Hello Friends!

Thanks for checking out my new blog.  As a soon-to-be certified nutrition consultant, I’ve started this blog in order to spread my new-found nutritional knowledge to all you wonderful people.

But first, let me tell you a little about myself.  My journey to healthy living started 15 years ago, or so I thought.  After seeing a pamphlet about the inhumane practices occurring at slaughterhouses, I quit eating meat cold turkey (pun intended) and said I’d never look back. For the next 13 years, I was an adamant vegetarian and proud of it.  During this time, I felt like I was the healthiest person around, simply because I ate lots of veggies and minimal fat; however, I didn’t think to question the possible connection between my diet and the uncomfortable and seemingly random signs and symptoms my body was giving me. Some of these issues included: acid reflux, allergies, weight gain, digestive difficulties, unexplained aches and pains, intense food cravings, muscle weakness, horrible circulation, skin rashes, and unpredictable fatigue. As it turns out, I wasn’t very healthy at all.

So, about two years ago I decided that enough was enough and made a commitment to educate myself about nutrition and get to the bottom of what “health” food really entails. This lead me to Bauman College, a holistic nutrition school in Berkeley, CA, where my mind was, quite frankly, totally blown.  Whole milk dairy is superior to fat-free dairy?! Vegetarian diets can make one deficient in many nutrients?! Fat is GOOD for you?! Yeah, mind blown for sure.  It turns out I was doing it all wrong, with the mainstream media certainly helping to exacerbate all the incorrect assumptions I had regarding the meaning of “health” food.  As soon as I changed my diet and started eating for optimal health, pretty much all of my uncomfortable symptoms vanished, and quickly.  For example, I lost 7 pounds by simply ADDING more fat to my diet and eating more salads.

However, I was still wary about adding meat back into my diet, but after much contemplation, I decided to surprise my boyfriend, Greg, with a home-cooked chicken dinner. To say he was happily surprised would be an understatement.  I’ve been eating meat for about a year now and as it turns out, my body loves it and I didn’t even have any initial digestive issues!  I’m what I like to call an ethical omnivore, or someone who only eats sustainably and ethically raised meat products, and it is working out quite well for me these days.  I suppose you could call it the straw that FIXED the camel’s back.

My point is that we need to question the information we’ve been given regarding what’s healthy and what isn’t.  Every BODY is different and has different needs, so paying attention to your own body and being aware of what works and what doesn’t will help tremendously to improve overall health.  Through this blog, I’ll show you how to do this and make optimal health a reality for YOU.

I will be updating regularly, so check back often for interesting nutrition and healthy living information and tips, scrumptious recipes accompanied by (not-so-professional) pictures, tales from my salubrious life (again, complete with shitty pictures), motivational quotes and messages, discussions on food politics and controversies, my overly opinionated ramblings, and whatever else comes to mind.  Welcome and enjoy!!

“The food you eat can be either the safest and most powerful form of medicine or the slowest form of poison.”

– Ann Wigmore

“The body is your temple.  Keep it pure and clean for the soul to reside in.”

B.K.S. Iyengar