The Nine Percent Solution

Circa 1996, when I was in my mid-twenties, I decided, already for the umpteenth time, to get in shape, and to develop a healthy relationship with food. Here’s the strategy I chose:

• I became a hardcore vegan. No meat, eggs, dairy, or fish.
• I made my food from scratch as much as possible. Which, since, I was a part-time student supported by my parents, was a lot.
• I avoided fats of any kind. Most of my cooking used recipes from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest. At the back is an index of vegan recipes, and another index of fat-free recipes. I methodically went through them both, creating my own modified index of recipes that were both fat-free and vegan, and those were the recipes that I made.
• I worked out for several hours per day, six days per week. I used the exercise program in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Encyclopedia Of Modern Bodybuilding (now apparently out of print). Read the rest of this entry »