About

Hi all! Lovely to meet you! My name is Tatiana, but I like to go by Tanya. I’m no beauty, but I make do with my hard work, perseverance and absolute inability to do less than three things at once.

This is my little side project of a blog, and I welcome advice, comments and ideas! My email is here, so feel free to contact me for any of the above, or if you just want to talk about diets, food, fitness or anything else!

I moved to from Russia to  Canada when I was 10 and have been here ever since. I have a Bachelor’s  of Health Sciences  in Bioinformatics, and working on my Master of Science in Computational Media  Design at the  moment. My work involves making virtual and hands-on medical education tools, but  I also do  freelance graphic design on the side (you can check out my art portfolio here).

I competed in sports my entire life before university. First it was luge, then tennis, and finally rock climbing. It was an amazing experience, and I felt great! Here are a couple of shots I had from a World’s competition and one of my favorite outdoor climbing spots in the Rockies:

Unfortunately, a number of injuries, university stress and lack of motivation had led to an unhealthy diet and a drop in most physical activities. Although I occasionally participated in Zumba or squash, my weight gain creeped up along with a myriad of health problems like constant heartburn and severe cramps. Four years later I vowed to make a difference, and began my first round of p90x. My motivation didn’t last a week, but I do have pictures from my first attempt to make a serious difference:

In the next two years my diet and exercise were still not great, but I was improving a little bit at a time. I tried ultimate frisbee, pole dancing, more squash and Zumba – anything to get me back on track. I started eating a few more salads, but that was still not enough to make any sort of serious difference on my health or aesthetics.

Finally, this year I began p90x anew, and this time vowed that I will do things right. Diet is such an important part of weight loss and future health that I could not avoid it any longer. I counted calories (still do!) and macros, I home cook almost all of my meals and pack my lunches, and I have greatly cut down on my portion sizes. As a result, I have been able to lost almost 25lbs since I started from February 2015 until now (August 2015), and I am feeling better each day:

My heartburn is almost gone, my cramps mostly non existent, and although my joints are worse than ever I am motivated to work out despite my setbacks. This hasn’t been easy, especially because I am living with my fiance who is trying his best to gain weight, but this problem is exactly why I created this recipe blog.

Changing your diet is hard work. It won’t be as bad after several weeks and months, but until then you will be faced with criticism, cravings, and circumstances beyond your control. It was difficult to reason with my fiance about my new cooking methods, and it was even more difficult to watch him devour huge, delicious meals while I couldn’t do the same. Over time though, I worked hard to modify my recipes so they were delicious enough for him to want, and easy enough to modify so that he can use them to bulk while I can use them to lose weight. The key is to not make yourself feel too restricted – I still make pizza, burgers and pasta – but I have learned to modify and innovate. It even became a hobby!

So don’t be scared, and give it a shot. As Tony Horton always says: “Do your best, and forget the rest!“