Food kick

I seem to be on a bit of a food theme in my latest blog posts. It was bound to happen at some point since I spend so much time preparing and eating food. I'll try to use this post to get my food and eating thoughts out of my head, so I can move on to other subjects.

Weighing in
So, I unashamedly admit that I'm a bit of a lightweight for a guy. With my genetics and build I'm just not going to put on much more mass without putting on some flab. At my heaviest, I was 183lbs at some point in college. Then I managed to drop my weight to 132lbs by the time I started graduate school. I went back up to 165lbs (knee injury, no cardio, lots of lifting and eating). Now I'm back to slim 140ish pounds. Problem is that I think my peak athletic weight is closer to 145lbs. At the moment I've got the reverse problem from most people: I need to gain weight. And no, I don't plan on eating twinkies and cheesecake to up my weight. I'm still far too vain to let my body fat percentage creep up.

While I'm thinking of it, what the heck is up with the 100 calorie twinkies? Honestly, dropping the serving size to be 100 calories doesn't make the snack any healthier. You could probably save some cash and cut down on packaging by just cutting a regular twinkie in half (or thirds, whatever) and save the other portion for later (hopefully for later in the century and not later in the day). They're so artificial; it's not like that other half will go bad.

Bread
I've been baking quite a lot of bread recently. For the first time in my life I've gone through two entire bags of flour in under a month, and it actually makes sense for me to now buy bulk active yeast instead of packets of the instant yeast. I won't say that it saves me time, but it sure is a heck of a lot healthier, cheaper, and far better tasting than store bought.

So, my latest baking creations were cinnamon raisin oatmeal bread (with flax for extra fiber and omega-3 goodness) and cornbread from Alton Brown's "I'm just here for more food" book. The cornbread is a little decadent. I don't remember using that much oil in past recipes, but hey, I figured you might as well trust the Southern boy for a Southern food. That cornbread was super tasty, and was a surprisingly big hit at the Super Bowl party we went to last night. That being said, I'll probably go back to the lighter version of the recipe next time.

Eating Habits
Gen and I have pretty healthy eating habits. That's probably a big part of why I've been able to keep my body fat low. We prepare the vast majority of our own food, which is in line with my thoughts of having a connection to our food. Yet for all of my talk of avoiding processed foods, I just can't shake one item of junk food from my diet: tortilla chips. I really like the crunchy texture and salty taste. Add in some guacamole and salsa, and I may very well pig out on chips.

My diet isn't perfect, but that's ok with me. Borrowing a line from The Happiness Project blog, I "don't let perfect be the enemy of good." My diet is close enough to where I want it to be, so I don't sweat the chips too much. It's a work in progress. Even though I'll never quite reach it, I can still strive for the ideal and reap all the benefits. Though given my love of corn chips, maybe I should consider giving them up for a while; in the abstainer vs moderator spectrum, I'm not always a good moderator of chip consumption.