Why do you love eating healthy and living an active lifestyle? For someone like me it seems I am always struggling with some kind of food allergy, autoimmune reaction, or fatigue. Anyone looking from the outside might think I am a mess and wonder why I keep trying so hard. In all honesty, sometimes I feel like giving up, but I love nutrition and all that it offers. I grew up not really knowing much about healthy living. I played sports but never had much success in it. When high school ended, I struggled to find a clear path. Never mind that I was a bit of a mess in my teen years (another conversation for another day). I found myself wanting more for my life. Luckily, I found a relationship with God at one of my lowest points in my youth. Since then, my life has been a series of events that has led me to trusting God as Lord of my life in not just how I act, what I say, how I treat others, but how I care for myself.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “Plans to prosper you and not for disaster, to give you hope and a future.”
Jeremiah 29:11, NLT
In my early 20’s, I fell in love with exercising and healthy eating. I found a career that allowed me to help others do the same. Initially, I worked with athletes, helping them fine tune their nutrition for performance. Over time I found my way to weight management where I was caught up in the diet culture. I always chuckle at my younger self and the mindset I had when coaching individuals for weight loss. Although it was scientifically sound, it was rigid and inflexible. This was about to change drastically, although I didn’t know it at the time.
When I turned 30, my first pregnancy triggered an auto immune response that caused multiple food allergies and intolerances. At the time, I wasn’t aware of what was wrong, suffering for years. During the next eight years, eating healthy was difficult. Additionally, I moved into an extremely stressful job that would take its toll physically. This didn’t help my immune health at all. By the time my second son was born I found that each time I ate I got sick. And not the bloated, tummy pain kind. I would get migraines, vertigo, joint pain, diarrhea, and nausea. Often times this would leave me unable to care for my family or to show up for work. Whenever I would exercise, I would catch whatever cold or flu was running around my community. This meant for every 3 weeks of exercise, I would be down for the next 6-8 weeks recovering.
I got to a point where I questioned why God would allow me to become a dietitian when I can’t even help myself. Doctors could not provide answers, there was no solution, and science was telling me I was for all sense of the word, “healthy.” After years of struggling, I found myself in a season of failure. I had given up trying to be healthy, I ate what I wanted and since I couldn’t exercise without getting sick, I didn’t bother. I had lost my identity as a dietitian and as a “health nut.” So much so, I remember looking into other career paths and was ready to change my profession altogether (can anyone say interior design?).
During this season of true brokenness, God showed me he wanted me to seek him for my health. This began a journey in my spiritual life. After years of non-stop medical testing and a lot of unanswered questions, I finally surrendered my desire for a change to God. I spent the next few years learning how to submit my self-appointed desire to be a thin, model dietitian, eating all the right foods, and exercising like an athlete to live God’s will for my health.
The SpiritFed Life is a result of the many years of failures and successes God has walked me through to get beyond diet culture and find a deeper sense of purpose in my health. I have learned that you can be healthy at any size, a common term used in the new non-diet culture known as HAES. So, if you ask me why I love healthy eating and active living, it is to honor God. Now I spend my time helping others break free of their own limiting beliefs. I help them discover God’s will for their health and how to live it out. Did you know that God has very specific things to say about how you care for your body? He wants to bless you in your health journey, but just like me, you may need to surrender your own way of doing things and learn a biblical and faith-based approach.
When I am not busy working, I love gardening, baking, and cooking. I like creating or modifying tasty recipes to be allergy free and healthy. I stay active playing with my Pickleball Babes, running with World Vision, walking the dogs, and watching my boys play baseball and tennis. When I am not busy doing all of this, my amazing husband and I are trying to escape by ourselves for much needed time together.
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