Food Truck Startup Journal Entry #2 — My personal problem

3 min readApr 12, 2023

4/12/2023

For as long as I could remember I have struggled with my body weight. With the exception of my college football playing years, I have generally weighed more than I would care to admit.

Don’t get me wrong, I workout regularly. I do both weight training and cardio. Last October, I ran a 5K and on numerous occasions within this calendar year I have cleared non-stop five mile runs (well jogs). However, when I look in the mirror I feel that I could be in better shape.

The essence of my weight loss dilemma is best summarized by a dad joke told by my high school wrestling coach Ron Donlick. I remember asking him…

Me: Coach how do I cut (or lose) weight?

Coach: Well Zach, I think you do a good job of pushups but you need to start doing pushaways.

Me: What’s a pushaway Coach?

Coach: When it’s time to get up from the dinner table, you need to be sure to push away! (he did this with a hand gesture as if he was leaving the dinner table)

While this may be a silly joke told by my former coach, there is a lot of truth in it. In many cultural health circles when it comes to weight loss the term “80” “20” is often communicated as a rule of thumb. It means that when trying to lose weight a person should focus their efforts on eighty percent diet and twenty percent exercise.

That rule of thumb measurement was tested by Alexandra Gomez of Women’s Health Magazine. In her web article entitled, “Is Weight Loss Really 80 Percent Diet and 20 Percent Exercise?” Gomez goes on to explain that weight loss is caused by a calorie deficit. There are two main ways to reduce the amount of calories stored by our bodies, (you guessed it) diet and exercise. It takes much less physical effort to reduce your overall calorie intake via reducing your food intake than it is for the most committed athlete to sweat off the calories via exercise during the same time span.

This truism more than any led me to want to explore healthier food options. However, I want to reimagine healthy food. Often healthy food is bland, expensive and not easily accessible to lower income communities. I believe that it does not have to be that way.

I believe that it is possible to have healthy, efficient, affordable, reimagined and tasty food (H.E.A.R.T.) Food. This blog is a part of the quest to cultivate that type of food for other people that have a similar desire. As I learn and cook I will share my findings to you the reader.

My hope is that as I work on my personal problem I will be able to help and resource others in their own fight.

Thanks for reading, be encouraged!

For a digital look at the new recipes that I discover and major milestones in my journey check out my #HEARTFoodStory

Here on this blog Medium.com “Food Truck Startup Journal”

(Click the links below)

On Pinterest — @HEARTFoodStory https://www.pinterest.com/HEARTFoodStory/

On Instagram — @h_e_a_r_tfoodstory

https://www.instagram.com/h_e_a_r_tfoodstory/?hl=en

Tik Tok — @HEARTFoodStory https://www.tiktok.com/@heartfoodstory

Youtube Shorts — @heartfoodstory

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCirQAvkKUNtUeU_tXHeGGoQ

Feel free to email me directly at zach@gracetocultivate.com