I have a very busy kitchen at home. That's because my son eats five to six meals a day.
The reason for that, in case you're curious, is that he is a fitness fanatic. It's a lifestyle I have been living with for over two years now, but I still find it hard to understand.
I enjoy my food. And we used to enjoy sitting down together for meals as a family. I would make such basic staples as spaghetti bolognaise, meat loaf, cottage pie, katsudon. But family meals are a rare treat nowadays.
My son has a very strict and fixed diet that runs in cycles. Depending whether he's bulking up or carb depleting, his preferred dishes will sit on polar extremes.
"Mom, can you please buy lots of pasta, potatoes, instant oatmeal and chocolate ice cream?"
"Mom, please get raisins, honey, bananas, salmon, fillet steak, minced beef, tuna in brine, skinless chicken breast, salad, olive oil, avocados, asparagus and peas."
Most of the time, he cooks his own meals. But if I'm around, I'm roped in to help.
"Mom, I'm in a bit of a hurry. Can you please boil the potatoes for me and mash it with the chicken breast? No salt or pepper please! And please boil some peas to go with it, too. Don't add salt to the water!"
Yuck! What kind of meal is that? Chicken breast is tasteless. Potatoes are tasteless. Put them together and what you get is a mash-up of tasteless pulp. But he's happy with that. He boxes it, puts it into his bag and off he goes to his third daily visit to the gym.
If he's eating at home, he will turn on the television and watch Restaurant: Impossible or the Food Network. Guy Fieri takes viewers on trips around the US in Diners, Drive-Ins And Dives to watch top local chefs in action, producing their individual specialities.
It's usually a mouthwatering journey to the kitchens of these restaurants, which make great comfort food. These dishes aren't something you could take out a notepad and jot down the recipes for, since they are all cooked in vats the size of bathtubs. But it does get your stomach growling.
And there's my son, chowing down on his tasteless mashed chicken breast and potatoes, salivating as he watches chef Mark "Gooch" Noguchi of Hawaii cook limu salad and wok-stirred beef with a home-made teriyaki marinade.
I roll my eyes in disbelief, yet applaud him for his discipline. There's no one watching him to deduct marks if he seasons his food, or adds a splash of Tabasco to the tasteless chicken breast, or teriyaki sauce on his salmon steak. But he insists, and I oblige.
He will have his salad without any dressing, or simply add a spoonful of olive oil and another of unfiltered organic apple cider vinegar.
In an hour or two he'll be back in the kitchen, hungry again, ready for another round of carb-less food.
This is after his bulking period, when he eats and eats and eats until his cheeks puff out and he's gained at least a hefty 10kg. Still, he complains that he hasn't put on enough weight. He will eat spaghetti with tuna cream sauce by the bowl — enough for three normal people.
As a mother, I worry about him. It can't be normal to push your body to these extremes of weight gain and weight loss, all the time lifting weights and doing cardio as if your life depended on it.
I do admire him for setting a goal and setting out to achieve it, no matter what. It requires will power and discipline, something that is sometimes hard to come by.
I also admire him for his dedication to his fitness regimen, for his commitment to healthy eating and a healthy lifestyle. This is a guy who used to party until dawn and boasted a beer belly long before he did a university degree.
But as many parents of modern-day kids can attest, you can't tell them what (or what not) to do. I figure that I made a lot of wrong choices myself and learned things the hard way. In many ways, my kids are more mature than I was at their age.
All I can do is casually toss in my two satang of advice, for what it's worth, and give them my full support in what they do.
And carry on boiling that tasteless chicken breast.
Usnisa Sukhsvasti is the features editor of the Bangkok Post.