Establish a Practice, "Eat In", part 2

OK, so I'll fix my last thought and then go on and on.....

"Eating in" is not a punishment, it's a gift.  Your life is a gift from God, your health is a gift from yourself!  There, that's better!

When I write about this subject it is relation to living permanently at a healthy bodyweight.  Everybody has the freedom to decide to eat out, or rely on ready made foods all the time, whether it's just because they like to, and can afford to, or whether they don't know how to prepare and cook food them selves, don't like to, don't care to, think they're too busy, or admit they're too lazy...everybody lives their own lives by their own standards.  But if you weigh more than you want to, and you don't want to spend the rest of your life that way, then something has got to give!

Let me also finish a couple of thoughts about ready made and purchased foods...  There are a ton of really good options available, especially if you live in an area that has health conscious grocery stores, markets, and restaurants. It is completely possible to lose weight and never cook a damn thing.  It's not the food itself that is making you, or keeping you fat, it's the kinds of foods, and how much you eat, especially high calorie foods.  Markets like Whole Foods make their ready to eat meals with whole ingredients...much like a gourmet cook, real butter, real cream, real cheese, real chocolate, lots of olive oil...."artisan" breads, cookies, cakes and pastry are as high in calories as Hostess Twinkie's are, just with no fake fats or sugars....healthy?  Slightly...maybe...depends on how much you eat!  Fast food?  Soda?  Well, sorry, if you want to eat 1500 calories of that crap everyday to lose weight then knock yourself out.

I've lived both ways.  For 41 years of my life my bodyweight went up, it went down, it went up, it went down, it went up, and up, and up....  Up to that point in my life no matter what I weighed there was one common thread...I didn't know how to feed myself by cooking and preparing my own meals.  Sure as I mentioned, you can, like I did, go on a reduced calorie diet with purchased ready made foods, or you you can "snack" yourself skinny with rice cakes, cans of tuna, and some purchased carrot sticks...oh, and let's not forget the "Lean Cuisine's", but it will more than likely not get you the eating habits you need to establish a permanent change in your situation.  Notice I say "more than likely not" because truthfully I think anything is possible, but why not have some good food while at the same time lose weight, take control, get healthier, live longer, be happier...oh and become a badass home cook!

I can promise you it is worlds apart.  Let me again repeat an important point....if you are of a healthy weight and you don't want to change a thing then all of this is irrelevant.  Healthy weight people have other things they worry about, eating out or eating in is not one of them.  Healthy weight people naturally don't overeat, they may have a natural feeling for when to stop...I don't know...

January 5, 2005, I dived in head first completely immersing myself with no choice of eating out.  BUT as much as it seems as if it all happened overnight it was years in the making....  Without planning or thinking about it, my interest in learning how to cook years earlier had become a practice, the practice of feeding myself and my family.  Cooking and preparing food is about establishing a practice, and everybody can start somewhere.  I believe everybody knows how to cook and/or prepare many good foods and/or meals without a recipe, and it's those foods and meals to which a beginner starts to build a the foundation of independence.  Cooking without recipes but with methods and technique should be the focus.  Like "strength is a skill" that can be learned through regular and consistent training (practice), so is cooking.

More to come.....gotta get up early, very early, to train.  Oh, and the turkey came out fab...oh and the beef stew I made this morning...I can't wait to share that one with you...get your PC ready!