My Food Journey Part 1: Cooking School & Healing My Gut
In 2012, I was not doing well. Physically or mentally.
I was in my second year of university studying philosophy, convinced I was on a path toward law school. But my grades were terrible and I’d been put on academic probation. My health was also failing. I weighed about 250 pounds at 5 foot 7, which put me squarely in a place my doctors were concerned about. I was dealing with serious gut issues, chronic pain, constant fatigue, and a general sense that my body and mind were working against me.
I was undergoing diagnostic tests, trying to figure out what was wrong, but couldn't get any answers. I was exhausted. I was overwhelmed. And I knew, very clearly, that university (at least in that moment) wasn’t working for me.
Then my dad said something that changed everything.
He asked, “Why don’t you try cooking school? You really like cooking.”
I wasn’t convinced. But then he told me something I didn’t know until that moment: he had gone to cooking school himself. He never became a professional Chef, but he learned the skills. He framed it simply “good life skills to have”. And cooking school, at the time, was about a third of the cost of university.
So I said, why not?
That summer, before cooking school started, I got my first restaurant job. I was working as a dishwasher at a busy pub in Kingston, Ontario, the same city where I’d be going to culinary school. And then everything kind of collapsed at once.
I fell down a flight of stairs at work and landed hard on my back. A few weeks later, I reinjured it while bending over. A disc slipped. I was suddenly barely mobile. I was about to start cooking school, my health was already fragile, and now my body felt completely broken.
That was the final straw. I was totally down and out. I didn’t know what to do.
So I made a decision: I hired a personal trainer.
I knew I had to rehabilitate my back. I knew I had to lose weight. And this trainer happened to be really into nutrition alongside fitness. There was something almost ironic about it. About to enter culinary school while trying to completely transform my health.
But I buckled down. I committed. And I made a deal with myself.
“While I’m in class, I’ll eat whatever I want. I’ll learn the recipes. I’ll enjoy the pastries. But when I leave school, I eat clean.”
Anything from baking class? I wouldn’t bring it home. I’d give it away to people in the hallways. At home, I ate very intentionally. And in class, I let myself fully learn and enjoy the craft.
I remember telling one of my culinary professors that I wanted to lose weight while in cooking school.
She laughed. She said, “Good luck.” And honestly? I took that personally. But not in a bitter way. I took it as fuel.
I didn’t just want to prove her wrong. I wanted to prove myself right.
For the entire two years of cooking school, I stayed committed. To fitness, to food, to listening to my body. Slowly, steadily, without crash diets or extremes, my health began to change. I lost 100 pounds!!
My gut issues disappeared. My energy came back. The fog lifted.
To this day, I still have occasional back pain flare-ups, but they’re manageable. I live a full, active life. I cook. I teach. I move. I show up. Looking back, that period wasn’t just about learning how to cook.
It was about learning how to take care of myself. And that changed everything.
During this time, I had a mindset change that helped me stay grounded when old habits and cravings showed up.
I realized that telling myself “I want this and I can’t have it” never worked. There’s a part of me, the inner brat, that hears that and immediately wants to rebel. To push back. To justify. To find loopholes. Restriction just made the craving louder.
So I flipped the script. I started telling myself: “I CAN have this AND I don’t want it.”
That subtle change mattered more than I expected. McDonald’s is right there. Some of them are open 24/7. If I want it, I can absolutely have it. No one is stopping me. But I don’t want it, because I know how it makes my body feel. I know the impact in the long run. And I care more about that. I actually wrote this on a piece of paper and taped it to my fridge in big marker:
Change mindset from I want this and I can't have it - to - I can have this. I don’t want it.
When cravings showed up I’d repeat that to myself. Not as punishment. Not as shame. Just as truth. That mindset shift gave me agency. It helped me stay on track. And it reminded me that this wasn’t about deprivation. It was about choice.
This writing is always free to read.
If it nourished you in any way, you can buy me a coffee below and help fuel what comes next ☕️
