Who is Houston's worst blogger? Read on to find out...

It's no secret that TheSizzle has... fizzled. 2016 kicked us real hard in the nether regions. I lost my fire, my spark and my motivation and hustle. Is it just me, or did almost everyone have a pretty shoddy 2016?

I am awarding myself the award for Houston's worst blogger for 2016. But guess what? 2016 is O-V-E-R. As I was leaving Soul Cycle last night, I was chatting with one of the front desk gentlemen and we bonded over the fact that we need/crave someone to kind of get in our faces during a workout. We want the person next to us to be crushing it, thereby motivating us to out-crush the competition. Yes, I'm a wildly competitive animal, and with that wildly competitive motivation comes a crippling fear of not being the best. It gets discouraging, you feel downtrodden and you freeze up. 2016 was my year in the cryo-chamber. I was frozen and unable to see how I could move forward.

2017 is here. I'm not promising magical, hilarious, witty and regular posts, but I always promise to keep it real. I love Houston, I love this city a lot. It's truly worth writing about. Even Anthony Bourdain showed us some love. But I also love myself. A lot, and embracing that was hard for me. 2017 is the year I will thaw out, un-freeze and move forward. I will crush it, slowly. More of an anaconda-like, slow but deadly crushing... I took that way too far, didn't I?

This year, I encourage all of you who feel frozen, scared, self-conscious and generally "meh" to join me and move forward, even if it's a teeny baby step. Baby steps count, it's how you start walking and eventually running.

So here's to you, to me, to our big, bad-ass city and to making 2017 the year where we all out-crush the competition.

Yours with lots of love,

THESIZZLEHOUSTON

crushing it in 2017.

As many of you know, I can talk the hind legs off a donkey. You might also know that I’m a huuuge fan of quirky sayings.

Personal favorite: I’m about as nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Look me in the face and tell me you don’t think that’s just stellar. So much better than “OMG I’m like totally nervous.”

I decided to write some Simple Sizzle for y’all. You don’t have to take my advice, you might hate it, love it, not get it at all, but it’s my simple philosophy on life. Take it with a grain of salt, call me crazy as a loon; it’s just who I am and what I think.

Simple Sizzle on Diets & Not eating things you probably really want to eat:

Fact: My mom dabbled in modeling when she was younger and weighed less than 90 pounds on her wedding day. Her derrière was featured on billboards for Jordache jeans and she was a Hawaiian dancer. Soooo that was fun to know growing up when I sprouted 3 inches taller than she was by the time I was in the 3rd grade and realized sub 90 pounds just...wasn't even.

While I’ve never struggled too much with weight, I’ve certainly had some porky moments. When you’re 5’4, five pounds can look like you’re smuggling a litter of kittens in your jeans. I’ve had winters where leggings were all I wore…not because they were en vogue but because they were all that fit the seventeen kittens I was harboring. Even the neighborhood squirrels gave me the side-eye wondering if all their acorns were hidden in my expanding leggings. We’ve all been there. And that’s totally ok.

What I’ve learned about dieting is that you really just need to find out what works best for you; it’s like fashion and knowing how “green is just NOT in my color wheel.”

I’m a bona fide, card-carrying, full-blown foodie. But you know what? It’s actually good for my waistline. I’ve gotten so hifalutin’ about my nomz that it’s so much easier for me to say no to the “sub-par” items I might see on the menu. Walking through a food court makes me cry a little on the inside, and I’ll starve before I eat something I think is not to my liking. I’ll eat rabbit food all week if I know I’m having a blow out dinner later in the week, and I also sometimes have accidents and wake up in the Whataburger drive-thru with a bag that smells like heaven and a Whataburger Jr. with ketchup, cheese and pickles only. I don’t even know how it happens, it just does. (Sometimes this also happens with Cheez Its, but who's keeping tabs?) But you obviously know that Whataburger is the only, ONLY fast food worth developing gallstones for.

