If a man truly is what he thinks about all day long, I know exactly what I am: an aging cyclist.

Though I have thousands of other thoughts throughout the day, the time I spend contemplating aging, cycling, or how to handle the one in light of the other is considerable. Maybe not as considerable as the time the 15-year-old boys fantasize about 15-year-old girls ... but you get the point — which leads to the point about how I select most column topics.

By thinking about what you are thinking about. Or more specifically, what your most prevalent health-and-fitness thoughts are.

That’s why food columns, most often expressed in terms of diets and dieting, dominate. While not all readers derive as much satisfaction as I do from working out, I fervently hope that all of you enjoy eating as much as I do.

Along with a good book after a trying day, a hot shower after becoming chilled, a breathtaking sunset or sunrise, good food is one of the great simple pleasures in life.

And when you create a meal that not only appeals to your palette but also promotes good health, you are simply living right. So once again I’ll offer some insight to help you achieve that.

Last week’s column stressed, as many columns do, that the best food choices for me are possibly not the best food choices for you. Like the differing shapes of each snowflake, our bodies react and process different types of foods in different ways.

Your body even handles different types of food differently based on how much and how hard you have already worked or worked out and what foods you have already eaten that day.

As a result, one of the prerequisites for achieving optimal health is willingness to experiment as a way to learn yourself. But don’t overlook prior experiences that could provide much of the same.

Here’s one that clearly demonstrates the need to learn yourself when it comes to diets and dieting. It’s amazing to me that it comes from a crystal-clear childhood memory.

One summer day, I returned home after playing with friends, and my mother told me she had a real treat for me. It was from the shore, absolutely delicious, and called fudge, but it was so rich that I wouldn’t be able to eat more than a piece or two.

I was confused by her use of “rich.” I asked what that meant, and she said excessively sweet.

I tasted the fudge and decided my mother was lying. Not about the absolutely delicious part — chocolate fudge was easily the greatest food I had ever tasted in my brief life — but about being so excessively sweet that I’d only want a piece or two.

A piece or two? I would’ve downed the whole pound in about three minutes if mom would’ve let me.

Moral to the story: Tastes are unique. Learn yours. Experiment to find ways to satisfy yours without hurting — and preferably helping — your health.

Recent research performed as part of the Guelph Family Health Study at the University of Guelph and covered by a major Canadian paper, the National Post, sheds light on the subject.

While working with 50 preschoolers, Elie Chamoun, a PhD candidate in the Department of Human Health and Nutritional Sciences and a member of the Guelph Family Health Study, discovered that not only did some kids have a sweet tooth that could be proven genetically, but also that those who did ate snacks with significantly more calories from sugar than the kids who were not genetically wired for loving sweets. Additionally, they did more snacking in the evening.

Moreover, the children with the genetic variant that causes you to dislike bitter-tasting vegetables, like Brussels sprouts and broccoli, also ate more high-sugar, high-calorie snacks.

In the University’s press release about the research, Chamoun expresses the long-term goal: for researchers to establish a solid link between genetics and taste, so tests can be created that will help parents determine which genetic variants their children have.

But why wait for that day? Most of you don’t need to be told of you genetic preferences. You’ve been eating the foods that prove them for years.

What you need to do now is make that information help you rather than hurt you.

I keep writing about my sweet tooth, which — based on the fact that others complain the foods I create are sickeningly sweet — must be considerable. Yet my ongoing Jones for sweets costs me very few calories since I rely on two natural, virtually calorie free sweeteners exclusively, stevia and erythritol.

Both are pricey, but used together they create a sweetness and a mouthfeel for me that makes them just as pleasing as table sugar.

And using the combo won’t cause you to overeat the foods they sweeten, since are very low on the glycemic index.