During the winter intersession, I took a course called “Fitness for Life.” It was supposed to be a physical education class, where we’d be doing a different physical activity every day. Instead, I had the one professor who took the name of the course literally. He took a holistic approach to it, trying to increase our fitness to every aspect of life. I can understand the reasoning behind it, too. Eventually, problems in different areas of life can lead to incredible amounts of stress, which, ultimately, will take a physical toll on you.
That being the case, my friend and I decided to improve our fitness. We began to play racquetball every day. Even if we haven’t improved our skills that much since then, we’ve enjoyed ourselves and spent hour-long blocks of time exercising. It’s been wonderful, and has made me happy.
Then there’s the dieting part of fitness. No more junk food! No more overeating! No more fatty foods! No more greasy foods! No more salty foods! No more sugar! No more fast food! Most of these changes seemed acceptable when I began my journey into fitness. Of course, I wasn’t really happy about most of them. After all, for the entire 20 years of my life thus far, I haven’t been on any significant diets, I haven’t really been careful with what I’ve eaten (in fact, my eating habits have been somewhat unhealthy, according to the rules of healthy eating.) and I have not suffered any consequences for it. Hell, I haven’t even gained weight since I was 15 or 16! Why should my diet be limited?
However, I did see the logic in such dietary restrictions. I’m getting close to that point in my life where everything I do will catch up to my body very quickly. That is, at some point within the next few years, I will no longer have the metabolism of the teenage boy I once was. So I have to be careful with what I eat now, or the habits will be impossible to lose in the future.
Imagine how happy I was, then, to find out that I did not have to leave some of my favorite parts of my diet behind! Yes, I will have to start eating slightly smaller portions, but I won’t have to give up my copious amounts of hot sauce! (The sweating and clearing of the sinuses caused by hot sauce is good for you.) Almost as good is the fact that I don’t have to give up my love for salt – assuming that I use non-iodized sea salt, of course.
Having found all that out, I came to a very important conclusion – I must eat unhealthy foods to maintain my mental health. Now, that doesn’t mean I want to go out of my way to eat things that are bad for me, nor does it mean that I would even eat them all the time. I just mean to say that I don’t want the option taken away from me. If I want a bacon double cheeseburger, I’m going to have it, and that’s that. If I don’t eat foods that I want to eat once in while (including those that are bad for me), I will go crazy, and that, ultimately, is what’s most important; who are we, and what do we have, if we aren’t happy with our lives? I refuse to be unhappy with my life, no matter the situation.
It is with that mindset that I stumbled upon This is why you’re fat – a food blog dedicated to collecting recipes (and pictures of the final products of those recipes) that would serve as the caloric intake of a small country for an entire year. Nearly everything on the site seems tantalizingly and awesomely delicious, albeit deadly. I will be attempting to make several of the things from this site, for they will make me happy. After all, who could resist a sausage-egg-and-cheese sandwich on a glazed cinnamon roll?:
The epitome of deliciousness at breakfast. A sausage, egg and cheese sandwich on a glazed cinnamon roll.
It is with respect to this mindset that I’ve chosen today’s non-Springsteen song of the day: “It’s My Life,” by Bon Jovi. Although I realize he’s probably not talking about food, he is talking about choosing his own path when he says “It’s my life / it’s now or never / I ain’t gonna live forever / I just wanna live while I’m alive.” And that’s exactly what I mean to say with this post – we aren’t going to live forever, and we certainly will not be able to enjoy food forever, so let’s enjoy it while we can. And even for those of who are serious dieters for one reason or another – you can let go once in a while; it’s ok! (PS – it’s an awesome music video.)
Today’s Springsteen song of the day has a similar relation to my mindset, in that it’s got an almost “I’m going to do whatever I want to do to make me happy, and I want to share it with you!” attitude. Aside from that, it’s a really awesome song, and you can tell how incredible a performer he really is from watching the video I’ve provided a link to. Having said that, the song in question is “Out In The Street,” off of The River. The specific lyric I’m thinking of: ”when I’m out in the street / I walk the way I wanna walk / when I’m out in the street / I talk the way I wanna talk / Baby, out in the street I don’t feel sad or blue / Baby, out in the street, I’ll be waiting for you!” Well, world, like I said before – I’m going to eat what I want to eat, and that’s the end of the story.
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Having said what I needed to say for the day, I bid you adieu. Good night, world.