**What didn’t work for Mads*:**

Being Vegan:

A couple years ago when I was in grad-school I decided to go vegan one summer. Like….full on vegan. No animal products AT ALL. No honey, eggs, NY Strip steaks, juicy lamb chops and the list goes ON. I felt fine, but damn near committed triple homicide to get my hands on just a tiny sliver of Brie, a luscious cut of Gouda, a nibble of goat chevre. Somewhere in my DNA there is a chromosome belonging to a mouse because I am a cheese RAT. Veganism and the lack of cheese just weren’t working for me. So I quit. And don’t even get me started about the time I posted a vegan sandwich to social media in order to convince myself how amazing it looked. #pathetic #fakemeat #cardboardbread

Not Eating/Eating like a bird:

When my family comes in town to visit (visit=pillage the Houston Galleria and deplete their stock of literally everything) they always ask me if I have packed a snack. You see, my friends, I suffer from a serious medical condition called “being hangry.” When I’m famished and food is not on the horizon, I get snippy, fussy and dare I venture to say….betchy. At least I’m honest, right? So clearly the few times I thought starvation was going to get me where I needed to be, my hanger took over.

Pescatarian:

I love sushi, but I also love NY Strip steak. Enough said.

Paleo:

I think Paleo is the new Adkins or South Beach. Everyone's all excited and then 6 months later you catch them alone in the corner at Dunkin' Donuts bordering on diabeetus. (I KNOW it's diabetes, but the other one is more fun.)

“Omg that is for sure Paleo!”

“OMG yassss, it totally is; let me eat 25 sweet potatoes because that’s totally paleo.”

Know what I have to say to that? Bye Felicia.

Gluten Free:

I can't even. You might, but I can't. I love bread, I love pasta, I love muffins and I am totally and completely obsessed with Seeduction Bread from Whole Foods. May God bless the person who came up with that crack magic. I understand some people are allergic, and I'm so sorry. I just can't.

**What does work for Mads:**

I eat a little bit of everything. I grew up in a home where bringing home a loaf of white bread was on the same level as me bringing home some fresh cooked meth. Peanut butter was the kind that was ground up in front of your very eyes at Whole Foods, and it was used on like your 100th Birthday (basically never.) My parents grew their own wheat grass and I was taking shots of it daily it before kindergarten. I’m dead serious; I couldn’t make this up if I tried. When my allergies got bad, my parents made me chase my tablespoon full of cod liver’s oil with a heaping glob of fresh horseradish. Holy sinus burn. But guess what? I grew up with the immune system of a superhuman and aside from swimmer’s ear every summer and a rogue case of Hay Fever too strong for the horseradish, I was good to go. So I’m totally one of those people who believes that food is medicine and can heal your body.

Do I eat MSG and GMO food? Most def. We live in America. It’s going to happen. The very air we breathe is polluted, so you think that 4 dollar Honeycrisp apple isn’t going to have some pollutants? It’s a damn designer apple, I guarantee you it wasn’t one of the first fruits in the Garden of Eden.

The point is, don’t turn up a can of Cheez Wiz every morning. Turn down for what, you say? Start with baby steps. Sometimes I KNOW that my body needs the Whataburger Jr. Also, sometimes I go a whole week only eating homemade vegetable soup and fresh fruit. Once you get on a plan where you really learn about your body and the food you put into it, it kind of becomes second nature. I believe in a variety of eating habits personalized to your own body. So go out there and get to know what works for you; I promise it can’t hurt. Become a student of nomz. It’s definitely Sizzle Approved.

*Disclaimer: In no way are my comments here supposed to be nutritional guidelines or finalizing judgments on people’s character, genetic disposition and/or choices. These are simply my own experiences and opinions in regard to what works for ME, not you. So if you’re up in arms about me thinking you’re dumb because you’re on Paleo, you’re not dumb. You have a lot of willpower and I have mad respect. Ok? (Just puh-lease don't prove me right and let me catch you at Dunkin' Donuts with an insulin needle hanging from your arm.) Let’s all hold hands now. I love you all, even if you don’t enjoy the same nomz that I do.