Feed A Passion For Health, Build A Career with Toby Amidor
In this episode of Good Enough for Now, we talk with Toby Amidor, the founder of Toby Amidor Nutrition, where she provides nutrition and food safety consulting services for individuals, restaurants and food brands. She is a Wall Street Journal bestselling cookbook author and has 9 published cookbooks.
Tune in to learn more about allowing yourself to discover your passion, reinventing balance between your family and work life, and instilling a shared sense of responsibility in your children.
LISTEN NOW
three reasons why you should listen to this episode:
Experiment with new ideas to discover your passion.
Be open to reinventing balance between your career and family life
Instill a sense of shared responsibility in your children
Highlights
We caught up with Toby in New York where she is a single mom to 3 kids and she is dedicating her time to writing her 10th cookbook.
Having fallen into a successful career in nutrition, after taking two initial classes because her mother was studying the topic, she has since become the founder of Toby Amidor Nutrition, where she provides nutrition and food safety consulting services for individuals, restaurants, and food brands.
To make the move beyond working with clients in different capacities, she made the decision to pursue cookbook writing.
I went on a crazy ride because I had no idea you can write cookbooks and be a spokesperson.. I taught at a culinary school where they actually used me for their PR. So I learned some, I did some radio, television... And then I did print and online interviews a lot and I started to get kind of in the groove of that.
When a lot of downtime isn’t an option it’s important to prioritize and manage your day-to-day life and schedule with care.
I have my to-do list, which is definitely important and things I have to get done that day. And then in the mornings I try to exercise almost every day. I rotate it but I don't have a lot of work to do one workout.
Having gone from married life to single parenthood, instilling a sense of shared responsibility in her children has helped in that transition.
So it's really about balancing and having them understand that they need to take responsibility for certain things. Sometimes it's like you need to find a ride, what do you need a ride to? And sometimes one of my parents or an auntie can drive or one of my friends can help drive, so we try to work together. I treat them as adults. I mean we all have to balance and they need to be responsible too. So I've taught them that over the years.
One of the unique issues that comes across when Toby speaks to other dieticians in terms of eating healthy here in the US relates to the prevalence of nutritional misinformation from a myriad of sources.
The biggest influence we're really seeing, especially for Gen Zers millennials, it's the influence of social media. I mean I am debunking TikTok’s left and right.
And then people think they know nutrition for whatever reason because they heard it from their trainer, they heard it from online or at the water cooler or whatever. And the information is not necessarily correct and what you choose to do doesn't mean somebody else should be doing either. They may have a disease state, they may have diabetes, they may have a history of disordered eating, you don't know. And so it's very, very individual and people don't understand that.
With so much going on in terms of her career, writing books, speaking engagements, advisory work, teaching, it’s important to keep a sense of balance.
I've always put like one foot ahead of the other to just keep going because really I'm a single parent. I need to continue to make money but I also want to be there to do pickup and to be there in the evenings. And so I really didn't wanna be in an office until five.
What Good Enough For Now means to Toby:
Well I'm always trying to evolve, learn something new and just be a better either dietician at my job or person. So right now I have to be happy with where I'm at and keep evolving, keep working on everything, you know, from personal to business. So I think good enough for now for me means like I'm happy with where I am in my life right now, but doesn't mean I'm still not gonna keep going forward and keep evolving.
ABOUT
Toby is the founder of Toby Amidor Nutrition, PC, where she provides nutrition and food safety consulting services for individuals, restaurants and food brands. She is a Wall Street Journal bestselling cookbook author and has 9 published cookbooks. Her recent book The Family Immunity Cookbook won a Gourmand Award in 2022. For close to 15 years she has been the nutrition expert for FoodNetwork.com, and founding contributor to their Healthy Eats Blog. Toby is a regular contributor to U.S. News and World Report Eat + Run blog, Shape.com, EatingWell.com and others and has her own “Ask the Expert” column in Today’s Dietitian Magazine. She has been quoted in hundreds of publications and appears on local and national television shows. For 11 years she was an adjunct professor at Teachers College, Columbia University teaching food service management and also taught at CUNY Hunter School of Public Urban Health in New York City.
