How it began...
I grew up in your typical Standard American Diet (SAD) home eating some of the best American comfort food and spending my allowance on junk food, candy and soda. Now, don't get my wrong, Mom made everything from scratch, including bread, biscuits, gravy, home-raised pork, chickens, eggs and the works. That said, despite Mom's best efforts, it was tough to get me to eat veggies and I rarely enjoyed fruit. I predominately ate meat and carbs. Even though my mother tried to limit my intake, soda was a daily beverage. I was never very active but wasn’t exactly lazy either. (*** at the bottom of this page is a wonderful addition to this story, but for now ... keep reading***)
In June 2003 at 23 years old, I was diagnosed with Dermatomyositis, a rare Autoimmune disease, and one doc added Lupus to that mix but said "it doesn't matter since treatment is nearly the same." I struggled with reaching my feet and lifting my hands above my head due to severe connective tissue inflammation. I had lost a significant amount of hair and my hands and feet would freeze and turn purple. My menstrual cycle was so irregular I at one point went 70 days between cycles. At nearly 5'8", I was going between 175-199 pounds, a SAD eater and struggling to find the strength to be an active person. I enjoyed dance, hiking and the occasional yoga class but I was far from routine and needed a lifestyle change. So I quit my corporate job, moved back home with mom and took my savings to see a Naturopathic Doctor. He put me on several herbal concoctions and a special diet. I avoided all things packaged and processed and completely stopped ALL sugar intake, including fruit. I was overridden with Candida from the inside out. I began losing weight quickly. I maintained this system steady for 3 months until I couldn’t afford it anymore. I had rid my body of all yeast overgrowth, walked around 30 pounds lighter, and started hiking and doing yoga regularly. Life was good.
That Christmas I was in a horseback riding accident and broke my back in 4 places. After a week in the hospital, I was bed ridden for quite some time, wearing a lovely designer body brace (insert laugh here) and unable to continue my new found physical independence. During my recovery, I began reaching for comfort foods again. Due to the lack of physical movement and the foods I began eating, I gained 25 pounds and battled with the disease and Candida once more.
Within little more than a year of limited mobility, I had moved to Germany and started to incorporate walking and yoga into my lifestyle again. I ate rich German food and comforts of home for the first year until I started attending the American College of Healthcare Science in the Holistic Medicine program. My first quarter was a Holistic Nutrition, Bodycare, and Herbalism and I was hooked. Then in January 2006, I did a 30 day juice cleanse, and became vegetarian thereafter. During my cleanse, I lost more than 25 pounds and achieved a sense of empowerment over eating I had never known prior. Yoga was a daily routine and food was part of nutrition rather than comfort. I have since made juice cleansing an annual routine.
Life was coming into balance at this point. I no longer suffered from back pain and inflammation was in better control so I started an online coaching business. The more I learned about our intrinsic abilities to heal, the more I researched the power of nutrition. It was in June of that year, I discovered raw vegan science. I ordered what limited books were available on the subject and became raw immediately.
For many years, I maintained a plant-based lifestyle, kept a healthy weight with normal menstrual cycles and recovered from many disease symptoms I had developed such as hair loss, Reynaud's Syndrome, Gottron's Papules, heliotrope rashes, etc. I moved back to the states, graduated school, and started managing a health food and supplement store while building my own coaching practice. Fast forward through the years - I created sold-out online programs with clients worldwide, taught holistic nutrition and lifestyle classes on tour and locally, became Director of Education for a nonprofit focused on food as medicine, and I was living my best life. I was 'healthy' like I never knew before and maintained that for 10+ years.
In 2014, my mother - my best friend - unexpectedly died at 57 years old in an outpatient procedure at UCSF and I thought life should end. I didn't eat for months, stopped working my program for more than a year, and I genuinely didn't expect - nor desire - for life to keep going. I couldn't look at calendars, I doubted my ability to help others heal anymore, and I saw my health dive off a cliff. Within 6 months of her death, symptoms I had only read about showed up and my once-known disease-free life, reversed. Body-wide skin rashes resembling being burned showed up; my once hyper-flexible yoga body became stiff and locked up; I lost most of the hair on the right side of my head; I gained weight and began eating for comfort and flavor; and the struggles didn't stop there. Five more people died over the next six years, including my father, two years later on Thanksgiving and my mom's dog who I inherited and cherished, that following Thanksgiving. I went through traumatic relationship infidelity, physical injury again and then, I finally regained my sense of self-worth and love.
