Every man should know how to cook.

"Why, cooking is a women's job."

Yeah, good luck with that one. In today's society, we have many women in our world that don't know how to cook. And to be honest, why should they know how to cook just for you? that's just wrong of you to think that. The old belief that a women's place is in the home is as outdated as your way of thinking about the world. Let's be honest with ourselves here. Women today are just like men. They have dreams and aspirations that sometimes don't include men, marriage, or kids. That side, many also don't cook. With their education and careers being their priority, who has time to cook, let along learn how to do it? The same reasons that us men will use for not having learned this valuable skill, the women of today use them also. So I'm here to make the case of men (and women) learn how to cook.

For me, I have a vested interest in this. My ex used the reason that I didn't cook enough (not that I didn't cook, just not as often as she would have liked) as a reason for cheating on me (read the earlier post for the back story, no need to re-explain all that). So I'm going to start a new blog on how to cook. I'll be sharing some of my favorite recipes, as well and recipes that I've found in cookbooks, online websites, and heck, even ones shared by you (if you so choose to help in this project). If you look at the time of this blog, you will see "The Food" as a tab. There's the link. For those of you men out there than are too lazy to do that, here's a direct link:

confused-man-the-food.blogspot.com

My first post is up there already, so enjoy.

Do you exercise so you can eat or eat so you exercise?

Over the past decade, we as a society have been obsessed with dieting. We're always looking for the quick way to loss weight, look thin, be fit; an entire industry has developed earning billions of dollars a year. It seems like every month we're learning about a new diet, pill or piece of exercise equipment to help us in our efforts to gain the body we always wanted. Now experts; nutritionists, exercise physiologists, doctors, trainers have all been preaching the formula for years now, but no one seems to listen. Watch what you eat (portions here) and how much physical activity do you do.

A good friend of mine once told me, "I exercise so I can eat."

This, to me, sums it all up. Are you eating so therefore you exercise? or do you exercise so you can eat? That's the simple question. Do you stuff yourself throughout the day, so  you feel obligated to go to the gym and get some cardio in? Do you guilt yourself into getting off the couch and moving your body? That's what you need to ask yourself. Do you eat more than you need to sustain your activity level? Well do you?

Or are you in the other group? You exercise so you can eat. Michael Phelps, this was a guy who, if you looked at what he ate, didn't give you the image of the best diet. Pizza all the time. But hey, when you swim as much and as hard as he does, burning up all those calories, you can do that. So get up and exercise...burn those calories off. The more you burn, the more you can eat. Remember moderation, eat whatever you want, just remember these simple equations:

• Calories in > calories burned = weight gain
• Calories in = calories burned = weight maintained
• Calories in < calories burned = weight loss