A friend asked me yesterday, “What do you think people envision when they think of a nutrition counselor?” Without batting an eyelid, I said “They probably think we eat sprouts for breakfast, have a holier than thou attitude and will want to take their favorite food away from them.”

That may or may not ring a bell for you, but it did illustrate the need for me to get right down to Earth and fess up that I didn’t start out eating sprouts. (Yes I do eat them, but not for breakfast.) There’s a quote on my website by Neitsche– “It is by being wounded that power grows, and can become tremendous.” — and that rings a bell with me.

I became a sugar junkie when I was 8 or 9. My mom didn’t have soda or sweet cereals or candy in the house much, but I got an allowance and I spent it all at the variety store near our grade school. My parents really didn’t know how much candy I had on a regular basis. I remember coming home from the dentist with 3 cavities once and my mom assumed I just had “soft teeth” like hers. (I don’t.)

I developed an eating disorder by when I was 14 and grappled with it, as well as a distorted body image, into my 20s. I watched a lot of TV when I was a kid, probably 6 hours a day, and I was a good little adolescent drone, reflecting largely what the folks in the marketing department wanted me to think about beauty. Fortunately and unfortunately, I decided to finally come to grips with my eating disorder when I was a junior in college during my study abroad year in France. It was 1991 and eating disorders were barely an issue here while they weren’t discussed at all in France. So French society was not the most supportive atmosphere for one’s “coming out” party for Bulemia. Perhaps I just had the wrong eating disorder and may have gotten a better reception if I were anorexic! French women were so feminine and always flawlessly made-up. They smoked. They were sophisticated. Here I was, sort of a dumpy, ill-at-ease tomboy, eating far too many crepes for polite company. But my two girlfriends helped me through it and my dad sent me books in English so I could learn about it.

France turned out to be a wonderful place to be outside my TV watching, junk-food eating culture so that I could look back and see my influences more clearly. One of the things that had the most tremendous impact on me was to see the statues in French and Italian museums. Here were women from 500 to 3000 years ago who looked more like me than like women in modern magazines. It was a revelation. I became angry with the influence that media had inside my head and set about thinking for myself.

I also learned a lot about eating. I learned the value of eating real food– butter!– over imitations, and the value of shopping often and eating fresh. I learned to really honor my food by savoring it. I’m never shy about having second helpings and cleaning my plate. I learned to drink water. I also learned about Nutella ;o)

To backtrack a little, I had also decided to become a vegetarian when I was 16. I was a “junkfood vegetarian,” meaning I would forgo animal flesh but would have half a box of Golden Grahams for dinner. I think on some level I tried to eat well but I really didn’t listen to my body much. French people thought I was nuts. So many crepes but she won’t taste the filet!

It was after all this that I went on my Global Food Adventure and by default learned about the effect of all these different types of food on my body. I stopped being a vegetarian one day when my friend’s sister– a harried mother of three– offered me a steak when I was over for dinner one night. I realized that I wanted it. It was the first meat I’d had in 9 years. Following this I would eat meat if other people cooked it for me, but remained squeamish about actually cooking it myself (because I would have to touch it raw– yuck.) I never took a tally of how much protein was in my mainly vegetarian diet until I got pregnant and realized it was not nearly enough. Not NEARLY enough.

But my main impetus for veering in the direction of holistic health was about five years ago when I developed health problems. I developed debilitating headaches that lasted for 9 months. To his credit, my doc figured out that it was viral in nature and put me on a fat, expensive anti-viral pill that got rid of the headaches. I was relieved for a while, until he told me I should stay on this medication for the rest of my life. I was 31.

I figured that if it was viral, my immune system should be able to kick it. That’s when I finally started listening to my body. I started tweaking my diet to see if I could feel better and I did! I kicked the headaches, but it turned out to be larger than that. I had systemic imbalances, some of which still linger.

Over the last five years I have tried all sorts of things with my diet. I went macrobiotic for a while, did elimination diets to discover the food sensitivities I have, learned to cook and eat more meat, experimented with which meats work best for me and gradually shifted away from processed food toward whole food that looks more like what my anscestors ate. My relationship to sugar has been one of my most difficult challenges. I love sugar like nobody’s business, but it seems to be exactly what my body doesn’t need. I am about to try a “candida” diet which is depressingly devoid of even the gentle sweeteners, like agave nectar, which I have used to wean myself off refined sugar.

I’ve also learned to have a better attitude about my health challenges. It is only by having these challenges that I have been inspired to learn so much. I would not have been curious otherwise, and it is a great gift to know what makes one’s body work well. It also helped me find “my calling” in helping other people through this process which brings out the best in me. For that I am grateful. It is by being wounded that power grows, indeed. Let it become tremendous.

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