In June 2003 at 23 years old, I was diagnosed with Dermatomyositis, a rare Autoimmune disease, and one doc added Lupus to that mix but said "it doesn't matter since treatment is nearly the same." I struggled with reaching my feet and lifting my hands above my head due to severe connective tissue inflammation. I had lost a significant amount of hair and my hands and feet would freeze and turn purple. My menstrual cycle was so irregular I at one point went 70 days between cycles. At nearly 5'8", I was going between 175-199 pounds, a SAD eater and struggling to find the strength to be an active person. I enjoyed dance, hiking and the occasional yoga class but I was far from routine and needed a lifestyle change. So I quit my corporate job, moved back home with mom and took my savings to see a Naturopathic Doctor. He put me on several herbal concoctions and a special diet. I avoided all things packaged and processed and completely stopped ALL sugar intake, including fruit. I was overridden with Candida from the inside out. I began losing weight quickly. I maintained this system steady for 3 months until I couldn’t afford it anymore. I had rid my body of all yeast overgrowth, walked around 30 pounds lighter, and started hiking and doing yoga regularly. Life was good.
That Christmas I was in a horseback riding accident and broke my back in 4 places. After a week in the hospital, I was bed ridden for quite some time, wearing a lovely designer body brace (insert laugh here) and unable to continue my new found physical independence. During my recovery, I began reaching for comfort foods again. Due to the lack of physical movement and the foods I began eating, I gained 25 pounds and battled with the disease and Candida once more.
Within little more than a year of limited mobility, I had moved to Germany and started to incorporate walking and yoga into my lifestyle again. I ate rich German food and comforts of home for the first year until I started attending the American College of Healthcare Science in the Holistic Medicine program. My first quarter was a Holistic Nutrition, Bodycare, and Herbalism and I was hooked. Then in January 2006, I did a 30 day juice cleanse, and became vegetarian thereafter. During my cleanse, I lost more than 25 pounds and achieved a sense of empowerment over eating I had never known prior. Yoga was a daily routine and food was part of nutrition rather than comfort. I have since made juice cleansing an annual routine.
Life was coming into balance at this point. I no longer suffered from back pain and inflammation was in better control so I started an online coaching business. The more I learned about our intrinsic abilities to heal, the more I researched the power of nutrition. It was in June of that year, I discovered raw vegan science. I ordered what limited books were available on the subject and became raw immediately.
For many years, I maintained a plant-based lifestyle, kept a healthy weight with normal menstrual cycles and recovered from many disease symptoms I had developed such as hair loss, Reynaud's Syndrome, Gottron's Papules, heliotrope rashes, etc. I moved back to the states, graduated school, and started managing a health food and supplement store while building my own coaching practice. Fast forward through the years - I created sold-out online programs with clients worldwide, taught holistic nutrition and lifestyle classes on tour and locally, became Director of Education for a nonprofit focused on food as medicine, and I was living my best life. I was 'healthy' like I never knew before and maintained that for 10+ years.
In 2014, my mother - my best friend - unexpectedly died at 57 years old in an outpatient procedure at UCSF and I thought life should end. I didn't eat for months, stopped working my program for more than a year, and I genuinely didn't expect - nor desire - for life to keep going. I couldn't look at calendars, I doubted my ability to help others heal anymore, and I saw my health dive off a cliff. Within 6 months of her death, symptoms I had only read about showed up and my once-known disease-free life, reversed. Body-wide skin rashes resembling being burned showed up; my once hyper-flexible yoga body became stiff and locked up; I lost most of the hair on the right side of my head; I gained weight and began eating for comfort and flavor; and the struggles didn't stop there. Five more people died over the next six years, including my father, two years later on Thanksgiving and my mom's dog who I inherited and cherished, that following Thanksgiving. I went through traumatic relationship infidelity, physical injury again and then, I finally regained my sense of self-worth and love.
