What's in your bowl?
Some other things that crossed my mind today was how much I was going to miss cereal. Cereal is such a staple in my life that it really has it's own place in my food diorama. The sugary stuff was the only thing that got me out of the bed as a kid. Many a morning were spent talking over the current events with my buddies Cap N' Crunch, Fred, Lucky, Sugar Bear, Tony the Tiger, Toucan Sam, Trix, you name them and we were tight.
We stayed the best of friends into my college years where they started letting me down and joined in with the BK Lounge and the Taco Bell brigade's quest into making me a rotund freshman. As my waistline expanded I had to bid adieu to those little nuggets of diabetic deliciousness and look at more "adult" options. Notice cutting out cereal cold turkey was never nor will ever be an option, even though cardboard-esque Kashi and Fiber One were. Lots of sacrifice in my cereal universe took place as I tried to get myself back down to my playing weight including eating these abominations of my childhood dreams.
Fast forward to today whereas I'm into this whole running thing and lo and behold it is actually recommended that I eat the sugary stuff again! Talk about coming full circle! Buuut I caveat this by saying that the half box bowls are no more but I have discovered a actual healthy way to indulge and break "bread" with my old friends again: cereal mixing.
This concept has absolutely changed my breakfasts forever! For example, the FDA says a normal adult should limit themselves to 20g (women) - 36g (men) of refined, unnatural sugars a day. Things like table sugar, high fructose corn syrup and other added sugars included in many of today's processed foods go into these limits. Natural sugars such honey and those from fruits and milk do not and are recommended parts of healthy diets, but again I digress back to cereal mixes...
What this means is that if say Cocoa Puffs has 13 g of "bad" sugar in a serving that's a big chunk of your total for the day. How can you enjoy your puffs and not "puff" up your gut, easy, mix in a lower sugar cereal complement or dare I say a healthy one to fill up your bowl and still maintain that awesome chocolate milk at the end! This is obviously something I've been doing and with two different varieties of cereal, plain Cheerios and Kix. You didn't think those were healthy did you? Check out the labels, hardly any sugar in either and a very low number of ingredients (tried and true method to picking out "good for you" foods) that when you half the serving to combine with the "bad" half you have even less. Earth shattering right!? And to top it off, throw in half a cut up banana and you've got pure awesomeness to jumpstart your morning that will satisfy even the feistiest 6 year old inner child at the same time.
Other mixes I've gotten into are any of the flavored Cheerios varieties with basic cheerios, Frosted Mini-Wheats with Shredded Wheat original spoon size, and even to a lesser health extent Fruity Pebbles and Rice Krispies. The possibilities are endless! If you guys have any suggestions I'll be glad to hear them because if you couldn't tell be this essay on cereal, I kind of like the stuff.
Tunage
Another thing that dawned on me today was the fact that not only was the world supposedly ending, the year was as well. Incredible that it's even possible but as they say when you get older time just seems to move faster. I think the clocks are just lying to us but that's the cynic in me. In reminiscing about the past year I did hit some milestones (completed my MBA degree, ran my first marathon) and low points (still haven't gotten off Maytown yet), but overall I have my health and my sanity for the most part so 2012 wasn't all that bad of a year.
Normally when people write reflective posts like these them tend to classify a list of favorites from the year so I figured I might as well be one of the sheep and what better thing to rank than my favorite music of the year. You'll see I've made two lists, one for what I suppose to be from mainstream artists or those that just broke into the big time and one of my favorite under the radar types. My only self stipulation was that there could be only one new song per artist listed and trust me it was harder than you think because if 2012 taught us anything, many of these artists are destined to be some one-hitters. With that said I give you Josh's Jams of 2012...
A-Sides:
- Don't Carry It All - The Decemberists
- Hold On - Alabama Shakes
- I Will Wait - Mumford and Sons
- Little Black Submarines - The Black Keys
- Mercy - Dave Matthews Band
- Trash Tongue Talker - Jack White
- Swimming Pools - Kendrick Lamar
- Simple Song - The Shins
- Love is a Verb - John Mayer
- Revolution - Dr. John
B-Sides:
- Yet Again - Grizzly Bear
- Fineshrine - Purity Ring
- The House That Heaven Built - Japandroids
- Fitzpleasure - Alt-J
- I'll Be Alright- Passion Pit
- Only Place - Best Coast
- Brother - Lord Huron
- Bones - Michael Kiwanuka
- Other People - Beach House
- Handwritten - Gaslight Anthem
There you have it, my lists in all their glory. I'm sure I left out some favorites but these were the ones that stuck out to me tonight and I stand by them, for now anyway.
And with that, that's all I've got for you tonight. Big weekend coming up and I didn't make any plans nor finish my Christmas shopping...thanks again, Mayans. Geez.
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