Why I Do What I Do…

I’m a child of the 80’s and 90’s, a happy time of neon clothes, snap bracelets, boy bands, Saturday morning cartoons complete with energetic commercials with processed convenient fun ‘kid’ foods.  I drank soda, ate hostess cupcakes, Twinkies, Oreos...poured sugar on my frosted flakes, ate white bread, bologna and kraft singles like it was going out of style. At 16, I started having digestive issues. My parents took me to the doctor for over a year with so many tests to try to figure out what was wrong with me, not once did they ask me about what I ate!  

After about a year of no answers, I was still sick and frustrated. It was now the year 2000 and my parents got a home computer, yep, it was finally a thing! I was sitting there one day and thanks to Yahoo I typed in my symptoms.  The first thing that came up was I could be lactose intolerant, really!?  Well, born and raised in Wisconsin, milk was part of my daily life, in addition to cheese + ice cream. I remember reading it out loud to my dad, his response was, ‘don’t believe everything you read on the internet’. Well, it was a pretty easy test for me to see if this was my issue. I simply stopped eating dairy, and guess what? I stopped getting sick! Can you believe my parent’s maxed out their medical deductibles for over a year, CT scans, ultrasounds, blood tests, MRI’s….and it was lactose!!!!! How frickin’ easy was that!?

Over the next several years, I continued learning about what had lactose, what didn’t...still eating processed foods, but not lactose. During this next decade, I moved around living in several different states. When I lived in Houston, I started getting very ill again. I was very aware of my lactose issue, but couldn’t keep anything down, not even a cracker. I was down another 10 pounds, my parents worried because I  was just skin and bones.  I would pray that when I got sick it was more of a vomiting illness...buuuuut it wasn’t. It was more of a I need a bathroom NOW issue. So, I went to the doctor with my food diary, which she didn’t even look at, told me I probably have IBS, and told me not to eat what didn’t bother me. Again, I have no answers and I’m still sick, and EVERYTHING I ate bothered me. It took me another 2 years to realize my water wasn’t being filtered well and I was getting ill from the city water. I didn’t know this until I moved to Nashville, and all of a sudden my issue completely disappeared.

It was at this time, I knew whatever was happening with my food intake wasn’t working. I felt like I was never taught what was healthy, what wasn’t, and that food and my digestion were connected. I know that sounds stupid, but it was kinda like - if everyone else can eat this around me...why can’t I?

So for the next several years, I started really paying attention to the food going in and my digestive reactions. I didn’t do it all at once, I took bite size steps and realized that the only things that my body responded well to were whole, healthy foods without a lot of additives and processing.

I thought to myself, I cannot be the only one with these issues and frustrations. I would have loved if someone had pointed this out to me sooner, educated me and helped lead the way instead of me trying to discover this all on my own. This inspired me to help others eat well, balance their digestion, find healthy solutions, plan healthy meals and fight societal norms of eating processed foods!

I had been teaching Pilates since 2009, Massage Therapy since 2016 and in 2019 decided I was now ready to get certified in Health Coaching. I wanted to learn how to communicate to others what I have discovered and know to be a long term solution to the frustrations that so many of us live with on a daily basis.

I now specialize in helping busy women eliminate processed food so they can achieve their healthy weight with clean digestion. I do this through bite size steps and programs creating healthy lifestyle habit changes.

I now live a well organized, whole food focused lifestyle with healthy digestion that I enjoy. I feel fulfilled and I don’t feel like ‘I’m missing out’ on foods since I’m educated on ingredients and processed foods including the negative effect they have on my health.