Category Archives: Timeline

[ratings]
After over a decade of writing for magazines, I launched . After all I’d been through on my NOURISH Evolution and how profoundly the changes had impacted my life, I felt deeply called to help others make strides of their own.

We adopted our daughter Noemi in 2006 and I went back to the Peaks and Valleys of Practice for a bit, to recalibrate around our new reality and learn how to make real food fit into our real life. No question, though, everything mattered even MORE with Noemi.

By 2004, I had lost 20 pounds without ever feeling deprived, and was loving food like I never had before. Because I was eating what was nourishing me. The lupus diagnosis, too, was changed to fibromyalgia.

In climbing The Hump, I learned from the experts how to nourish my body. The only problem was, it involved lots of vegetables. So I opened myself up to new experiences–like trying peas from a farmer at the market–and learned how to love them.

My Hump came amidst overwhelming pain and exhaustion–it got so bad I couldn’t open my toothpaste in the morning. In 1997 I was diagnosed with lupus, and in 1998 I was faced with a devastating cancer scare. It was clear something had to change.

When I lived in Europe for a year–and in Greece particularly–I was left without Snackwells and fat free mayonnaise. I was surrounded in olive oil and cheese and full fat yogurt. And it stressed me out. But it also planted a seed.

Things started to change my last year in high school. I put on weight and started to feel tired and sore all the time. So I followed the popular wisdom of the day … I went on a fat free diet and fought the endless teeter totter of deprivation and guilt.

Throughout my childhood and teens I was a meat and potatoes gal. I detested all vegetables, and was especially partial to Doritos and Blizzards. It didn’t even cross my mind to pay attention to how they made me feel, or wonder what they were doing to my body.