Mothers show love in different ways. Like many of you, my own mom showered me with affection by cooking my favorite dishes, buying stuff for me, helping me with adulting, and supporting some of my questionable life choices. But she sadly passed away two years ago, and the only way I can communicate with her now is in my dreams.

Mommy and I agreed on a lot of things, but one issue that caused a fair amount of friction between us was weight loss. Before she got cancer, she had always been a very healthy person. She loved to travel and frequently worked out. She knew how to take care of her body and never looked her age. In fact, she was 55 years old in the above photo.

I, on the other hand, indulged in things that tickled my taste buds. My home always had good food. For example, I couldn’t eat my grandfather’s killer sinigang without multiple servings of rice and the fatty pork belly. Whenever I needed fast food, Chickenjoy was my go-to dish.

Even with heart disease being common from both sides of my family, my excessive eating habits persisted. I got worse when I started working, and it gave me the girdle that I am now struggling to shrink. My mother repeatedly pleaded with me to change my lifestyle. But the pleasure I got from food always overwhelmed my desire to exercise and lose weight.

Around six years ago—and apparently desperate for me to get into shape—my mother promised me one thing. If I managed to reach my target weight, she’d buy me a Hyundai Accent diesel hatchback. It seemed like a good deal. The Korean subcompact was a lot more frugal than the Subaru Impreza I was driving at the time. And there was a lot to like about the 126 turbocharged horses and the six-speed manual transmission.

However, even with that, I still found ways to sort of justify my food-heavy lifestyle. I thought that my mom’s promise was too good to be true anyway. We already had two vehicles in the family, and a third one would pointlessly burden my parents financially. I shrugged off the offer thinking it was just a load of nonsense, and I never worked hard to see if I’d really get the Accent hatchback.

In hindsight, I should’ve heeded my mother’s pleas back then. I should’ve been serious about losing weight even without the promise of a vehicle. Actually, the Hyundai hatchback might have been a small price to pay for my mom to see me in shape. I struggled to keep myself together as I wrote this piece because I wished I had pursued the things that would’ve made my mother very happy.

Mom loved me to the moon and back. And I will always regret not being able to put a smile on her face by seeing me in the peak of my health. Even though she’s gone, I hope that I can finally push myself to adopt a healthy lifestyle for my own sake.