i started experimenting with food at a fairly young age, though sadly all will tell you that those first experiments were EPIC failures. if you run into my mom or dad or my non-biological sister Emily, they can all recount the failed pancakes, the gallon of orange icing, the melted spatulas and burnt grilled cheese, the truly awful food we created as kids. as i reached high school and started to eat around my crazy extra-curricular schedule (i.e. feeding myself because everyone else was already asleep), i found that trying new foods and cooking techniques was amazing. testing flavor profiles and trying out new spices was a late night pastime. and i learned pretty quickly that i had a truly remarkable sense of taste and smell. you know the scene in 'Ratatouille' where Remi tastes all of the foods and there's this remarkable burst of fireworks and music. well that's me. i LOVE food: the history, the chemistry, the artistry, the flavors, the smells, the sounds, the sights, and of course the actual eating of said food! are you starting to understand the very simple point i'm making? FOOD=GOOD
in college, the US Army made me run lots of miles and do lots of push-ups and sit-ups every morning, so food became fuel and i searched for better ways to feed my body. but all of the exercise meant that calories were expendable and i could pretty much eat whatever i wanted. i got really good at making pasta and sauce from whatever ingredients happened to be on hand. and living with Erin meant that there was always a food experiment going on. we had lots of yeastie beastie type pets over the years. during the really poor times, we ate cereal stolen from the dining hall, frozen peas with yellow mustard, yogurt, and salsa or marinara sauce by the bowlful. during the less lean times, we ate many a boneless skinless chicken breast. of course once we hit that magic number 21, we lived mainly on oatmeal for breakfast and beer and pretzels for lunch and dinner. while we played in the kitchen and learned all sorts of fun techniques and flavor profiles (ask Erin about the great pumpkin pie escapade of 2005 the next time you see her), most of the time we ate what we could afford.
in january of 2006, there was a boy that needed to be impressed swiftly and fully. so i did what i knew best at the time: i cooked a tremendously huge meal and blew my month's grocery budget in one night. and amazingly enough that boy, he stuck around. nine years and counting and he stills eats my food every night. must have been some really tasty stuffed shells all those years ago :)
after college, there was no more Army and i was still trying to impress said boy, so i cooked a lot and became a foodie to the best of my small-town, no access to real ingredients ability. as time went on i gained a reputation for being a good cook. and of course with this reputation, i gained the pounds that come from lots of cooking and eating without as much exercising. throughout the years since college, my love for food has far outweighed my love for exercise and therefore at the end of every year i have outweighed the previous year. this phenomenon was not helped by a blown out knee, attending culinary school, or running a pizzeria and multiple pastry kitchens for several years. from may of 2006 until about october of this year, i had convinced myself that it was better to be fat and happy than to be skinny and hungry all of the time. and it WORKED!!!!! there were a few moments in life where i thought about how much bigger my jeans had gotten, but for the most part i was content to be the chubby chef because no one ever trusts a skinny chef.
2014 was a BAD year at casa tobeck. and by bad, i mean really bad. bryan and i both let go of any restraint that we had been holding on to and got thoroughly engrossed in our work. this meant take out or pizza every night and at least 30 extra pounds a piece. in september when bryan left for training, i caught my reflection one morning on my way out of the house and was appalled. what had i let happen to myself??? i needed to make a change and it needed to be drastic. and i realized that the only way i was going to get myself back to a better place was to get organized. though i hate to admit it, i have absolutely NO self-control and will eat anything that presents itself when i get hungry. so i cleaned out my cabinets, stocked the house with good for me foods, and created a meal plan each week so that i knew what i was going to eat. i also started to spend about 3 hours every sunday doing some food prep to ensure that i had food available whenever i needed it. coupled with starting a very basic workout regimen, well really a walking around the park for about 30 minutes a day regimen, i have lost 36 pounds since october 1st. my final goal is 70 pounds, so i have a LONG way to go, but i feel like as long as i stick to the plan i will get there.
here's a few photos of the progress:
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| August 2014 205 lbs |
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| October 2014 215 lbs |
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| October 2014 200 lbs |
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| November 2014 190 lbs |
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| December 2014 185 lbs |
AND why not share my plan with the masses. keeping yourself and your family fed and happy are a major challenge no matter what your diet or your lifestyle. so hopefully i can make that easier for you by providing some insight, some recipes, and some organizing tips each week. the tobeck family goal of the moment is weight loss so that will be the focus of meal plans and recipes, but the general focus of organizing your meals and shopping, preparing in advance to ensure speedy meals throughout the week and easier mornings getting lunches packed and feeding everyone before you need to leave the house. i've found this system even buys me about 10 more minutes of sleep each morning :) here's what my fridge looks like after i prepped my meals for the week!
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| 6 days of breakfast lunch and dinner |
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| All of the food going in my lunch box for tomorrow |
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