Meg.Goes.Nom.Nom.

The Basics

I don’t claim to be an expert in either, but this blog combines two of my favorite things: food and photography! I like to cook, and even more so, love to eat! I hope to chronicle some of the better meals I create and enjoy, all while being mindful of making healthier choices to maintain a healthy weight.

This “About Me” page has been the most difficult part of my blog to write. I really don’t know how on earth to convey myself to my readers in a few paragraphs on a blog. I actually feel sort of cheesy writing this section!

Meet Megan

Basically, I could start by saying that I am a twenty-something Midwestern gal, born and raised in a small Michigan city. My family’s home was flanked on one side by a corn field and on the other, by a field of horses. On more than one occasion, our yard would become filled with cows that had wandered over, from a farm a few doors down.

I’m a very goal-oriented person. Me & my BFF at our HS graduation…ages ago, it seems!

I attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor where earned a Bachelor of Science degree with a concentration in Brain, Behavior, & Cognitive Science, with a minor in Biological Anthropology.

College Life

College was a wonderful experience for the most part. I feel so grateful to have been able to receive such an amazing education at such an amazing college (though I did work my butt off to get there!). As a freshman, I “went in blind” with regards to housing, and ended up with three awesome roommates who I loved, in a giant quad dorm room which had been converted from a lounge. Pretty sweet! 5107 Bush House! Such a fun year. That’s me in HOT pink, hun.

 

After freshman year, I lived in a pretty wild 10 bedroom house for a year, which was quite the experience. Here is me and all my housemates, plus a few extra ladies.

After going from having four girls in one large room for a year, to living in a house with nine other girls for a year, as a junior I decided it was time to focus on myself. As a third-year undergrad, I lived by myself in a studio apartment and I simply adored it. Don’t get me wrong – as much as I loved my former roomies and my now-huz, I can’t lie – living by myself was pretty awesome for a year. Even with this TINY kitchen! I also became a brunette this year.

As a senior, I moved in with my then-fiancé, and now-hubby, whom I had met the summer following freshman year of college, via Facebook, and then shortly afterward, in person. Our initial meeting was the result of my Facebook search for others who had listed the band “A Perfect Circle” as one of their favorite bands.

 

 

Music

Music has played a huge role in my life. It is hugely important to me. Most apparently, is the reason I met my husband is because have the same favorite band (A Perfect Circle)! Also, there is the fact that being a musician has always been a huge part of my identity, after I started playing violin in 4^th grade, and continued with it until graduated high school. I admirably and proudly declared myself an “orch dork,” as a member of orchestra. The majority of my life is spent listening to music, and it is, more or less, the primary way that I cope with…well, life. JH is my fellow ROCK fan 4LYF.

 

2008 – A Huge Year!

In 2008 I graduated with my Bachelor of Science degree. A few months later, in July, I was married, followed by a honeymoon in Jamaica at the Sandals Royal Caribbean Resort (all-inclusive food and drink – holla!).

 

A week or two before my wedding I had a job interview (among many!), was offered a job, and then only a couple short months after the wedding, I started my first ‘real’ job working as a Research Tech at the University of Michigan, and am now a Clinical Subjects Coordinator.

The Start of the Blog

The day after my 24^th birthday, I decided that I needed a new hobby. Something to do for myself and something to look forward to doing. I decided to start a blog. I can’t deny that I was somewhat inspired by the movie Julie and Julia when it came to the idea of starting a blog devoted to food. With that said, I have always been a lover of food..

As a child, I was more of a baker, having spent many an hour in the kitchen helping my grandma bake cookies (my favorite was pressing the fork tines over peanut butter cookies, and also wearing vanilla extract as perfume), or searching for the most complicated and ambitious cookie recipe in my mom’s cook books (chocolate and vanilla pinwheels!?). Another favorite was helping my dad make stuffing for the Thanksgiving turkey, by dipping dried bread into water.

Unrelated to food, I was also obsessed with Ariel from the Little Mermaid. You love my bangs.

Once college began, I found that dorm rooms and studio apartments weren’t exactly conducive to baking. In fact, they were more conducive to making boxes of mac ‘n’ cheese and ramen noodles. I mean, who hasn’t been there?!

After college, we moved into bigger places (see my house here!) that allowed for me to again get more creative in the kitchen. I am relearning my love of spending time in the kitchen, and have been spending increasingly more time cooking, especially while trying to incorporate healthier foods into my diet.

The month after I began my blog, I had doctor’s appointment, at which I stepped on the scale and realized that I had reached an unhealthy weight. Even my doctor suggested that try to lose 10 pounds for health reasons. Following my appointment, I started putting a bit more effort into trying to make healthy eating choices, but it didn’t seem to make much of an impact. I realized that I needed to come up with a plan, a strict regimen, and stick to it. What worked for me was calorie counting. I strictly stuck to a calorie-counting plan for several months, during which I consistently lost 4-5 pounds per month. I had no goal weight, I just wanted to see what would happen. Now that I have lost 25+ pounds, I am at a healthy body mass index and am working to maintain my weight loss and continue to eat healthier. You can read more about my progress here.

Other than creating this blog for fun, my other goal for this blog is to be more accountable for and conscientious of the foods I eat. I hope to eat less meat, fewer processed foods, and less sodium; and hope to eat more healthy, fresh, and natural foods, when possible. Of course, I’m only human, and there are days when I indulge; but overall I hope to see a positive change in the foods I choose to eat. Because of this blog, I have felt more accountable for the food choices I have been making, and I think that has really helped motivate me to stick with my plan and lose the weight – it worked! (Clearly I love to get gussied up in interesting outfits!)

Photography

The majority of my photographs are taken with my Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS1 point-and-shoot, while my pictures taken while out-and-about on the town are typically taken with my iPhone!

Contact Me

You can contact me (Megan!) at meggoesnomnom@gmail.com . Or leave me a comment – I love reading your comments!