An Introduction

So, here it is. Finally. My first blog entry. I'm hoping this will actually accomplish what I'm trying to accomplish. I love being healthy and I love talking about food and health and I love seeing people getting excited about their health and their lives.

But I'm not perfect. No one is, but we try to be. How can I be this person who attempts to help other people live healthier, happier, fuller lives when I struggle on a day-to-day basis with my own health and happiness? By reaching out to others who are in my position. People who want to live intentionally but haven't quite figured it all out yet. So we can blunder together. And hopefully we will figure it out.

So, my story is that I'm a 26-year-old nanny living in the Boston area. I enrolled in this amazing, holistic health program called the Institute of Integrative Nutrition in NYC. By the end of July, I will be a certified health counselor with the goods to start my own business. Classes don't start until the end of February but I'm able to start doing some work now. I don't know what will come of this program but I know I'm on a path toward finding out who I really am. I enjoy taking care of children but I know it's not something I want to do as a lifetime career. I think through the IIN I will figure out what my potential lifetime career will be.

I love food. I love shopping for it, preparing it, eating it, sharing it with others. I love that cooking is a marriage of science, art, and intuition. I love that food is a necessity and a pleasure. I love that what we eat and how we eat and why we eat are incredibly individual choices yet our deepest ways of connecting with others often center around food. We all eat everyday, yet how much do we really think about what we are eating, or why? I'm beyond excited about what being in this program will mean for me and for those around me. I want to be a positive role model for my partner, my family, my friends, and my 2-year-old nephew.

But the other side of my story is that I've struggled with my relationship with my food for my entire life. I've been overweight as long as I can remember. I remember my mother, my own overweight mother, putting me on a diet at the age of 7 or 8. I remember crying post-clothing shopping because I couldn't fit into the types of jeans that my friends were wearing. I remember shoveling a cookie into my mouth on a day when I was really sad. At 6 or 7 or 8 years old, I learned how to shut off the noise of sadness, of loneliness, of boredom, of anger, of anxiety, of self-hatred. I stuffed away any feelings I wasn't prepared to handle with food. I learned to do this two decades ago and have continued ever since.

Now at the age of 26, I refuse to live like that, anymore. I want to repair my relationship with my body and my mind and my soul and with food. I refuse to live unintentionally, anymore. If I eat something, I want it to be because I chose to and I want to delight in that choice. I don't want to use food to shut out the way I feel. I need to heal myself in order to teach others how to heal themselves. I'm not sure that I could've ever really treaded this path for myself if I hadn't signed up for this program.

My wish is that I will lose weight, gain energy, and learn to love food, not abuse it. My wish is that I will begin to eat, and live, intuitively. My wish is that through my own process others will begin to do the same.

So I will end my first entry with a question. In what ways are you not eating, and hence living, intuitively? Do you want to change that? If so, why? How do you see yourself enacting that change?

Good luck.