Like many moms, I spent years not taking the time to care for myself.  I put forth all of my effort to care for my children, my husband, and my home, but just didn’t make time for self care.  Unfortunately, that resulted in unhealthy habits, a lot of weight gain over the years, and negative feelings about my body. Even though I had been slowing adopting a natural and chemical-free lifestyle ever since my first kiddo was born, that simply didn’t translate to healthier choices for myself.

My blood pressure slowly crept up.

I got winded easily and I didn’t sleep well.

I was constantly exhausted, I lacked energy, and I lived on caffeine.

My blood sugar levels were out of control, and I didn’t even know it.

My wake up call came when a local adoptive mama, who was friends with many of the families at my church, passed away suddenly.  She was in her thirties and otherwise healthy, but she had a heart attack in her sleep and never woke up.  It was determined that the heart attack had been caused by undiagnosed Type II Diabetes.  Like me, she was so busy taking care of her family that I’m assuming she didn’t make her health a priority.  Especially because I had Gestational Diabetes with my second pregnancy, I was rattled by this sweet mama’s sudden passing.  We never knew each other, but she had a significant impact on my life.

I immediately bought a blood sugar test kit and started tracking my sugar.  The levels were higher than they should be, and especially higher when I ate processed carbohydrates and sugar.  From that point forward, I drastically changed my lifestyle, one small step at a time.  I cut out all the crap processed food I was eating.  I replaced pasta with salads, and naps with walks.  I learned how to ferment kombucha and work with an einkorn sourdough starter. Through months of trial and error, I figured out what types of food I needed to thrive.  I listened to my body and took a bio-individual approach based on what I really needed, not simply what I wanted.  I didn’t cut out major food groups, but I learned about what foods were right for my body.

It didn’t take long for me to see results.  Not only were my blood sugar levels normalized, the extra weight I had been carrying around literally melted off of me.  For the first time in my life, I fueled my body with what it needed, and it responded incredibly well.  I wasn’t a slave to the scale trying to get to a perfect number, but I naturally slimmed down to my personal ideal body weight where I feel the most vitality.  For me, it became about truly thriving and making choices that helped to prevent disease, not simply managing sickness.  Once I transformed my mentality to a wholistic perspective of wellness and abundance, the shift was easy!  I never looked back and didn’t feel like I was missing out.  I felt empowered as I slowly added more changes and my body continued to positively reinforce me.  Starting with the lowest hanging fruit, I began to transform my lifestyle and set myself on a lifelong health journey designed to help me prevent chronic lifestyle disease.

Once I realized how healthy and vibrant I could feel by making sustainable lifestyle changes instead of just fad dieting to lose weight, I wanted so badly for others to experience the same victorious success.  I started searching for ways to make that desire a reality and fell upon the profession of health coaching.  That led me to the well-respected coaching program at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.  I knew it was the perfect way to put my passion to work.  My husband supported me fully as I embarked on the journey in July 2018.  It’s been such a fascinating and inspiring course, and I’ll be an official graduate in July 2019.

Even with my training though, I will always be a work-in-progress and am forever “under construction.”  I embrace the fact that we are all in different parts of our health journeys, but I believe in celebrating every single victory and not shaming ourselves in a judgmental way.  I am truly enjoying my journey of transformation, and I expect that I will continue to make small steps as God reveals where changes in my life need to be made.  Adopting natural wellness and preventative living practices have enabled me to embrace true wellness, instead of accepting the standard reactive sick care.  In addition, I’ve become the gatekeeper of my home and have worked hard to reduce my family’s chemical load with the aid of essential oils and plant-based products.

Especially with my recent health scare, I have become even more aware of just how seriously endocrine-disrupting chemical ingredients (that are in so many everyday products) can negatively impact our natural hormone balances, possibly contributing to immeasurable health concerns. I am more convicted than ever that we must shield our families from these body-altering chemicals whenever possible.  I believe that we can significantly reduce (and even prevent) chronic lifestyle diseases from ever becoming a reality by being aware and making cleaner choices for our families.

With lifestyle diseases exponentially on the rise in our country, it’s imperative that we support our bodies with natural and wholistic living.  We must take back our health and become the CEOs of our own bodies.  We need to empower our children to nourish and take care of themselves so we can reverse the current trend of shorter lifespans.  Through guidance and coaching, we can seamlessly incorporate small changes into our lifestyles that add up to big impacts.  There’s freedom in knowing how to care for our bodies naturally and preventatively, and my hope is to share that with others.

If you are interested in making lifestyle changes for your family to embrace a preventative lifestyle, you are my people!  As a Health Coach, my goal is to empower other families to practice natural wellness principles and embrace daily prevention lifestyles.   No more symptom management.  Let’s work at preventing diseases with our everyday choices, instead of waiting until we have a medical diagnosis.  By incorporating whole foods into our diets, adopting daily preventative practices, and working toward chemical-free living, we can transform the health of our families to abundance and vitality. With the right tools and education, we can work together to design wholistic wellness plans that fit our family’s needs, so we can truly support our bodies and live our best lives.

Stay updated as I launch my coaching services by SUBSCRIBING to my newsletter.  It’s packed with resources and tools to help my readers embrace a natural and wholistic lifestyle.  Together, let’s create your path to wellness and abundance!