I am not a foodie. Nor am I a gourmand. I like food. I eat a lot of food. Too much, probably. Definitely the wrong kinds. But with more than a decade of restaurant experience (including some of the finest dining in town) and a few years of Cooks Illustrated subscriptions behind me, I’m a great cook, and I do qualify as more knowledgeable than the average bear.
And yet …
For years I’ve had an uneasy relationship with food. I often hate eating. I hate the trouble of deciding what to eat, I hate the guilt that so many wonderful foods bring with them, and I hate the eventual physical results of making repeated easy decisions about food. (I’m pretty sure that road leads down a body image path I’m still not ready to ponder, so let’s steer back to the matter at hand.)
Recently, I’ve had to good fortune to be spending more of my time doing things I really want to do, and my life has been thrown completely out of whack because of it. I need to find balance. That means a lot of things, but one of things it means for a guy like me is that I need to figure out how to stay healthy. I need exercise, yes, and there are gyms for that. 60 minutes, 3 times a week, right? Easy. Formulaic. I do a little yoga, I know how to blow off steam when I need to, and I spend most of my time enhancing my healthy mind. So what’s left? I gotta get right with food.
Do you know what I mean? I don’t know what to eat anymore! I spent 6 months doing computerized calorie counting a couple years ago. (Before I started, I couldn’t even have told you how many calories per day was too much.) That helped, that gave me a lot of good info, but it also led me down the frozen food aisle, to an icebox full of Lean Cuisines. Ugh. You don’t have to look at the ingredients to know that ain’t right.
I’m a smart guy, but I’m a busy guy. I’m a sensible guy, but I don’t have the extra energy to expend on figuring out how to eat well. At least, not in the ways that seem readily available to me now. I need a new plan, one that doesn’t stress me out, or make me feel bad about myself, or take up more time than I have to spare.
Are you an experienced foodie, with a great, dynamic meal plan that keeps you happy and healthy? Then this post and the ones to follow might not be for you (though I do need your advice, so please get into those comments).
Are you a novice? So am I. I’ve bought a few books, visited Whole Foods, and executed a few Google searches. And now I’m gonna take you with me as I try to figure all this out.
Welcome to Sane Eating in Columbus, courtesy of Indie Columbus dot com.