Why am I sharing all of this?
It is from little gifts like 'dis'ease, trauma, and injury that remind us to refocus and get on track. I realized I'm meant to learn to heal myself so that I may teach others to do the same. One thing is for sure, I've had my fair share of opportunities to 'learn' but I have realized this is what makes me such a valuable teacher on healing and transformation. This is what makes me so invested in being an advocate for our innate healing abilities. I have watched my body and life go from being utterly broken to overwhelming bliss.
In 2018, I got married to my best friend. I am back to coaching people worldwide as a Transformational Health Coach and I lead Wellness Retreats at beautiful travel destinations. I work with a local Integrative Medicine Clinic and I'm writing several books. I've gained a broader perspective on what it means to be healthy and dove deeper into the effects of stress, psychoneuroimmunology, energy medicine and quantum healing. My scope is now wider than it has ever been and I remain a student in health - and life.
My hair has fully grown back and is the longest it has ever been, frozen shoulder healed, my skin healthy, my cycles normal, my sense of life and love - returned. You can heal your life. I promise.
In 2018, I got married to my best friend. I am back to coaching people worldwide as a Transformational Health Coach and I lead Wellness Retreats at beautiful travel destinations. I work with a local Integrative Medicine Clinic and I'm writing several books. I've gained a broader perspective on what it means to be healthy and dove deeper into the effects of stress, psychoneuroimmunology, energy medicine and quantum healing. My scope is now wider than it has ever been and I remain a student in health - and life.
My hair has fully grown back and is the longest it has ever been, frozen shoulder healed, my skin healthy, my cycles normal, my sense of life and love - returned. You can heal your life. I promise.
This is not just 'my' story...
One mother wrote me with a description of how she tried her best to raise her daughter, who also has an autoimmune disease. It is a bit long but I highly recommend you read through to the end. She writes:
"Dear Stephanie,
I know your story is important for people to open up and see you are just like everyone else. We all have a story. We all have a beginning, which affected where we find ourselves today. I've sat in your classes in the past and wondered if people are looking at my weight and asking themselves about "the unhealthy lady" in the front row. Granted, I'm taking the steps to get healthier and perhaps being the underdog inspires others. But I digress... I wanted to share with you how my story would read from the other side - as the mother of a child with an autoimmune disease. It is a little bit different than yours. I did not want to be like all the other moms. I wanted to give the best start to my child's life that I could. I didn't want to follow the media or the norm. I always questioned the nurses and doctors too. In fact, I was labeled as “one of those” in the hospital due to refusing the standard treatment. I didn't need an IV - I wasn't sick - I was having a baby as women have done forever! When offered tablets of fluoride for her teeth, I declined thinking God gave us other sources so why did we need more? Was that a bad choice? I later learned from the dentists that she had soft teeth from the lack of fluoride. She ended up having cavities and even broken teeth in her youth. I didn't grow up with good oral hygiene so I didn't have any lead in this area. Nursing didn't work well for us so I sought the advise of other people who were the 'experts' or more 'experienced' in this subject. At first we did goat's milk but that quickly exceeded my budget and the talk of bacteria concerned me. I switched to soy milk powder because it was easy and I used disposable bags so bacteria was no longer a concern. I used the Nook style nipple because the package said it was most like mother. I've since learned my daughter was allergic to soy, but it was the only option I thought I had. I did the works - cloth diapers, sunshine and fresh air rather than creams ... no powders and perfumes to clog my baby's skin. I heard all about the crap that went into commercial baby food so no way was my baby getting that. So I happily made all of her food. I went to the growers for the fresh fruits to make purees. I cooked all of our food - no cans or packaged foods. I baked fresh each week so as to avoid preservatives. I'd use honey or brown sugar because "everyone knew that was better than sugar." LOL I reached for dairy to provide calcium because the mainstream media at that time suggested it was the best source. Side note - you have since taught me it is a poor source of calcium and even leads to bone density issues. Nonetheless, my