Showing posts with label goal development. Show all posts
Showing posts with label goal development. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Nutrition 101

I seem to write this article over and over again, without ever getting to the end of it, or never complete enough to finally press the publish button. So this is my next attempt.

This blog is all about healthy eating – eating for sustained energy throughout the afternoon / cooking with nutrient-full ingredients / cooking without chemical additives.

The concept behind Low GI food fits into my (personal) diet paradigm quite nicely – I couldn’t really care less about losing weight (although that’s Wifey’s focus), what I want is to be energetic throughout my day; to have my mind alert and responsive; to get regular exercise with the goal of slowly becoming stronger, fitter and more active. Low GI foods = slow release of sugars = sustained energy. I have a feeling it relates exclusively to carb’s and sugars (fats and proteins (I guess)). I should add calcium and omega-3 for brain performance. Omit simple carbs and sugars (for example SUGAR, you dimwit). Eat complex carbs – wholewheat bread; oats and cereals for brekkie; ummm, and stuff.

Wifey wants to lose weight. Really this is exclusively related to eating fewer calories than you’re burning. Simple as that. (I truly apologize if my attitude to weight-loss is to brush it off as unimportant, it’s just because I have one of those bodies that doesn’t change shape no matter what I abuse it with, except that I’m kind of a skinny runt these days.) So for Vix it’s a case of increasing the amount (and intensity) of exercise she gets, and eating foods that make her feel full and give her the energy she needs without adding too many calories. She also needs as many anti-oxidant and vitamin-type foods, because she gets sick way too often.



Back to me for a little bit – I need to be dramatically improving my exercise habits as well. I’d like to focus on muscle building a fair bit (in order to get bigger). I want Vix to focus on muscle-building a bit so that her muscles get stronger and burn more calories when at rest. Both of us could do with regular time on the exercise bike – I know that this isn’t actually supposed to help that much, but it’s a simple start to get us into the habit of exercising. Exercise (especially the muscle building kind) needs protein to build the muscle tissue with – protein is to come from lean meat, low-fat dairy, and eggs. Please note that all of the above are also sauces of nasty saturated fat, which is to be avoided, so really, you’re screwed. Actually you’re not screwed – fat is pretty easy to remove from a solid piece of meat, and while it clearly adds flavour (think fillet versus entrecote), that flavour can be added with rubs, marinades and other sources.



So then, the plan...



Breakfast is supposed to be packed with slow carbs, a bit of protein, and a variety of fruits and veggies. Simple method – oats with milk, nuts and fruit (fresh or dried) sprinkled over the top. Complicated or dumb methods – (1) whole-grain bread roll with poached egg and coleslaw; (2) BLT salad as tried before (with avo); (3) actually that’s all I can think of right now.



Snack food is to be fruit (fibre, nutrients, and stuff); nuts (good fat, protein, and stuff); and stuff (stuff).



Lunch - I dunno, this is why I never finish writing this article.



OK, the disclaimer is that lunch and dinner (and sometimes breakfast), are things which require a healthy dose of variation, and that’s what this website is all about. I’ll write again when I’ve got a decent lunch and dinner recipe. I’m going to start by checking out mediterrasian.com again, which I haven’t done for a while.



Sunday, October 4, 2009

The experiment

Okay, so maybe writing a cookery lesson as my initial blog was not the sure-fire way to fame and fortune that I thought it might be - but it did at least get me writing. But for anything to come of this exercise, it needs a purpose.
So ... Goals:

Many people use blogs for personal branding. To sell myself as something. But what something?

I am a young architect, interested in sustainable design, but also with the practicalities of the the construction project, and the business of property development.

I enjoy cooking, and have been steadily increasing my repetoire and skill level recently. I reckon my experience would be helpful for other beginner cooks to get into the swing of things. I also have a relatively new family, and so I'm slowly trying to change our eating habits from the fast food of our student days to something healthier.

I garden a bit, but only a bit, and maybe if I were to write about gardening it would fit better into a discussion either on architecture (landscape design, and important finishing touches to a project), or on cooking (so far I only actually grow some herbs and vegetables, specifically so that I have these things on hand when I need them in a recipe).

To just blog about life in general seems like the lamest option. KingMuzza the renaissance man - cooking and gardening and looking after the family, while designing high-class hotels on a tropical island in the Indian Ocean. Might be interesting, but with all the information streaming over the web, why would anybody want to read that? After all, I do have Facebook for communicating with friends and family.

The advantage to writing a personal journal of life is that it is writing practice. It could be the first steps / experiments / exercises in book writing. Being a novelist one day in the distance future is a romantic option, but its like I have any ideas for novels. I do have at least 2 books festering in the back of mind which are architecture related -

  • An in-depth study into the architectural history of Mauritius - and a reading into the culture and history of the country through its architecture.
  • A discussion / best-practice guide on the everyday life of getting a quality building produced.

Further, a blog is a practice exercise / first step towards producing fully-fledged web-pages. Vicki (the future wife) is busy opening a scrapbooking shop, and with it wants to set up a web page - for marketing / a community of scrapbookers to exchange ideas and be integral to the running of the physical space shop / and a future mail-order shop. The idea is that getting this blog online and functional is a test case (content management, marketing of a blog, i'm not sure what else) - so that one day when I do set up Vicki's page, I can effectively market it straight away, without the expected teething problems.

Perhaps all these ideas will require more than one blog, but more likely the ideas can now be filtered down to their essentials and get this blog producing something of value.

As an aside - I haven't figured out yet how to make the blog visible. I tried searching Google and Delicious after writing my first post, but I couldn't find any sign of it. This might take some research / experiments.