Food & Iron

Part I:  I am an ex-fatkid. 

 I always loved food, and always will.  I was born chubby, grew up chubbier, and ended up breaking, not tipping, the scales at 260 pounds.  This was nobody’s fault but mine.  6’4”, two hundred and sixty pounds:  great stats for an offensive lineman, not so much for someone who lifted a couple of times a week.  During my years at school I lived with my friends I knew from the hockey team.  Some of them spent some time in the NHL, and to them my nickname was “big guy”.  This was not a compliment.

I am better now.  I do not rearrange floor boards when I walk, and my head is only gigantic rather than pumpkin sized.  During the course of my weight-loss I worked manual labor and still went to the gym during all the time, and what I changed was my cooking and eating habits, not the frequency or intensity of my workouts.  I am now down to 205 pounds.  I feel better every day, and all of my clothes (including my shoes) are smaller and less than two years old.  I work out roughly the same amount of time I did when I was a fatty.  In fact, if anything, I lift less intensely than before.

I originally started cooking years ago in an attempt to eat healthier and shed some of my formidable size. My first recipes were embarrassingly simple and pretty all around bad:  grilled, defrosted chicken breasts covered in whatever stale, pre-mixed seasonings I could afford.  I stood in front of my parents’ giant cast-iron grill, overcooking the hell out of anything I could get my giant ham hands on, and somehow loving every minute of it.  My years of cooking taught me two things:

1.        Cooking is a science
2.        Flavoring is an art

Part II:  So Why the blog?

Make Awesome Food

While reading about weight-lifting, inevitably one comes across recipes, and what I can tell you about them  is that they are all...uniformly...terrible.  It's almost all crap, because the large amount of people who are into working out view food as fuel.

Avoid Injuries

Most of the work-out advice forums are filled with ex-football players (play through the PAIN!) or people on steroids.  They give bad, bad advice.  My workout advice will be which exercises to NOT do.

 

            Lose Weight
           
            There are a million different diets out there.  All the real scientific studies coming out now support a lower carbohydrate, restricted sugar, healthy fat diet.  Except for trans-fats, which are still terri-bad for you.
             On the other hand, many workout diets demand stunningly precise caloric and macro-nutrient splits.  Most of us aren't cutting down to 4% body fat for a show; we just want to look better naked..  You can always get more complicated, but starting is the most important part.

So to sum up:

1.        Make Awesome Food.
2.        Avoid Injuries
3.        Lose Weight

My name is Stefan, and I’m here to help.