White toaster bread, Galetta and still a six-pack: a small sporting biography

I used to regularly eat an entire loaf of white toaster bread and a packet of Galetta pudding after training. On the same evening. And still I had a six-pack. I thought about that the other day, standing in the kitchen, looking at a slice of wholemeal bread with avocado, and wondering why my stomach looks rather different today.

The context, before this gets silly

In my late teens and early twenties I was extremely active. Not gym-active, properly active. Training several times a week, plus long distances on foot and by bike, a physically demanding daily life, and a metabolism that ran like a luxury car. Whatever went in got burnt off, often before the plate was even empty.

The toaster-bread moment was no one-off. It was routine. After training, in the evening, with a large glass of milk. No protein shake, no macros counted, no app. I simply ate until I was full, and it took a long time before I was full.

What sport meant to me back then

Sport, for me, wasn't a project. It was everyday life. It was the part of the day where I emptied my head, found social closeness, and pushed against my limits without watching myself doing it. I never read a training plan, never tracked reps. I trained because my body wanted to and because it felt good. My body gave back what I gave it, at almost immediate speed.

I think that is the point you underestimate at thirty or forty, looking back. It wasn't discipline that made you look fit back then. It was simply life. Anyone who regularly and happily works physically, eats, sleeps and goes back to working physically eventually looks that way. That isn't an achievement, that is biology with the wind behind it.

Why it's a different game today

Today I have been a software developer for 23 years, an entrepreneur and a father. My day is sedentary, mentally demanding, emotionally dense. My sleep is sometimes good, sometimes bad. Stress is a daily companion, not a rare guest. The metabolism that forgave me everything back then now works more precisely, but also more slowly. That is not bad news, that is simply the physics of age.

If I ate today the way I did in my early twenties, my body would respond within a few weeks. Not dramatically, but clearly. Conversely: if I keep a clear, calm routine today, I can still achieve a great deal. Just not as a side effect, as I used to. I have to want it. And I have to plan it.

What I take away from this memory

I sometimes think this toaster-bread anecdote says more about life than about nutrition. We treat certain states as normal because they were possible during a certain phase of life. And then we are surprised when they no longer work in another phase. It starts with the body, and it carries on with work, relationships, routines, the reasons we do things. What worked at 22 works differently at 42. Not worse, but differently.

For me that means two things. First: no comparison with my younger self. That is a trap I used to fall into more often than I do now. Second: the things that do me good today are different from the ones back then. Less volume, more quality. Less record-chasing, more regularity. Less I-can-just-knock-this-out, more I-just-keep-going.

A small love letter to my younger self

I happily grant my younger self the entire loaf. I smile when I think about it. And I take away that there are phases in life when you are allowed to be wasteful, because you can afford to be. The only question is whether you notice it while it lasts. Back then I didn't really notice.

Today I notice more. A quiet hour, a good meal, a clear night's sleep. Less in volume, more in density. When I look back on today in ten years, I want to be able to say that I noticed this phase too, before it passed into the next one.

And who knows. Perhaps I'll try a loaf of white toaster bread again at the weekend. Not because I have to. But because it tastes good.