Unicorn: A New Year’s Manifesto

Jan 4, 2019 | food literacy, Motivation

Ah, the new year.  A time of resolutions….and discontent.  In January, many women, driven by shame, take the plunge.

Which plunge?  To lose weight of course.  To keep riding that diet culture roller coaster.  To keep confusing body size with health and worth.  Weight loss schemes are not health care.  Diet culture works hard to keep us confused and ashamed.  If you’re not careful, you find yourself drinking canned shakes, popping pills, and avoiding vegetables because they have carbs.  You’ll find yourself eating food that really isn’t food.

I said no a long time ago and I urge you to as well.  Instead, I educated myself about food.  I learned what real, clean, whole foods are.  I learned how to use food therapeutically to manage my autoimmune diseases and reverse chronic health issues.  I love food.  I respect it.  I marvel at its power to heal, delight, surprise, and fuel me. I’ve made peace with food.  Have you?

I filter my food choices through the lenses of digestive health, nutrient density, and the very high standard of eating actual, real food.  And, I sometimes make choices that don’t check those boxes and I enjoy that food too.  I’ve learned to listen to my body and do my best to give it what it needs, but I don’t mess with perfection.

I focus my practice 100% on women.  That is where I do my best work.  Women have very complex relationships with food, the kitchen, and their bodies.  I’ve travelled all those roads too and that informs my work with clients.

The work I do is about teaching women how to NOURISH themselves to increase focus, productivity, energy, and health.  I guide women to discover what their bodies need to heal and to thrive.  Weight loss may or may not happen in the work we do, but it is never the focus.  I find that, pretty universally, women have not been taught about real, whole food nutrition.  Their knowledge and emotions around food usually have a lot more to do with diet culture than learning how to nourish themselves.

During the course of a day, I want a woman to be checking in with herself about whether she ate things like leafy greens, high-quality protein, and nutrients like zinc instead of how many calories, grams of carbs, and the like.  In other words, instead of operating under a system of denial, I want women to be working on building themselves up.  I help women take care of themselves.

One day a woman approached me and said she had heard of me.  She said I am like a unicorn.  Of course, she meant the obvious–that I am a fat nutrition consultant that does not focus on weight with clients.  She was clearly impressed.  I like being a unicorn.

My wish for you is that 2019 is the year you learn to nourish yourself.  The year you make peace with food.  The year you get food literate. The year you gift your family with food literacy skills that set them up for a lifetime of good health.   

If you want help, that is what I do.  It is very important to me that you and I are a good match and that is why I offer a free 60-minute breakthrough session.  That is where you can ask me anything, I explain the step-by-step process I guide clients through, and we talk about what you are struggling with.  If you are interested in learning more, I invite you to apply for a free session.

I have 2 more opportunities for you to make this your year where you care for yourself and get food smart.

First, come to the Women’s Health Symposium I am organizing on February 2nd.  This event is designed to give you real-world actionable ways you can be building resilience.  Health is not the absence of disease.  It is a measure of resilience.  We make a million choices a day that either drain or build resilience.  The symposium is three dedicated hours of you time where you will hear 4 engaging speakers on the topics of resilience, nutrition, movement, and toxin reduction.   To make this event even better, we will have over $500 in door prizes and every attendee with receive over $100 in savings.  It’s an absolute win-win.  You can read more and get your tickets here.

 

Food literacy is a real passion for me.  I believe it is through education that we find the wherewithal to swim upstream against a food culture that is so detrimental to our health.  Yes, I am trained in nutrition, but I know the fact that I am also a farmer, restaurateur, and patient who uses food to heal is just as important.  I understand food from a lot of vantage points.  Imparting the knowledge I have gained over the last 10 years plus is my top priority.  If you want to join my Food Literacy Book Club which runs from January-June 2019, please do.  This opportunity is absolutely free.  The books have been specially selected to serve as an education about how food should be produced, why, and how far we are from that ideal.  You can get more information here on Facebook.

For those not on Facebook, here is the book list.  The in-person meetings are hosted at Main Street Books so please purchase your copies there.  For those not able to attend, there will be a Food Smarts Podcast version and we would love to hear what you have to say about the readings.  Here’s the line-up: