My Food Freedom Journey
Back in 2017 I started sharing my fitness journey on Instagram, lots of people followed along as I posted before and after pictures and fitness motivation with hashtags like #progressnotperfection #riseandgrind and #5amworkout. I posted these pictures of my undernourished 113 lb. body with the hope that it would keep me motivated to show up for my workouts 6 days a week and push me toward achieving my goals of being even smaller and more perfect. I believed that I was taking steps in the right direction because now, instead of skipping meals and popping diet pills, I was consuming 5 to 6 perfectly portioned meals, a protein shake and tons of coffee and pre workout.
At first, my latest diet and fitness routine worked great for me my body started to tone up and I felt stronger and more beautiful I also received a lot of outside validation from my social media friends but somehow no matter how hard I worked or how good I looked I never felt like I was there yet, or good enough, or satisfied, or worthy. Eventually I hit a plateau and my body stopped responding to my workouts, I started to gain a little weight, so naturally, I began to push myself even harder. I started doing orangetheory 5 to 7 days a week and saw my trainer every Saturday, often having nothing but one hard boiled egg and a serving of pre workout to fuel 45 mins to an hour or intense cardio, hiit, and weight lifting. Additionally, during this time I was working 6 days a week seeing several massage clients each day, and experimenting with Whole 30 and Keto. I was on the fast track to burn out, but I was so focused on trying to be perfect that I didn’t care.
Lucky for me, when the student is ready the teacher appears…..I’d been working 1 on 1 with my mentor Anya Grace for about a year during this time. Our work revolved around healing my blocks in the area of love and relationships, and I’d had some major breakthroughs in this area of my life so I jumped at the chance to take a course she’d created called Whole Body Beauty because honestly I just loved learning from her. I didn’t see myself as someone who needed that much help in the area of food and body image because I’d always been motivated to eat healthy food and to exercise. So I wasn’t really expecting healing my relationship with food and my body to have that much of an impact on my life, but what happened next ended up being some of the most transformational work I’ve ever done…..
Anya taught me how to eat….whatever I wanted…..whenever I wanted…..as much as I wanted…..total freedom to honor the goddess…. It was LIFE CHANGING.
This was completely new to me I was raised in a home with lots of rules especially around food. Like all of us, I absorbed my parents attitudes and beliefs around food and weight and their own bodies. I can remember running around the dining room table when I was 7 years old to try to burn off the calories from my dinner, I was terrified of gaining too much weight. I carried these messages into adulthood and happily participated in every restrictive diet out there. Over the years I tried: raw vegan, vegan, gluten free, dairy free, candida diets, juice cleanses, herbal cleanses, herbal weight loss pills, paleo, keto, intermittent fasting and whole 30. I also had painful symptomatic menstrual cycles, brain fog, low energy, cold hands and feet, horrible digestive problems and insomnia. But I was a size 0 so who cares?!?! Right? My entire identity was built on being the smallest and hardest working person in the room, and I was great at it, until I wasn’t, until I realized that my commitment to undernourishment was actually the very thing that was holding my back from happiness, and health, and peace, and love, and true abundance.
Eating, and nourishing myself and trusting my body to lead the way felt like being wrapped up in a warm fuzzy blanket straight out of the dryer, it felt like being held from the inside out, it felt like love, safety, and security, feeling this way after so many years of anxiety and jangled nerves was a total game changer. Daily consistent nourishment has changed my personality, it’s made me more calm and even, more present, more at peace and more trusting of myself and others, I believe that it’s no coincidence that healing my relationship with my body happened at the same time that I met my wonderful boyfriend, and that security that I experienced with myself directly translated and anchored in the security that I feel with him. I believe that there’s a strong connection between being able to receive nourishment from food and being able to receive from other people and the even the whole universe.
It wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies, it was work, and learning, and ego death. What goes up must come down, and spending years living in a stressed out state has it’s consequences. When my body started to feel safe, my elevated adrenaline and cortisol dropped and I got to see the true state of my health. Stress hormones feel amazing and are very anti inflammatory but they’re meant for short term use only and can cause a lot of problems when they are chronically elevated. Without all of the stress, I was an inflamed, bloated, exhausted mess. I kept going though because I was committed to long term healing over short term results. I gained some healing pounds because my body needed to feel safe. Gaining weight wasn’t easy but it taught me a whole new level of self love, it showed me who I was without the body my ego thought I should have. I’m still healing from what I put body through for so many years but I wouldn’t change one second of this adventure because it’s led me to where I am today.
Anya is getting ready to do another 8 week Whole Body Beauty program and I’ll be helping out as an assistant coach, answering questions and doing private one on one coaching calls. I would love to share what I’ve learned with you.
If you’re ready to Heal your relationship with your body, create lasting freedom with food, and awaken your Goddess glow! through your Feminine Energy! Click the link below for more info