daughter didn't much like cheese at first but she did eat a lot of yogurt. She didn't touch a soda until at least after 5 years old. We had juice or Kool-Aid instead. I always picked breakfast cereals that didn't appear loaded with sugar. Rather than Apple Jacks, it was Honeynut Cheerios. Laughable now ... but they were the only choices I had at the time. I know better now though. She didn't eat much candy until her later teens or when she used her allowance to buy junk food. I regulated the Halloween candy, cakes were frosting-free and I made Kool-Aid with half the sugar. Since I wasn't a mom who ran to the doctor every time something came up, I'm not sure if I would have taken her more, if she wouldn't have this autoimmune disease or not. I'm not sure. I would give anything for her to be healthy... With all of this said, what really makes me angry is that the people we should be able to trust - we CANNOT. The FDA, our doctors, the health industry... It is so poisoned. The very fact we NEED the dirty dozen list is a crime. We have so much to learn. Learning we CANNOT trust labels and that foods we once through were better, are not - like that Total cereal you showed us in class. Your sharing has empowered me to make so many changes and I am able to share with others what I have now learned - even on a small scale. I enjoy helping others feel better about the choices one can make. I just wanted to show you how much thought was put into the choices I made, based on what I thought was the best decisions." |
P.S. This was written by MY mother.
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This is not mom's fault - nor mine exactly ... so who is responsible here?
The answer is the FDA, Food Industry and Marketing, followed by the lack of genuine nutrition education!
So if I were to tell you that this 4-pound bag of PURE CANE Sugar is not only a mere 15 calories per teaspoon (written to imply that you can easily add that to your daily calorie intake) but it is also 100% fat free (added to imply that reducing your fat consumption is supposed to be good for you - when it is not. Quality fats help protect the cardiovascular system, improve cellular communication, cognitive function, the execution of complex skills, reduces inflammation, alleviates depression ... and the list really goes on. One can easily live in their healthy weight range eating a diet of 33% quality fats!
Does this make this product good for you? Just because it is 'pure', 100% fat free', and 'only 15 calories per teaspoon'? In truth, it can be labeled all of these things, but it is certainly not good for you! The job of any marketing is to make you believe you need what they are offering. Marketing likes to make you think you have something of quality and tricks you into NOT thinking deeper. |
An even greater example includes the marketing used by Food Industry companies whose goal is to make money, not support your health.
You may have read about this in the news back in 2011; but if you didn't already know ... this cereal contains zero blueberries or pomegranates! Just look at the label --------->>>>>>>>> It does contain eight different sweeteners: Sugar, Corn Syrup, Barley Malt Extract, Brown Sugar Syrup, Malt Syrup, Sucralose, Molasses and Honey. Did you know they can now label this 'Naturally Sweetened' because it does in fact contain some amount of naturally derived sweeteners? Yet clearly, that isn't the only method of sweetening this. The blueberry-like appearance of small bits in the cereal are accomplished through the use of artificial colors like Red #40 and Blue #2, combined with various oils and sweeteners such as soybean oil and sugar. These are also the same style of 'blueberry bits' used on cheap blueberry muffins. |
We raise our children the best way we know how based upon 1) how our parents raised us, or 2) guided by those who we hope are leading us in the right direction - whether that be through labels, commercials, doctors, nutritionists, availability on the shelves, etc. But today's dairy isn't the milk of your grandmother's farm; today's wheat is different than even 50 years ago; and consumerism is at an all-time high. We have been led astray and I suggest we return to Mother Nature for guidance. Eat foods closest to nature and you will reap tremendous benefit. You don't see a Cheez-It growing in a field, now do you? Delicious? Indeed. But not food.
YOU are not to blame, but only YOU can make the change.
If you've made it this far, I can tell you'll be easy to work with! Ha... joking. But seriously, you must be your own health advocate. You must focus on yourSELF above all others because it is through self-love and responsibility that we can change the world. Through self-love you will eat the best foods, make the best actions, and create the best life. Good news is - your body is ALWAYS listening and ready to heal.