As I’ve gotten older, it’s been harder to lose weight. I don’t have a chemical imbalance, genetic disposition to gaining weight, or problems differentiating advertising from reality. I just have habits. It’s on me. No one else.

So while struggling to lose weight, I finally found a way of thinking about eating that has allowed me to enjoy eating, not feel starved, and still keep a low caloric intake. I won’t say how long I’ve been doing it, but it did take a few weeks of experimenting and creating certain steps that broke me out of bad habits.

I haven’t accomplished anything great or amazing. My girlfriend Kelly puts me to shame with her amazing discipline. When she wanted to get into better shape, she had an extreme amount of willpower to keep exercising and try different programs until she found something that worked for her.

My only accomplishment is now feel like I have control of when I’m hungry. Since I finished the habit breaking steps I created, I’ve not had an urge to snack on anything junky. When I get hungry, at say 2pm, if I can’t find an apple or banana, I get a nice big glass of ice water. At home, where we have apples all the time, I take a lot of enjoyment in snacking on an apple. Just the apple. No peanut butter, sugar, or syrup added. Sometimes I even eat the seeds.

One thing I have noticed often when doing my grocery shopping, is that so much of what we eat is absolute garbage. It’s not much more than oil, infused with air, with sugar piled on top. Compare the weight of a pack of Twinkies with an apple. Just air infused garbage.

This blog is going to be a continual investigation into how awful certain kinds of foods are for you. Each post will be a different food. I will try to post a new food every few days, complete with the necessary nutrional information. This isn’t meant to be a vanity blog. I want to know more about the food that is out there. As I see it, this blog has two purposes:

1) To educate those who want to know how bad certain foods are

2) To force myself to get educated on how bad some foods really are.

Some of the foods will be obvious, but with not so obvious takes on them. Even if no one ever reads this blog but me, I will still come out ahead.

As a note, I want to say I am a vegan dieter. I will not be trying many of these foods myself. However, being a vegan has its challenges. Vegan style foods are hard to come by, and I have an inkling that I will be surprised what some vegan goods contain. However, I am a full supporter of the vegan and vegetarian food movement. For economic, social, and moral reasons, I no longer thing a meat filled diet can be sustained on this planet. More on that later, for now I will be going food by food.