Toby trained as a clinical dietitian at New York University. Through ongoing consulting and faculty positions, she has established herself as one of the top experts in culinary nutrition, food safety, and media communications. In 2018, Toby was awarded by the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics the coveted Media Excellence Award.
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Stephanie (00:04):
Hi, and welcome to Good Enough For Now, we are Your hosts. I'm Stephanie Kruse.
Harper (00:10):
I'm Harper Spero. And our show is for people who wanna make meaning from life's detours so they can find the creative resilience to move forward.
Stephanie (00:18):
We'll explore stories of transition, false starts, unexpected U-turns, and other moments of reinvention that happen as we move through life. Each week we'll bring you a fresh perspective from our own lives and share insights from guests. We bring on the show.
Harper (00:33):
Join us when you need a moment to get out of your head. Feel less alone and maybe a little bit more
Stephanie (00:40):
Together
(00:50):
When we talk to Toby Amidor, who is someone that I know through playing tennis in my life. You know, we know each other on the court in our skirts having fun. She is so accomplished in her field, but that wasn't necessarily always her plan. And in fact she ended up going back to school for nutrition science because her mom was interested in it. You know, we talked to so many people who had an intention in their lives, maybe a career they formed and then they changed it. But actually it's almost like Toby fell into this and has built this amazingly legitimate career and expertise from just trying something new.
Harper (01:30):
Yeah, and I also think there are a lot of people that fall into careers, industries, jobs less so entrepreneurial life because you get to be the person that's setting the intention and deciding what you're gonna do with it. So I think it was really fascinating to hear how she approached this as opposed to it just being something that she was interested in because of her mom, but actually turning it into a business. So let's get into it.
Stephanie (01:54):
Toby is the founder of Toby Amidor Nutrition, where she provides nutrition and food safety consulting services for individuals, restaurants, and food brands. She's a Wall Street Journal bestselling cookbook author and has published nine cookbooks for close to 15 years. She's been the nutrition expert for food network.com and a founding contributor to their Healthy Eats blog. She was formerly an adjunct professor at Teachers College teaching food service management. Through ongoing consulting and faculty positions, she has established herself as one of the top experts in culinary nutrition, food safety, and media communications.
Harper (02:32):
Welcome Toby. We're so happy to have you here today.
Toby (02:35):
Thanks so much for having me.
Stephanie (02:37):
I'm so excited to talk through your career, your personal life and have this conversation on our podcast. But thank you for coming.
Toby (02:45):
Awesome. I look forward to it. So excited
Harper (02:48):
And I'm excited to learn more about you. So if you wanna start, tell us where you are in your life right now.
Toby (02:54):
In my life I have three kids. One's in college and two are about to go. And I'm working on my 10th cookbook at this time, I'm basically a single mom and trying to work and have fun with my tennis and do things for me once in a while that make me happy. And foster dogs is what I do as a volunteer. And uh, that's kind of all I can handle right now.
Stephanie (03:18):
Youre not one to sit still. I don't think Toby <laugh>.
Toby (03:22):
No. My kids are like, can't we rest today <laugh>? I'm like, no, it's six 30. Whatcha doing? It's time for theory. I'm like, I'm going <laugh>.
Stephanie (03:32):
I wanna come back to that in terms of, it sounds like a peacemaking schedule of having your exercise and your time to yourself, but what I wanna talk about first is how did you become interested in nutrition science and get into this world that you work in?
Toby (03:51):
So that's a funny story. My mom and dad sat me down like junior year in college and we're like, okay, what do you wanna do with your life? And I was like, I'm not sure. My mom at the time was a career changer and she was doing her master's at NYU to become a registered dietician. I said, okay, let me try two classes. The only two classes at the time I went to Suning Binghamton and upstate New York, they only had two classes. I took 'em both and I fell in love with nutrition from both of 'em. And one was sociology of nutrition, one was Biology of Nutrition. So completely different and I love both aspects. I did fall in love with it and I applied to NYU and I got in subsequently and my mom and I graduated together. She did food and nutrition and I did a master's in clinical nutrition and dietetics from NYU.
