open mouth. insert food.

Because I often speak about things like nutrition and CrossFit with (sometimes nauseating) frequency and passion, some people are tempted to hold me up as perfect "model of health," assuming that it comes naturally to me and I've got it all figured out. Yeah. Not so much. Truth be told, like most of us, I struggle to know what is best for my body and how to faithfully live that out each day.

I was a pretty sickly kid, suffering from horrible and regular migraines starting when I was 2 years old. My diet consisted almost entirely of the processed foods that were new and all the rage when I was growing up. My poor mother didn't enjoy cooking and, frankly, had very little understanding of what it meant to eat "well" so she was happy to let me eat cake for breakfast if that's what I wanted, because at least I was eating SOMETHING. Honestly, I shudder when I think about the lack of real nourishment that my body needed so desperately.

Me, at 6 years old, right after my tonsilectomy. That cute little outfit can't disguise the fact that I'm barely more than a skeleton underneath it all.

In college, I made a huge shift for good and started running regularly. I learned more about good nutrition but old patterns were hard to break. Like many young women, I walked into the world of anorexia/bulimia. Autoimmune disease hunted me down in the form of Graves' disease in my late 20s so my thyroid gland was irradiated and no longer functions. I have a laundry list of food sensitivities as long as my arm, a crooked spine, a bulging disc in my lower back that rests on a nerve leading down my left leg, and now the beginnings of arthritis in the same area. I endured 9 years of (unsuccessful) fertility treatment in my 30s and early 40s. 

Other than that, I'm a model of health.

My point here is that I've spent most of my adult life interested in how to take care of my fragile little body, making many mistakes along the way. My husband recently remarked that our list of "fad" diets over the last 30 years is trumped only by our legendary lineup of hairstyles. Okay, that stung a bit but I think he's right! We joke about it but we agree that much of we did was based on the best scientific information that was available at the time. Remember the low-fat lalapalooza of the 1990s? In my mind, I can still look across the table in the break room at my co-workers' palid plates of boneless skinless chicken breasts and that horrid low fat pasta salad that was all the rage. Seriously, who even LIKED that crap? Back in those days, I could easily polish off an entire sleeve of graham crackers or 1/2 a box of animal crackers in one sitting, thinking I was being "good." And breakfast was cereal or a plain bagel or, on a really lucky day, a ginormous chocolate low fat muffin from my favorite bakery. Talk about your monochromatic culinary wasteland! I now, not-so-fondly, call that era "50 Shades of Beige" or "Fade to Brown."

So, what's my point? Back to that passion-for-nutrition-and-health thing. If I struggle with my own laundry list of issues, then I know you likely have your own version. My medical history pales in comparison to some of yours. Others of you are remarkably healthy and simply want to do what you can to stay on the right path. And while I'm far from a professional in any way, shape or form, I do spend lots of time reading and researching, and I love it when friends seek my advice. So I decided put together a series of blog posts with some down and dirty tips and this is my introduction.

The way we're eating at my house could best be described as "Paleo-ish." We learned about the Paleo/Primal way of eating when we started CrossFit and have found that it really works for us. The short story is that we mostly eat meat/fish/eggs, vegetables, fruits and nuts. If we were strict Paleo, that's ALL we would eat but we're not that disciplined and, frankly, not completely convinced that we have to be fundamentalists about it to still receive most of the benefits. If you'd like to know more details, I found an interesting and super entertaining Q&A here: http://www.fitbomb.com/p/why-i-eat-paleo.html. This guy knows way more about nutrition than I ever hope to know (and he's funny) so you'd do yourself a favor to check it out. 

Look for more posts to come in the near future. I promise they'll be shorter and more to the point. And the point here is not just about me (insert snoring sound fx) but, hopefully, more about me helping you move a little further in your journey. Most things are easier when they're done together, right?