I am a 33 year old married guy with no kids. I've always had a fascination with playing mad scientist as a kid whether I was trying to cook food or (dangerously) mixing random stuff in the bathroom. I wasn't nearly as good at science as I needed to become a mad scientist, so I've settled on my chosen career path (lawyer) and satiate the mad scientist kid in me by cooking tasty food and homebrewing beer.
I was slightly overweight for most of my childhood. I knocked off the weight in college and then put it back on. And then some. I decided I had enough of it, started working out and paying attention to what I ate. I shed most of the weight and have kept it off, for the most part. I'll never have single digit body fat. I don't have the metabolism for it. I'm comfortable being slim. Besides, it's really hard to like beer as much as I do and keep washboard abs.
When I was trying to lose weight after my post-college enlargement, I started to understand how bad a lot of food is. Excessive sugar, sodium, fat, etc. that I don't need in my diet. Cooking for myself was the only way I could effectively control what went into my body. "Diet food" really isn't a very good option most of the time because it's usually not all that great tasting or great for you. Instead, I focused on calorie counting, controlling what food comes into my house and cooking my own meals. I usually cook my food for lunch and dinner for the week during the weekend, that way there is never an excuse to stop for fast food or eat something unhealthy when there is already healthy, delicious food at home.
I do not and have never subscribed to any particular diet. No Atkins, south beach, paleo, etc. Just eating within the caloric needs for my body with minimal sugar and sodium. I try to balance my carbs, fat and protein intake towards weight maintenance and slightly towards muscle building in my sad attempts to build some muscle. I substitute healthy food options in a lot of recipes to limit calories. After eating fairly healthy for years I do not care for foods slathered in fat, salt and processed items of questionable nutritional value. I prefer to use healthy alternatives when it makes sense and eat food that makes me feel energized rather than ready for a nap.
Over the past decade or so I've accumulated lots of recipes that I've adjusted to my tastes over time. They are spread out over loose sheets of paper, notebooks, Word documents and browser bookmarks. I do a bad job of writing down my adjustments so I never really know what my own recipes are. I also have a similar collection of recipes of my cheat meals on the weekends and special occasions that I cook for myself and my wife. It's an even more disorganized mess, especially since I have really chopped up the recipes to my taste but again, never writing down my adjustments.
So I decided since I already run one blog on blogger about my homebrewing, I could just add a second blog of all my recipes so I can consolidate them and mark them up with my changes. Maybe some people would stroll along and find some use in them, too. It made the most sense to carve up the recipes between healthy and not healthy and I will try to use sparing labels to identify the type of food to make navigation as easy as possible. When it makes sense I will note how to clean up some of the less healthy recipes as much as can be done without losing too much flavor.
I am not a chef, not a doctor, not a nutritionist, not anybody qualified to give you medical or dietary advice. Any commentary about health and nutrition are my lay opinions and generally only reflect my own health choices. If you are considering a change in diet, you should consult your doctor and/or nutritionist instead of some random guy on the internet. What worked for me to lose weight or maintain weight may not be right for you. It may even be dangerous, depending upon your particular medical condition.
No comments:
Post a Comment