Stephanie (04:38):
That's crazy. So did you guys have classes together and
Toby (04:42):
Everything? Yes, we did. <laugh>. Yeah, it was supposed to be a teaching assistant, but then they realized and they're like, you can't grade paper. And I'm like, OK <laugh>.
Harper (04:50):
That's incredible. I love this story so much. Wait, so then how did you decide to get into cookbook writing? Because there's so many different angles you can go after getting a degree. How did you decide to pursue that?
Toby (05:04):
I went on a crazy ride because I had no idea you can like write cookbooks and be a spokesperson or whatnot. So after that I taught at a culinary school where they actually used me for their pr. So I learned some, I did some radio. The television, I did one show, it just, they never aired me. The clip they had, I was so disappointed. And then I did print, you know, and online interviews a lot and I started to get kind of in the groove of that. And then after that I actually was like board of teaching had been 10 years. I had a couple kids, I think I had two kids at the time. And then through Teachers College, Columbia University where I was taking some postmasters credits, I actually ended up teaching there in the dietetic internship for food service management. But Food Network kind of came up like I was on an online forum where I was doing something online called Diet Television.
(05:55):
I still don't know what it is to this time, but it went bankrupt. And Scripps who owned Food Network at the time, the woman in charge envisioned a healthy part of Food Network and I was called in. Me and Dana, Angelo White were both still 15 plus years later, were both the nutrition experts over there. And then once I went to Food Network and Star writing, I'm a fountain contributor to their Healthy Eats blog with Dana. So once we did that, we just got a lot of companies calling us some opportunities for a lot of other writing channels. At this point I'm on the medical advisory board of Forbes eat this.com and also on the editorial board of today's magazine where I have my own column for many, many years. So kind of all opened up and then food companies started coming to me and are like, Hey, you're writing about dairy. Cuz my family did have dairy farms in Israel. So I started working with National Dairy Council and to this day I'm still work with them and um, an ambassador for them. So you know, and I work with a lot of other California grapes. I've worked with, I just had a book signing with California Strawberry Commission. So I like working. If you don't know, commodity boards are run by the farmers. So I like representing the farmers and those foods if possible.
Stephanie (07:10):
And it sounds like you had some context for it from your family history as well. So I think of like nutritionist as people that have advice and ideas about what makes for, you know, whether it's a healthy living or a particular type of diet that people are trying to do. It's very consultative, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative>, you guys have all the knowledge. So when you think about what is the most rewarding part of your job, what fulfills you? Is it the teaching piece of it? Like when you see people using that knowledge?
Toby (07:46):
I do a salad of things I say cause I do so many different, but it's the education piece because I do it in many mediums. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. So I educate consumers, you know, my food network pieces, my Forbes pieces, they get syndicated, they hit millions of readers and they go on Yahoo and MSN and, and I don't put out just one piece a month. I'm writing a tremendous amount and getting quoted as an expert as well. So my name is in the media, I try to debunk myths, et cetera. So that's really rewarding. But I also, when I do a lot of public speaking, I speak in front of health professionals, family physicians. Mm-hmm <affirmative> dieticians. And so I educate also the health professionals too. That's what my column does in today's dieticians. So I kind of do from both sides. And then with the spokesperson work too, I put out education and I'm very, very particular who I partner with. So if it's a brand they need to like make sure the science is there and make sure their philosophy is in tip top shape like mine. So that's kinda mm-hmm <affirmative> I would partner with them. Again, it's education to the public or to health professionals if that's what they're seeking to do.
Harper (08:49):
I love that you share that you're particular with the brands that you partner with cause it's something that we talk about here for the podcast and just in general for businesses. You know, I'm a business coach and I'm always saying to people, if you don't feel aligned with the platform or the product or the service, and we talked about this with the previous guest go and va and I think it's such a relevant thing to keep in mind to make sure that like you feel it aligns with your values. Otherwise you're just saying like, yeah, I'm gonna promote these cherries. They're amazing by the way, I don't eat cherries. You know,
Toby (09:21):
Like I know there's
Harper (09:23):
A lot of that going on also in the podcasting world because people are just with agencies and they're just like, we'll take whatever money we can get. So I appreciate you being aligned with whatever brands that you work with. Um, as Steph said at the beginning, it doesn't sound like there's a lot of downtime for you. How do you prioritize and manage your day-to-day and schedule?
