I was born in Upstate New York to health-conscious parents. My birth was quick and without intervention. Through childhood, I repeatedly came down with colds, and our family doctor prescribed me antibiotics over and over. (Anyone else fondly remember pink amoxicillin??) My digestive health suffered. During this time, my family went through turmoil, and I struggled to cope.
While we had been healthy eaters in my earliest years, we now defaulted to dorritos, spaghetti on repeat for dinner, and lots of cookies and ice cream (with salads and brown rice in the mix as well). My mental and emotional health suffered, and around the age of 7, I learned to turn to food for comfort. I descended into binge eating, gained a good bit of weight, and felt very shy, isolated, ashamed, and uncomfortable in my own skin. These were hard years!
When I was 12, I started to rebel against my protestant suburban upbringing, and this ultimately led me to work with the first of many healers who have helped me along my way. He taught me to meditate and helped me to see the beauty at the core of my being. He also helped me begin to untangle the wounds that I was carrying, and started me out on a path of self inquiry and personal growth work.
By the time I turned 14, I had made some big changes and was starting to feel a lot better. I became vegetarian and significantly cleaned up my diet, cutting out junk food and focusing on whole foods. I started running, joined the cross country team, and started to get into good shape. I also started playing banjo, drawing and painting, and spending lots of time in nature. I was feeling much more confident and at peace in myself.
However, by the time I was in my early 20’s, a decade of being vegetarian and sometimes vegan had caught up with me. My energy levels were low, my mood was sometimes dark, and I craved sugar constantly. I continued to face digestive challenges, and by now understood that my gut health was directly connected to an imbalance in my microbiome, stemming from childhood antibiotics and poor diet.
To counteract this, I started doing lots of cleansing. While this helped to rid my body of toxins, I was still not nourishing my body with the deep nutrition that it needed. I started to binge compulsively again, and again I gained weight and sank into depression. Fortunately at this time, another healer showed up on my path - also a meditation teacher. Through working with him and our meditation group, I dove deeply into healing unresolved childhood wounds. This was big, messy, transformative work, and over the next many years I went through several layers of healing, using a variety of modalities. I was now living on the West Coast, and beginning to connect with beautiful community.
In my late 20’s, I discovered the GAPS diet and the Weston A Price Foundation, and this was a key that unlocked the door for me to regain the vibrant health I so wanted for my body. I embraced the Nourishing Traditions diet and started to incorporate lots of bone broth, pasture-raised meat, raw dairy, and fermented foods into my meals. This gave me the strength to begin to let go of refined sugar and compulsive binging. I started to have more energy and vibrancy.
I was so inspired by the changes I saw in myself that I decided to go to school for nutrition therapy so I could help others heal in this way. I enrolled in the Nutrition Therapy Institute and embarked on the path to become a Master Nutrition Therapist. During these 4 years of nutrition school, I started to eat paleo, cutting out grains and legumes, and my health continued to improve significantly. However, I was still feeling low energy, and I noticed that my hair was thinning. A naturopath helped me uncover the diagnosis of Hashimoto’s, an auto-immune condition that causes the thyroid to under-function.
Instead of starting on synthetic thyroid hormone, which I would likely have to take for life, I deepened my holistic protocols. I found the auto-immune protocol diet - a very strict paleo approach - and this was extremely healing for me. I also underwent months of intensive digestive system cleansing and healing. I felt like I was finally getting to the root of the imbalances that started in my childhood. My symptoms improved considerably, and I’ve since been able to manage my thyroid condition holistically.
An under-functioning thyroid can create challenges for fertility, so I wondered if conceiving might be hard for me. In preparation, I spent years eating the most nutrient-dense foods I could - liver and other organ meats, bone broth, grass-fed ghee, fermented vegetables, coconut oil, wild-caught fish, and pasture raised meats and eggs. And at the end of last summer, I was surprised and delighted to find that my partner and I had conceived without trying! Now I am in my third trimester of pregnancy and feeling strong.
Stay tuned for more of that story!