Growing up, I struggled with two things: stomach issues, and super-dry skin.
In my early 20's, my dry skin flared into full-on eczema.
In the next few years, I found some relief courtesy of prescription ointments
and creams, but even so, my skin and my stomach were never quite right.
I didn't like going out to eat because it seemed like everything made me sick, and I was equally terrified of the day my eczema would come back full-force.
I was tired of being afraid of my body.
So, I decided to do something about it.
2013 was the year that things started to change. I was convinced diet was playing a role, but I wasn't quite sure how. I went back to basics. I started going to one of our local farmers' markets and getting to know the farmers there. I even went so far as making my own sprouted wheat bread. Hey, I was dedicated!
But something still wasn't right.
And then, a friend lent me a book: Wheat Belly, by Dr. William Davis. Immediately, things started to click. I knew that our food system had gone wonky - I was going to the farmers' market, after all - but I didn't realize just how pervasive wheat and gluten really were in my life, or how the modern version of wheat and gluten that we're exposed to is nothing like what we may have been adapted to eat at another time in human history. And were we really all that adapted to eating grains to begin with?
I began to connect the dots.
I could see all of the childhood meals that were filled with wheat, every experience where I dined out and had breadsticks, or sandwiches, or pasta. By the end of that summer, I'd resolved to give up wheat for just a few weeks, see what happened.
Two weeks was all it took to start feeling better.
All of the digestive upset I'd nearly resigned myself to having to live with - it stopped. We're talking all the gross stuff your typical IBS-sufferer experiences. Gone. I don't want to say "miracle", but to the person who's spent so much of their life wondering where the bathroom is, "just in case", that doesn't sound so far off.
My Real Food Philosophy
We are all bio-individual .
We each have our own unique set of circumstances, nature and nurture, that have brought us to where we are today.
My goal with Real Food Store Tours is to help you along your own journey toward understanding what foods
make your body a happy, healthy, nourished place to be, based on what it needs, or doesn't need, to thrive.
I know what it's like to be afraid to go out to eat, or to always need to know where the bathroom is.
It's a really, well, sucky feeling. You don't feel like you're in control of your own body; you start to feel trapped in it.
And that's no good!
I believe that real, whole, nutrient-dense foods, and ditching the processed wheat and grain products,
has been a HUGE component in getting to a healthier, happier place in my life. I want to share that with others!
If you're standing in the entryway of the grocery store, and all that stands between you and FINALLY starting to feel better,
is a little extra guidance to find real, whole, nourishing food - I want to help you get there!
Education
American Council on Exercise, April 2019
Health Coach
Anne Arundel Community College, Summer 2017
Assessment & Theory of Fitness & Health
Anne Arundel Community College, Summer 2016
Anne Arundel Community College, Fall 2014
Balanced Bites Master Class
Student Graduate, Winter 2017
Techniques of Applied Nutrition
Anne Arundel Community College, Fall 2016
Anne Arundel Community College, Spring 2015
Anne Arundel Community College, Spring 2014