My Nutrition Story

I grew up thin and fit - I could eat whatever I wanted, and I enjoyed food but I didn't think much about it.  At age 13, I started to gain a little bit of weight and instead of encouraging me to eat real, unprocessed foods, my family put me on diet pills and diet after diet (often filled with artificial sweeteners and fake foods).  My parents would both consistently make negative comments about my weight (that I'm sure they picked up from their parents) that led me to equate being thin with being loveable.

I was constantly dieting and restricting myself for periods of time followed by periods of rebelling against all of my "rules" and binging on junk food.  This cycle continued off and on throughout high school and college which took up so much mental space that could've been used for good rather than obsession and self-loathing.  Around senior year of college, I became so fed up with my obsession with being thin that I was determined to find a better way. I started becoming interested in the health of food rather than just the calories (although I was still thinking about calories too), and I became fascinated with learning as much as I could.

After graduating from college, I experienced family trauma and a great deal of stress that set off hormonal and digestive issues for me.  I went to gynecologist after gynecologist to try and figure out what was “wrong” with me, and their only solution was to try another new birth control pill (I tried 5 before I stopped the madness).

Because of these experiences, I dove head first into learning everything I could about hormones, digestion, food, and mindset.  Over the course of a couple of years, I was able to heal all of my hormonal and digestive issues on my own with food and lifestyle.  Even greater than solving my health issues, balanced nutrition, good lifestyle habits, and therapy completely got rid of my depression and mood swings and made my anxiety manageable all without medication. 

The power of healing foods left me in awe, but I still struggled with never feeling thin enough no matter how I looked.  Self love and acceptance became my next learning mission. I dove into psychology research, learning about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for changing habits around food. I learned about subconscious thoughts and how beliefs I picked up in childhood were still looping in my brain and keeping me stuck. I read numerous books including "Women, Food, and God" by Geneen Roth.  Geneen Roth's basic concept is that, "The way you eat is inseparable from your core beliefs about being alive. Your relationship with food is an exact mirror of your feelings about love, fear, anger, meaning, transformation and, yes, even God."  This book was a turning point for me, and I came to believe that my relationship with food and my body has become my greatest teacher. It has given me the gift of being able to use my struggles to help others stop suffering and make peace with their bodies and themselves.

I believe that proper nutrition along with creating a healthy relationship with food can change womens' lives because it has changed mine.  My mission is to help other women use food to heal their bodies and their souls because I know that a confident and healthy woman is unstoppable.