The Background and Concept

Enjoy eating junk food? Yep, we all do.

Do you search out your favorite fried food like a one-legged seagull searches out a hot french fry?

Does your mouth begin to water like Carrie Bradshaw in a Manolo Blahnik store, in anticipation of the weekend after you have been eating healthy all week? We have all been there..

Including me.

Growing up as a young kid in Australia, I was never too far away from something sugary or loaded with chocolate. My sweet tooth developed early and it developed big. You see I, like so may children, was a picky eater. I  refused to eat or even look at vegetables or anything healthy and immediately squished up my face at the thought of consuming anything green.

I developed a hatred for eating dinner, the kind of hatred that only develops amongst members of a girl band pop group after too many years of singing together. I often would not finish my meals and my mother would not let me leave the table until I did. So most nights read like an over-hyped Vegas boxing match  - my mother in one corner, me in the other, sitting there in complete insubordination and using any mind game tactics I could to get the hell away from that dinner table; including, but not limited to, convulsively crying or sitting in complete silence for hours upon end.

Whilst I hated dinner, I found enjoyment an hour or so later (and throughout all of the day for that matter) by inhaling a handful of chocolate coated cookies or candy bars and washing it all down with coca cola. Thus at an early age began my relationship with chocolate and junk food, or as I like to call it "naughty food".

Growing up through my teenage years, my mother started to chip away at my picky eating habits by introducing different types of food, cooking the food differently, or disguising vegetables in my favorite foods. Suddenly my mashed potatoes started changing color, and my mother insisted they were just "Orange potatoes". Little did I know I was consuming pumpkin. Nice one mom.

Then I hit my 20's. I moved out from home, moved away from my childhood place of birth to the big city, and got my first job in a corporate environment. All of a sudden I was thrust into a world of food and social settings I was by no means prepared for. I was invited to staff and client lunches as well as  dinners to restaurants that served types of food I didn't even know how to pronounce. I would go  through the supermarket isles looking for anything I can microwave for dinner, and spend my lunch breaks at McDonalds eating chicken nuggets and fries.

But changes started to happen.....

I would try something that one of my colleagues would be eating, and started experimenting with foods I would not normally order. And like most boys in their 20's, I started to become more conscious of my body. I would head to the beach and see other 20 something males with their shirts off and muscular bodies and wonder why mine didn't look like that. So, i joined a gym and started working out like a biggest loser contestant on a last chance workout.

I started The Atkins Diet and like anything I seem to do in my life, I did it to the extreme - completely cutting out carbs during the week. Whilst I saw initial results with dropping some childhood puppy fat, I had no energy and felt as beat as a red headed step child. I found it difficult to develop any substantial muscle in the gym, and it caused me to binge eat anything carb-laden I could get my hands on the weekends.

I would arrive at Monday, eat healthy again and feel copious amounts of guilt for all the naughty food I ate on the weekend and therefore increased the amount of time spent on the treadmill.

Now don't get me wrong, I have never really been overweight. But I was always conscious of that extra 5 - 10 pounds that I may be carrying around though (aren't we all), or that little bit of extra muffin top that may just be peering over my gym shorts.

After years of yo yo dieting like this, spending loads of money on muscle supplements and not really getting anywhere, I did some research online and came across a book that changed the way I eat and look at food. Burn the Fat feed the Muscle is a book designed to educate people on how to literally do what the title says - burn fat, and increase muscle. Its a comprehensive look on what to eat, when to eat it, and how to work out, all in a natural way for your benefit.

It taught me the difference between carbohydrates, proteins and fats, why they are all good and necessary for you, but most importantly which ones to eat and which ones to avoid. I learnt the difference between complex and simple carbohydrates, their impact on weight loss and muscle building, why your body needs a constant supply of protein and nutrients and why you need to eat small meals every 2 - 3 hours.

I stopped bingeing on weekends and found that I felt incredible. I didn't have to over compensate with cardio at the gym and my body thanked me for not overloading it with a weekend of sugar and fat. I began thinking clearer, sleeping better and waking up more refreshed in the morning, and saw huge gains in strength at the gym.

So with this revelation of stopping eating naughty foods and seeing and feeling the incredible results, I thought to myself; what if I started adopting other healthy habits? What if I not only stopped eating naughty food but sort out healthy and nutritious food, their benefits and recipes? What if I tried to eliminate all chemicals and artificial ingredients from my food? What would happen if took this approach of healthy living into other areas of my life by researching healthy practices and products?...

Thus begins my journey, and consequently my blog journal, into this world of healthy living. Follow me as I detail my trials and tribulations, the new practices I adopt, whether they work for me or not, and whether they may potentially work for you.

I don't know where this road takes me or whether it is a short term "project" or a longer term way of living, but either way im going to find out... and now so are you.

Healthy Boy x