Why My Tiny Kitchen

Welcome 2012!

 Finally.

2010 sucked.

It did. You know it. Well, at least it was for me and for a lot of people I love. Cancer, surgery, suicide, pain and suffering were the hallmarks of this crap-ass year. I’ll spare you the morbid details, but suffice to say, 2010 was like a bad Victorian melodrama. I’ve never been more glad to put a year in my rear-view mirror, and I think 2010 felt the same way about me.

Enter 2011:

Something had to give. After the shock that was 2010, I found myself floundering, lost. What did I want? Who was I? I barely recognized myself: pudgy, depressed, thwarted in my career, unsure of my personal life, insecure and unfocused. 2011 started fresh and I coasted along, relieved to have some time to recover. Eventually, I began spreading my wings and exploring, including taking responsibility for my lifestyle’s effect on my mental and physical well being. I was back in the gym, back in class, back in the game.

But by May, I began to feel stuck again. I wasn’t making the progress on my waistline that I had been in March. And with an advanced birthday looming in August, I decided at I wanted more than anything to see my abs again. In that moment, I was ready to receive a truth I’d ignored in the past. So I searched (on Amazon) and found the Belly Fat Cure on sale for my new Kindle. It was a sign! I downloaded immediately, packed my Kindle in my gym bag and headed out.

I read it like a maniac while on an elliptical machine, skimming to get to the secret. The ‘secret’ according to TBFC is sugar, or the absence of, in my diet. Apparently, my usual habit of 200+ grams a day was leading directly to an insulin resistance causing my body to make more of it to get the job done. Unfortunately, insulin also tells your body to store fat. At normal levels, this isn’t a problem, but at the elevated levels of a sugar junkie like me, it’s like a standing order to stockpile belly fat.

So the summer of 2011 became nearly sugar-free as I tried to stick to TBFC dictum of no more than 15 grams a day, with no more than 5 grams in any given meal. I also got 6 servings (21 grams each) of good complex carbohydrates, plus loads of lean proteins and vegetables, so I had plenty of energy and was never hungry. And miraculously, my recalcitrant love handles and belly button bagel began melting away! I was stunned! The answer was so simple. I guess I always knew what it was, but I needed a kick in the pants to make me actually take responsibility for it and DO something.

Again, I got amazing results. That is, until mid-July. That’s when the progress slowed to a crawl. As I got closer and closer, it was like I was always moving halfway to my goal until the progress was so incremental as to be maddening—always halfway there, never ACTUALLY there. I needed another, bigger, boot to give me a booty kick. That’s when I found P90X.

For those of you who don’t know, P90X is a workout program on 12 DVDs, each one designed to work and confuse your muscles into a constant state of progress. There’s yoga, kickboxing, core and jumping workouts, and workouts for every body part. The beauty of it is that you Ivan do all of this in your home with a pull up bar and a set of resistance bands! My actor friends LOVE this program. Hotel room? No problem! Summer stock in East Bumtuck? You’ve got a gym in a bag! And these workouts KICK. YOUR. ASS. I’d found my big boot. Kick away, P90X – I can take it!

All this work on my body also had a HUGE effect on my mind and spirit. I was happier and healthier than I’d been in a decade, plus I looked terrific! Now, what to do with all this newfound optimism and energy? Well, to sum it up, I began sharing more of myself in every facet of my life. Since I suddenly had such a surplus of Me, I stopped feeling like I had to hoard it. Everyone in my life began getting more ‘Brian’ than they bargained for. I started looking for ways to share more of me with more of you, and among other things I started this blog on my actor website. After a few months, I realized that my vision was growing bigger than my old site could contain. Thus, My Tiny Kitchen was born.

My goal in My Tiny Kitchen is to inspire you to create amazing, tasty food in whatever space you have, and to give you tips for making the most of that space, along with more Me than you bargained for. Subscribe here to get a little email when there are new posts, usually twice a week, one with a Tiny Kitchen Treat (recipes) and the other with a Tiny Kitchen Tip (tips… uh, duh). [Don’t worry, no one but me will ever see or use your email address. I promise.]

Hope to see you back here often ~ I promise one heck of a journey!