Toby (09:44):
So I have my to-do list, which is definitely important and things I have to get done that day. And then in the mornings I try to exercise almost every day. I rotate it but I don't have a lot of work to do one workout <laugh>. Okay. So it's either tennis or orange theory or sometimes I have reformer Pilates. If I am a little bit like relaxed sometimes on a weekend and I don't have like a million things to do or book due, I'll do a double workout, I'll do an orange theory in the morning and then I'll do either a match or I'll play tennis. I know I'm crazy but it helps relieve that anxiety that I get. And we know that, we know that exercise, you know, helps release those feel good chemicals, uh, hormones in your brain. So it certainly works for me and just, I'm getting older so I just have to make sure if I have injuries, like I just bought a new pair of sneakers cuz I'm like okay, I'm starting to feel it in the back of my foot. I probably need to replace my sneakers. They're just making sure I maintain myself properly. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. So,
Stephanie (10:40):
And you mentioned you're a single parent. I know your kids are, you know, older. You said you had one in college and two on their, but that doesn't mean that they don't need your time and emotional support. So talk us through that journey from being in married life to single Parenthood and what you've seen that's helped you through that transition. What, what have you relied on and what's also maybe been the biggest challenge?
Toby (11:08):
It's been a challenge just being able to like stay in the kids' school system and stay put because I do live Westchester County and is not that inexpensive <laugh>. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and the Pandemic certainly had a hit on, you know, marketing and communications and things that I do. So that was very tough. I did write a couple of books, but again the pandemic made stuff slower. So I mean at this time I'm just trying to recover from the pandemic myself and just make sure that I can get my kids into the college that they want, be able to afford it, find the scholarships while that stuff is really important while still maintaining, like make sure the dinner's on the table and they can cook anything. My two girls that are at home, because they've helped me with all of my 10 cookbooks, but it's like they still need to talk to me to tell me something.
(11:58):
If something happens at school, they didn't do well on something and they're stressed. So I do like to be available even if I'm physically not at home and I do travel mm-hmm <affirmative> so they know they can basically, unless I'm literally speaking to a crowd of a couple hundred people at the time, <laugh>, I, I can't speak to them. Oh I've gotten clubs five minutes before I have to go on and we need to speak to you. You know, I was like, can this wait like an hour and I promise I'll and I do, I call them back and then we talk about it. Or sometimes I'm in a, you know, I can text with them so I'll tell them that. So it's really about balancing and having them understand that they need to take responsibility for certain things. Sometimes it's like you need to find a ride, what do you need a ride to? I'll compliment you. And sometimes one of my parents or an auntie can drive or one of my friends can help drive, but I need to know. So we try to like work together. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I treat them as adults. I mean we all have to balance and they need to be responsible too. So I've taught them that over the years.
Harper (12:54):
You brought up that education is a part that you love the most about the work that you do. How does that fit into your parenting related to food and your kids' eating habits?
Toby (13:04):
Well my kids are the ones that tell me not to bring junk in the house, which is funny. Oh my gosh. But it's a ball I wanna bring like pumpkin donuts in or I wanna make a pumpkin pie so that we make a pumpkin pie every single fall for Thanksgiving we have three pies and usually one on Thanksgiving one we freeze and then when we eat right away. So love it. That happens every year. But literally they know how to cook everything. My older daughter knows how to bake very well. She can make French macaroons from scratch. Wow. My other daughter, she's 15. Instead of me explaining it, she's like, just tell me the recipe and send it to my phone and I will cook from it cuz she can do everything. Cause she's helped me test hundreds and hundreds of recipes at this point in time.
Stephanie (13:47):
Wow, that's great. I mean talk about preparing for adulthood, like they're good.
Toby (13:52):
I know. So I'll be like, why do you have to make sure the pan is really hot before putting the salmon in <laugh>? Like, and then she answers that nurse, she goes, I know skin side down has to be super hot so it doesn't stick and it cooks properly. Yeah. But they answer all these questions and not only do they know how to cook, but understanding why mm-hmm <affirmative> do certain things are happening, why do I bring it to a boil after I put the ingredients in? Yeah. You know, it's food safety thing. I ask all these questions if we cook together.
