Nutrition School prepared me to feed my family well and navigate an autoimmune disease before I had either of those in my life…

While pregnant with my first child, I attended nutrition school at night to better understand my potential food sensitivities & improve my relationship with food. I saw how many women struggled with their body image and/or disordered eating, and how many American’s had been led astray in our processed food system. As I was growing a family myself, I was learning and teaching other family’s how to nourish themselves well by focusing on adding in the good stuff, instead of restricting.

Just after my second child was born, I began experiencing full body joint pain, chronic headaches and debilitating fatigue. After several tests and mistaken diagnosis’ I received a positive Western Blot test for Lyme Disease. Research shows that the best way to treat this tricky auto-immune disease is with intentional food and lifestyle choices that build your immune system to fight the stealthy bacteria from this tick borne illness. It would have been an overwhelming learning curve with a newborn + constant body pain, but I had been prepared to navigate this disease 4 years before the diagnosis came, thanks to nutrition school.

Now, I live mostly symptom-free, with flare-ups here and there that are manageable with a good Naturopathic doctor & a Natural Grocers down the road. I have experienced the impact of better nutrition and lifestyle on my energy, mood, skin & digestion, and hope to share some of that with you.

Institute for Integrative Nutrition, Class of 2013