Ever since I was little, I’ve believed that the kitchen is the heart of a home and some of my best memories revolve around my sister and I playing “restaurant” in our house and coming up with the craziest food concoctions for our parents to try. At the age of 10, I had a terrible allergic reaction to soy which started to put my body into anaphylactic shock. After that, I was tested for a range of other allergens and tested positive to all tree nuts (excludes peanuts.) As someone who has dealt with high anxiety for most of my life, especially as a child, I became terrified to eat anything after going through such an intense experience. So 10-year-old me resorted to eating “safe-foods” like chicken fingers & french fries and other processed junk food that I knew I wasn’t allergic to. I would refuse to try any new foods and became extremely picky with what I would consume. All of this resulted in a very negative and unhealthy relationship with food and nutrition for a long time and although I have grown out of a few of those allergies (woo-hoo!,) I still have times where I suffer with the anxiety of that experience.

It wasn’t until my first few years of college that I’d had enough of living an unhealthy lifestyle and feeling lethargic, uncomfortable and sluggish all the time. I had been steadily gaining some weight throughout high school and was becoming pretty self-conscious about it. I started doing research about health, nutrition and fitness and I began to lift weights, experiment with new healthy foods and I found my love for the kitchen again. It was around this time where I started seeing a lot of information surrounding the keto diet. I decided to give this a try and remained on the eating plan for about 2 months. While I did see weight loss results, I started to fall into an unhealthy relationship with food once more as I was tracking every calorie and trying to make sure my macros were perfect every day. Eating became a numbers game for me and I was tired of restricting myself from even eating natural foods such as fruit just because they contained “too many carbs.” Once I decided to let go and just focus on eating wholesome foods that made my body and mind feel their best, I became a much happier and healthier person. I was able to lose about 30 pounds since I started my fitness journey back in college and have continued (& still will continue!) to improve my relationship with food and wellness. I now have a diet that includes a wide variety of food and ingredients. I personally choose not to restrict any food groups from my diet as I feel this is what works best for me and my body!