Stephanie (14:20):
Okay. So that's the book you need to write is how to teach your Kids to Cook. Cause I mean I think about recipes my mom made or my grandmother made and I understand there's ingredients that went into those. I have her recipes, you know, I have the box with cards in them that got handed down. But to have the talk track of here's why I'm adding butter this way. I think that that's such a gift that you're giving them about also understanding their nutrition. So it sounds like they're healthy eaters, but what do you think is uniquely some of the issues that you come across when you speak to either other dieticians or that you've gotten feedback about eating healthy here in the us? Some of the challenges there,
Toby (15:06):
That's a big question's because the biggest influence we're really seeing, especially for Gen Zers millennials, it's the influence of social media. Mm-hmm I mean I am debunking TikTok Mets left and right. I just did a piece for Food Network not too long ago about people cooking NyQuil chicken, like they cook their chicken in NyQuil. What? And it's actually quite dangerous because the heat is causing it to be actually more potent.
Stephanie (15:33):
Wow.
Toby (15:34):
I've written pieces for Forbes about the latest TikTok trends, you know, some to try. So cooking, you know, dishes mm-hmm <affirmative> that you can make, but not necessarily healthy. But a lot of the trends are really, really scary that people are doing, like having protein powders without mixing it into liquids. It's not the right avenue to do it. Like people are trying to take shortcuts and do things that, oh, I'm gonna feel better if I use chlorophyll water or whatever it may be. And there's just no scientific basis behind it. It's just like, ooh, I feel good doing it because I'm a TikTok guard now you should try it. And the FDA actually put out a statement about the NyQuil chicken and then TikTok actually banned any videos that were showcasing it. They would only allow videos saying like the F D A has put out a, you know, a warning about the NyQuil chicken.
(16:22):
So that was really interesting to see, but at least TikTok got rid of those videos. So it's, it's quite interesting. But that's a huge thing. And then people think they know nutrition for whatever reason because they heard it from their trainer, they heard it from online or at the water cooler or whatever. And the information is not necessarily correct and what you choose to do doesn't mean somebody else should be doing either. They may have a disease state, they may have diabetes, they may have a history of disordered eating, you don't know. And so it's very, very individual and people don't understand that.
Stephanie (16:52):
Yeah.
Harper (16:54):
You know, one of the best things about the internet is how many people you can reach and how much you can learn. And at the same time it's so dangerous for exactly those reasons. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, someone can put something up and all of a sudden I'm a qualified nutritionist. Or there's a lot of conversation around coaching and therapy that a lot of therapists are pissed off that coaches exist and are not certified and they're making more money than therapists but have no credentials. So I think it's this like weird balance of how do you get your voice out there as much as possible because you're credible and sort of quiet and debunk those myths. It's a challenge that I'm glad that you're tackling cuz obviously it's an important one. How do you come up with the different concepts of your cookbooks?
Toby (17:39):
So the one during the pandemic was immunity clearly. And that was done early as the pandemic because there really isn't any immunity cookbooks. And I approach it from a food perspective. Food first. Mm-hmm <affirmative> because there were so many people, I was giving a lot of talks to family physicians through one of my clients about all these supplements that people were asking about. And in my column in today's dietician, I was writing all about these supplements that became so popular that people were popping pills. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and these things are very poorly regulated. What's written on the bottle doesn't mean it's actually in there because supplements are not FDA regulated. So unless it's third party verified, you don't really know what's in there. It's very odd. So I wanted to approach it as a food first. Like remember you're supposed to eat food, remember you're supposed to have a well-balanced meal.
(18:26):
I do highlight like 25 foods, strawberries one of 'em. But I bring in blueberries, it's still in the same berry family. It'll still give you anthocynins, antioxidants or whatnot like vitamin C. It has, but it's not just limited to those 25. I did wanna pull out some nice foods that have certain nutrients that help build, whether it's antioxidants, your immune system or whatever. But that's how I did that book. And then my cookbook now that I'm working on is uh, a celebration of vegetables. I think it's gonna be called like VE Up or Up Your Veggies, something like that. But because nine and 10 Americans do not eat the recommended amount of vegetables and we know that's where fluids come from and a lot of antioxidants and phytonutrients as well.
Stephanie (19:08):
So one of the things that you know has been surprising to me in creating this podcast is how there's a sneaky amount of work I like to call it, like creating content, you know, getting an an interview, talking to you, figuring out what we're gonna talk about. I imagine that a cookbook similarly, maybe even worse, <laugh> in terms of how much time. Can you just give us a little bit of a behind the scenes of what it takes? You know, you got your concept, maybe you have some recipes. How do you go about actually delivering a cookbook?
Toby (19:43):
You know, it depends. When you have a good editor it really helps. You're working with a team but I actually have a spreadsheet with all the recipes in advance. Like that has to be determined in advance. Like what exactly is in every chapter, the content. So that's been decided.
Stephanie (19:59):
So do you test all those recipes yourself or are
Toby (20:01):
They Not yet. I just brainstormed the titles first. I didn't even get there yet.
Stephanie (20:05):
Oh sorry. I'm
Toby (20:06):
Way ahead of,
(20:09):
It's a slow process. And then after that I have to deliver a certain amount of recipes or content at a time. So let's say last week or week and a half ago I did 15 recipes and in about a week and a half I have 25 recipes and this book has about a hundred recipes in it. So it's, you know, you have certain days that you'll get there and sometimes it doesn't always happen that I'll meet the deadline. So I'll tell my editor or I'll deliver a little less and then try to catch up like as best I can. But it's like it's due yesterday kind of thing. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, you know what I mean? Like I asked for an interview and they're like, when is it due? I'm like yesterday cause the article was already passed due <laugh>. I'm like, and I can write them up pretty quickly, but in the media world things just, they want it done already. Like my publisher laughed at me, he's like, okay now that you gave me the outline, is it done yet? And I was like, oh my gosh, really? Like you want it yesterday? He's like, yep. <laugh>.
Harper (21:01):
How's that relationship been for you and working with your publisher over the years and all the different books?
Toby (21:07):
Well I've had four different publishers and it's been interesting, like Robert Rose is the last publishing house and I continue to work with him. So he publishes in Canada in the US so it's been quite interesting. So every time I write a cookbook for him one cup is two 50 milliliters. Like I need to do all the yeah. Empirical <laugh>, metric <laugh>. So I know those pretty well. I have my cheat sheet like in front of me <laugh>. So I'm very good with like Fahrenheit. Put your ovens at 3 75. Let me check the Celsius. But I also appreciate that they hire like an absolutely amazing photographer. If you open that immunity cookbook you'll see stunning photos and a lot of them. And that's what I like some of my earlier books, the publishing house didn't believe in that or didn't wanna put the money for it, but this one he does and I think it makes a really big difference.
Stephanie (21:59):
Yeah, I think about the cookbooks that I've bought that I really liked the photographs and the recipes and me just did not
Toby (22:09):
So funny.
Stephanie (22:10):
Like plenty everyone has it in their kitchen cause it's beautiful but those are not easy simple. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gonna pull it
Harper (22:19):
Out. No, this is gorgeous. I just pulled out my bookshelf Eric Repairs book Vegetable Simple. Have I actually made a single recipe? No, it's interesting. I'm someone who doesn't follow recipes but I collect cookbooks and order them on a regular basis. <laugh>. But I like making my own concoctions and not following the rules.
Toby (22:41):
I do it so it's simple. You can find the ingredients at your local supermarket cuz I've seen some cookbooks where you have to order specific on Amazon. Mm-hmm <affirmative> cause you can't find the product anywhere. And then I have suggestions for like, let's say I, I have you use some fresh herbs. Okay you're gonna have leftover, what can you do with the fresh herbs? So I try to give you different tips. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, whether it's swapping culinary storage, whatever. And I think that's helpful um, because I want you to do it your way.
Harper (23:08):
I love that. I appreciate that so much. You mentioned the Diabetes Foundation. Can you talk about that and the book that you worked on that was diabetes specific?
