hunger. I only learned about it after I started the eating journal.

The language of my body

I learned this lesson that I need to speak the language of my body. It doesn't understand the comforting words I tell myself. So, in order to come up with a solution for this panic reaction, I keep a candy close by, so the moment my body goes into panic mode, I take the candy. The small candy does not have too many calories or sugar, it only proves to my body that it is not gonna perish.

My hope is, going through little hunger here and there proves to my body , IN ITS OWN LANGUAGE, that being under budget is not going to kill me 🙂

This is it for this subject.

What’s up with me today

Tonight is going to be another night in the coworking space, but we are coming back home earlier than last night. Maybe around 1:00 AM. But honestly I really like the vibe here when everyone is gone. Last night, it was a bit chilly and humid. The sound of the crickets in the rice field was incredible . It was so dreamy. I wished I was not that sleepy so I could enjoy the environment and its unique vibe more, but I was half asleep. I had enough energy to get the essentials done. Hehe.

Tonight it is not going to be better. I need to get used to the new sleep patterns that match Gab’s working hours.

Here are some photos from today:

Gab took this photo from the office when I went outside for a break

The road to the coworking space passes through the rice fields, so we see many amazing things happening there. This scene is of them harvesting the rice.

Another view from the road. Here the workers are drying the harvested rice. As you see, sometimes their mats cover the entire road, so scooters and bikes have to drive through the rice. It is common in Vietnam.

Have a great time 🙂 Talk soon.

April 29th, 2026

Hoi An, Vietnam