MY STORY

The concept of health is very subjective - and individual, just like our bodies. Also like our bodies, our idea of what healthy means tends to evolve over time. I know it did for me. 

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Growing up I didn't think much about health, except as it related to family member' illnesses or when I myself got sick. Even when my younger brother was diagnosed with cancer during my senior year in college, I failed to connect health or healing to lifestyle or nutrition. In those days nobody was connecting those dots for us. Truth be told, my college lifestyle was not health-focused, nor was my early adulthood. Working in the music industry after college included lots of late nights and travel. I lived out of a suitcase much of the time and ate on the go at odd hours. I never connected my frequent strep throat infections, stomach pains, insomnia, or skin issues to what I ate, how I lived, or my stress levels.

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My shift began after I was married, when my husband and I joined a gym and began working out regularly. As we began considering pregnancy, my focus and approach turned toward eating with nutrition in mind. It was a gradual progression, but I recognized that the better care I took of my body, the better I felt. However, it wasn't until my son was experiencing health issues as a toddler that I got serious about my family's health. I cleaned up our diet, removing all additives, preservatives, and artificial ingredients while adding more fruits, veggies, and whole foods into the mix. I began buying organic and reading food labels for ingredients, rather than calories, sugar, and fat. I was by then a gym rat and very focused on my fitness, to the point that being the strong, fit, tough girl became my identity. At 42, I was in the best shape of my life and feeling better than I ever had.

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What I didn't realize at the time was that over-training and eating only one meal a day was not the best way to serve my body. It wasn't until I donated a kidney later that year and struggled through a difficult recovery that I realized I hadn't been nourishing my body the way it needed...in order to flourish. The reality is that my body wasn't prepared for the assault of losing a healthy organ, and I paid the price for many years. Despite eating a clean, organic, whole foods diet, I was in fact undernourished. 

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So began. my quest for answers. What was wrong with me? Why was my body betraying me when I was eating all the "right" things and taking good care of myself? The aches and pains; inability to train as I had before; hormone dysregulation; migraines; fatigue; anxiety; and even mild depression continued to plague me for the next decade - and nobody could figure out WHY!  Sadly, I didn't feel heard by my doctor or any practitioner I visited. Because I looked like the picture of health and all my labs and tests were "normal," I felt like they all thought I was a crazy hypochondriac and dismissed me. I refused to accept that I had to live that way. During this time I was doing my own research and gathering clues. The more I read and heard, the more focused I became on  the gut microbiome and its impacts on overall wellness. I learned that every sign, symptom, or diagnosis has its roots in the gut. When gut integrity is compromised, our bodies are unable to absorb and utilize the nutrients we consume, no matter how clean and well-balanced our diets may be. 

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This knowledge was an epiphany, helping me connect my symptoms to my body's inability to assimilate nutrients. After much digging and with the help of a functional MD, I learned I had autoimmune gastritis, non-celiac gluten sensitivity, and the MTHFR genetic variant - all compromising my digestive function. 

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Once armed with this concrete information, my next challenge was learning what to do with it. This was my call to action! From my experience, practitioners most often want to prescribe a certain protocol or medication regimen based on a particular symptom or diagnosis - the "pill-for-an-ill" model. And when there's no diagnosis that fits, they tell you you're fine and send you on your way. Not only had this model failed me, I also had friends and family members who had suffered for years from various ailments with no luck finding answers or achieving resolution. I knew I wanted to be the change I longed to see in healthcare, to help lead people toward better health and wellness.

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Two years of studying and training, learning the Full Body Systems and how they work together, was transformational for me. The functional nutrition mantra, "Everything is connected. We are all unique. All things matter," speaks directly to bio-individuality and the importance of every person's story. It's why being a detective makes a difference in client outcomes. My mission is to share this knowledge with others, with the goal of helping them transform their health journeys into those of healing and optimal wellness, however they define that for themselves. 

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