Toby (23:18):
Sure. I did two books. So the first one that I did with them was the Create Your Plate Diabetes Cookbook. It's on the American Diabetes Association. Uh, the plate method it's called. And the second book I did was also based on the plate method and it's basically a non calorie way using your plate in order to set up your meal if you're a person with diabetes. So I thought it's like the most genius way and easiest way for someone with diabetes, especially newly diagnosed or living, living with it for many years. So then I did a meal prep using the same idea but in a box. The thing is the American Diabetes Association for all writers, they no longer publish consumer facing books. Meaning books that'll go to the public. They only do it for other health professionals. Hmm. So the meal prep cookbook for people with diabetes was actually published, that's six months ago by Robert Rose Books. So I did come out with that. It has gorgeous photos. And then I do wanna republish my original book, the Create Your Plate Diabetes Cookbook. Cuz a lot, a lot of people tell me they use it as a gift or just to help guide them using that plate method. It's like one of the only books out there having that plate method. So I will republish it at some point, not sure with who and that'll be out there more available cause it's not so available right now.
Stephanie (24:34):
So looking back over your career to date, I mean it seems like looking at from the outside sort of built itself, right? Oh lemme check out this degree. I'm gonna take these two nutrition science classes. Oh I like those. I'll go ahead and get my master. Okay. I went into media and then content and then the cookbooks. But I can't imagine that it's been always that easy. So when you think about it, whether it's giving your own kids advice or when you look back at some of those inflection points for you, what do you think has kinda kept you going and balanced?
Toby (25:14):
I've always put like one foot ahead of the other to just keep going because really I'm a single parent. I need to continue to make money but I also want to be there to do pickup and to be there in the evenings. And so I really didn't wanna be in an office night five. So this career kind of just fell in my lap. I'm absolutely blessed to have it. And you know, my kids sometimes gimme a hard time because they see me at home. I'm like, I'm working. Yeah. I was work from home before the pandemic
Stephanie (25:42):
<laugh>. God the same. I know my kids are like, you're working. I'm like, you realize I'm downstairs in the office. Right. What do you think is happening down there? <laugh>? <laugh>.
Toby (25:52):
I dunno. They think we're watching video or YouTube I guess, but I dunno what Cause I'm like, I'm in my office. Yeah. Or I'll be upstairs. I'll be like, cuz I don't have great receptions. So sometimes I have to take calls in my kitchen and I'm like, I'm on the phone, I'm working. They're like, but you're home and you're doing laundry. I said, yes, when I need a break I'll go fold the laundry, which is five steps away from me. It's really nice because I do that that helps like calm me sometimes.
Stephanie (26:17):
Yeah, absolutely.
Toby (26:18):
But it's not easy.
Stephanie (26:21):
Okay. So we're last question because I wanna be mindful of time for you as well. So the show is called Good Enough for Now? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. When you think about that phrase, what does that mean for you in your life?
Toby (26:37):
Well I'm always trying to evolve, learn something new and just be a better either dietician at my, my job or person. So right now I have to be happy with where I'm at and keep evolving, keep working on everything, you know, from personal to business. So I think good enough for now for me means like I'm happy with where I am in my life right now, but doesn't mean I'm still not gonna keep going forward and keep evolving.
Stephanie (27:01):
I love that. Me too. Continuing to push forward. There's always the next
Toby (27:06):
Something, something exciting. Right man. Something exciting to do.
Stephanie (27:10):
Exactly. More to learn <laugh>. Yes.
Toby (27:13):
I need to go up four, five.
Stephanie (27:16):
Exactly. Exactly. Well this has so nice. Where can people find you and learn more and find your books?
Toby (27:25):
So my website is Toby, t o b y, Amador a m i dor nutrition.com and there's a tab with all 10 cookbooks. Or you can look up my name Toby Amador and Amazon. I have a whole page with all my 10 books or whatever books are sold.
Stephanie (27:39):
Fantastic. Well it has been so nice for you to take time for us today. Thank you so, so much. Thank you Toby.
Toby (27:46):
Thank you too.
Stephanie (27:53):
If you'd like the show, please follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. And give us a five star rating and review. For
Harper (28:01):
Show notes and more information, head to good enough for now. pod.com
Stephanie (28:06):
And follow us on Instagram at good enough for now Pod. See you next week.
