{a day in the life} Food Faith Fitness

Today’s “a day in the life” is Taylor of Food Faith Fitness. Taylor is one of the most motivated people I know and is full of energy. She has a ton of talent, which is obvious if you spend any time at all on her site. Blogging for just over a year while working full time, and now officially a full-time blogger, I know Taylor is going to do big things!  Enjoy learning more about her.

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Tell me about yourself and how you started food blogging.

I actually started food blogging due to my husband and my mom sort of pushing me into it.  I have always absolutely LOVED to cook and bake since I was a wee little tyke, and they thought I would be really good at it.  I didn’t have a lot of hobbies outside of my full-time job (which I didn’t enjoy at all) so I thought it might be something fun to start. I had no idea that it would grow into something that I absolutely ADORE and feel so privileged and blessed to be able to get up and do every day of the week! Additionally, as a Christian, I loved the idea of having a venue to share my beliefs to a large number of people. Finally, I am extremely into health and fitness so I love that I can show that living a healthy, full life doesn’t require you to eat plain, boring food all the time, “everything in moderation” as I always say!

What does a typical day look like for you?

A typical day for me:

5am: Get up, shower and put my makeup on, and make coffee and do my morning devotionals.

6am: See what my other blogger friends are posting for the day/catch up on social media/respond to reader comments and emails/eat breakfast

9am: Hit the gym

11am: Cook a recipe that was tested the week before and is ready to be photographed,

12pm: Photo shoot

1pm: Edit the pictures

2pm: Start testing another recipe or two

4pm: Catch up on any emails/comments etc from the afternoon.

5pm: Dinner time with the hubby when he wakes up

6pm: Write the blog post for the following day

7pm: The rest of my evening is spent catching up on anything else that needs doing. That could be some pictures I didn’t finish editing, e-mails/comments I didn’t respond too, social media etc. Sometimes it means unplugging and having a little “me” time (which usually means watching the Food Network)

10pm: Bed time!

What is your one must-have kitchen tool or gadget?

My must have kitchen gadget is DEFINITELY a mini food processor. It makes cutting and dicing SO much faster and the mini size is great since I only have 2 mouths to feed!

Share a photo of your fridge and tell me the top 5 items that are essential.

1 – Egg whites.  I eat them every single morning for breakfast, just scrambled with some sea salt.  They are delicious and PACKED with protein to keep me full until lunch,
2 – Cottage Cheese – Again, I eat this every day – but at night in a bedtime snack that I call “cheesecake.”  Basically it’s just cottage cheese, chocolate protein powder, natural peanut butter and stevia all blended up. It sounds weird, but it’s SO good and tastes like chocolate peanut butter cheesecake.  It prevents me from waking up hungry in the middle of the night!
3 – Eggs – I am an egg addict.  I need a soft boiled egg every morning or I get grumpy!
4 – Zucchini – My favorite, quick vegetable to make for dinner. I love it sautéed in a little bit of olive oil and garlic!
5- Cilantro – My absolute favorite herb. The amount of cilantro that I use is ridiculous. I generally need to scale the amount down from how I actually ate it when I created a recipe because the amount is insane!

Share a photo of your pantry and tell me the top 5 essential items.

1- Coconut milk – I use this a TON in recipes, so I always make sure to have it on hand!
2- Peanut butter – if I run out, watch out!
3- Nuts – I LOVE nuts, and they add so much flavour to recipes so I always make sure that I have a good variety on hand!
4 – Oatmeal – I am slightly obsessed with oatmeal, especially for breakfast! I always make sure to have a good supply on hand.
5- Coconut flakes – It feels weird to write that because I used to HATE coconut. But now I totally am in love with it, and bake with it A LOT.

What is your favorite part of your day? Why?

Recipe development! I love getting creative in the kitchen, even when things don’t work out! Cooking and baking can be such a science so I love seeing how things work, or don’t work, together! The taste testing doesn’t hurt either.

What is your LEAST favorite part of the day? Why?

Does changing out of my pajamas count? I’m kidding! Honestly, probably photo editing. I don’t do a lot, but I find every little bit of it very tedious! Also, I tend to take WAY too many pictures and get stressed out when trying to narrow them down. Then I just end up having a blog post that is 95% pictures with 5% words.  Oh well.

If you could choose one room in your house to spend the WHOLE day in, which room would it be? Why?

If I could chose one room to spend the WHOLE day in, it would honestly be my kitchen.  The kitchen is my happy place. It’s where I feel I can be creative and be “me!”

If you could choose one room in your house to remodel (on an unlimited budget!) which room would it be and why?

At the same time, the room that I would LOVE to remodel is my kitchen! It’s incredible tiny and, for a food blogger who has a crazy amount of dishes, it just doesn’t work. It gets stressful trying to navigate through the mess that builds up very easily in such a small space!

What is your favorite day of the week? Why?

My favorite day of the week is Sunday! My husband is usually off that day so we get to go to church together in the morning and sometimes go to IHOP (our favorite!) for breakfast before. Then we always take a relaxing afternoon for some “us time.”  He works graveyards as a RN, so we don’t see much of each other during the week. In the evening, we go to a young marrieds Bible Study with our friends that we really enjoy.

What is your favorite quote or verse?

My favorite verse is  Philippians 4:13 “I can do everything in Him who gives me strength”  There are days that are super tough in life and that verse always gives me the strength that I need to know that I can get through it!

What recipe on your blog are you most proud of?

The recipe on the blog that I am most proud of is: The Circus Animal Ice Cream Cake 

What recipe on your blog do your readers seem to love most?

The recipe on the blog that my readers seem to love the most is, again, The Circus Animal Ice Cream Cake.

What is your guilty food pleasure that you’re embarrassed to fess up to? Kraft Mac & Cheese? Spagetti-o’s? Canned cheese? We promise not to judge!

My embarrassing food pleasure that I can’t give up is microwave popcorn! I absolutely adore that stuff and it’s not uncommon to find me downing a bag for dinner.  It’s a whole grain….right?

What have you learned since you began blogging?

The biggest lesson that I have learned from blogging is that it’s a marthathon, not a sprint. At the beginning I was SO stressed out because I thought I needed to do EVERYTHING all at once and get all kinds of traffic and be super successful.  I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t spending time with my husband and I was just plain miserable.  I have learned that everything will happen when it’s meant to, and to do what I can with the time I have. I have learned not to neglect myself and especially not my hubby!

Do you have any advice for someone who is interested in cooking or food blogging?

The advice that I have for someone who is interested in cooking is just to experiment! Try different recipes and different flavour combinations and see what you like to cook and eat. If you do it because you love to, then you can find true enjoyment in it!  My advice for something who wants to take that cooking into a blog is similar – do it only if you LOVE it, don’t do it for any other reason (especially to make money!)  Blogging is A LOT more work than it looks and you’ll burn out pretty quick if you don’t truly love it. It’s not a Monday-Friday, 9-5 kind of gig. My blog doesn’t just close on weekends, it’s a daily commitment. It’s crazy and you need to be prepared for that kind of life.

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 Thanks Taylor! But I have to say, you should switch from microwave popcorn to air popped. It’s the right thing to do.

You can find more of on Taylor on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+ and Instagram.