Cha-Changes

I am about to embark on a transformation journey that will hopefully help me change my current path into the life I know it can be and it scares me to death. Where to even begin.

I have been eating for the last 31 years to survive and it has only been recently that I have learned that I need to eat to PROVIDE for my body. I say it out loud and I know how ridiculous it sounds. But it is true. I have been dealing with stomach issues as far back as I can remember and it has only been in the last few years that something in my brain clicked and the light bulb finally turned on. Oh, yeah. The food I put into my body is what is fueling it. Why wouldn't chemically engineered, delightful, savory and sweet morsels help my body to feel its best?! Because it is not built to run off these things. Duh!

It is weird to think back to all the horrible foods I have ingested simply to "eat" something or indulge for the day versus now where I am learning, and trying, to be conscious of what I am inviting into my body. The big problem, I am failing. I am continuing to say "next week, I will start to begin to develop my new habits!" And then I continue to follow my previous destruction. I still eat shitty food, not nearly as gross as the things I used to eat, but I still snack on junk food and too many sweets. I want to stop eating these but for the last 10 years or so eating what I want, when I want helped me to feel in control. It is 100% something I would get to decide and no one was or is going to tell me any different. It gives me confidence, not because the choice is a good one, but because I made a decision. I get to rebel again, even though it is in a small way, but I feel powerful, even only momentarily. Shortly after eating this garbage my body begins to tell me how bad it feels. I am 31 years old and I have only just now begun learning how to listen to what my body is saying to me.

I am telling you all of this to understand how I got to where I am at and where I intend to go through my process and these stories. I am hoping to paint a full picture through words to help myself achieve my goals and maybe it will help anyone else who is looking for encouragement and confirmation. This all began due to my recent jobs in the food service industry, my deep-rooted desire to continue to learn, grow and create, and also my newfound goal of one day helping others to conquer their internal mental, emotional and physical struggles through proper nutrition and education.

It has been an extremely long, hard life I have been living. I don’t regret my past because it was necessary to learn from it, but if there could have been one thing that I could ask of it, I wish someone would have taught me earlier what nutrition meant to the total health of me and my body. Instead, I grew up in a family where there was not much information for preventative measures to our health. I grew up being taught that medicine and doctors were meant to fix things that were injured not something that is going to be. Going to the doctor or hospital meant something really needed to be wrong. As my grandpa would say “you better have a broken arm or be dying before we are going to the doctor.” It wasn’t entirely his fault…

My grandpa was born March 9th, 1929. He grew up during tough war times and in turn raised his girls, my mother, in some of the same ways he was raised. A swift hand, or belt, was a good tool to keep order. He ran the roost and my grandma followed. It’s probably partially what shaped my mother and her sisters into the messes they became in life. Those strict rules that pushed my mother and her sisters over the brink is what I feel saved me for a small time in my childhood. Those rules gave my brothers and I stability for once. It was the first taste of proper nutrition, love and care that we experienced. Unfortunately, it was short lived and I took it for granted while I was in the thick of it. If only I had known what that time would mean to me later in life. I know that I loved them and was thankful for all they were doing during that time but I also complained about these adults who were trying to tell me what to do after my brothers and I had already learned how to survive on our own.

My parents were drunks and liked drugs, and we were their obligation. I was six years old when their explosive relationship finally ended and my mother took us to live with our grandparents, her parents. I have realized now that moving in with them is where I can say my true adventure with food began.

For now,

-K