Winter Health Motivation

Each day, even in the wintry of days when seasonal effectiveness disorder can plague anyone to not want to get up and leave the house, I fix my mind on the fact that I love my body most when it is in good shape. I love getting up in the morning and I love my work. I eat a clean diet of whole mostly organic foods and avoid processed foods, dairy products, and excess amounts of meat, sugar and caffeine. My “on the go” food during the holiday season is vegetable soup. I know I can find it in any deli, train station or airport, so when I'm “on the go” I can have something healthy that can hold me over until I can get to my next wholesome meal.

I am a certified holistic health counselor and I own an organic café. My mission is to educate New Yorkers (and anyone else who wants to work with me over the phone) on how to reinvent the way they think about food, eating and living. Food can either be healing or it can be harming. So many of the “disorders” we suffer from may have a food related component that exacerbates that condition. Diabetes, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome could all possibly have some symptoms that are food related. I am here to help you figure that out, either through coaching or through preparing meals for you in my café or your home.

So lets start from the beginning because I am human and like most I wasn’t always fit. I struggled with weight my entire life. Mostly I ate when I was stressed out or alone or as a means of comfort. Does this sound familiar? Over a period of five years however I experienced a transformation in how I viewed food and healing. The first sign that my body was in need of a food intervention was the day I ended up in the emergency room for a spastic colon. This occurred after several months of working outrageous hours on the headline news desk at a big news agency. I loved my work, but let’s say it was just a bit stressful (one mistake in reading a number or report and I might make someone lose $1 million and vice versa). I knew there was something wrong, but after 3-4 months of going to the emergency room and the best doctors in New Jersey no one could figure out what was wrong with me. They diagnosed me with a list of different disorders and gave me drugs. No one once asked what I was eating.

After being poked and prodded I lost all tolerance and took matters into my own hands. I started reading and educating myself. And soon after a snowball effect occurred; I started biking, I started to eliminate dairy from my diet. Then meat, then caffeine – that was the hardest…because at that time I was drinking 4 cups of coffee per day, the grande size at Starbucks (equivalent to 1.5-2 normal cups of coffee). I was slow to give up the boxes of licorice, huge plates of pasta, butter and bagels…but I made a few adjustments.

I always loved to cook. While at Bloomberg I worked as an assistant pastry chef and a prep cook for a French/Brazilian restaurant located in Union Square. After working there for about 2 years I applied to culinary school. At the same time I also applied to a graduate program at Harvard. My mother and brother both convinced me to choose Harvard over culinary school and I did. During my time at Harvard I worked at various medical device firms and studied what was considered the crème de la crème of “health science” with the greatest minds in the world. I graduated thinking there was a lot left to do. One of my teachers made a comment that stuck with me…research showed that students who followed a whole food diet (i.e., shopped at Whole Foods, I am not kidding!) did better on “metabolic tests” for cholesterol and other heart disease indicators than those who did not. Wow, I couldn’t believe that the best minds at Harvard could come up with that. It seemed so obvious…but there was so much more.

In the area of Somerville, where my school apartment was located the supermarkets were less than desirable to say the least. I dreaded shopping, especially after being a New York food snob for so many years. I was forced to start shopping at my only alternative, Whole Foods. As a result, I was forced to give up some of my favorite processed foods: cool whip, diet soda and sugar free gelatin, because these foods did not exist at such a store. Even at Trader Joe's the same kind of store but with more affordable prices, I could not find these foods. I found myself having no other choice but to change my diet.

Living in Boston, the only real way to get around from one side to the other was by bike. Public transport was efficient, but it only took you so far and in longer time. I found that the best way to get from Mass General where I was interning, to the BU boathouse where I took rowing lessons to school (I took classes at three campuses) was by bike. So I biked everywhere. I dropped 20 pounds over the course of nine months biking. Between that and changing my diet I lost a few more. Two years of becoming a competitive rower and really concentrating on my diet and I lost 20 more. Refining my diet even further coupled with training for a triathlon and I got down to a weight I had never seen…maybe when I was in the fourth grade, maybe…but I was always a chubby kid.

Again, I am human. I love food and I love sweets, and now even more I love coaching people through a lifestyle transition. I still eat chocolate and creamy foods. For the most part however, my body has become so accustomed to a clean healthy diet that when I try to eat these things it doesn't agree with me. My body rejects the food and reminds me of the thirty years of my life trapped being chronically fatigued, depressed, groggy with poor concentration and not being able to leave the bathroom. I don’t want to go back there... so I eat my vegetable soup.

I love what I eat, it is no longer me “giving up” foods that I enjoy. I prepare all kinds of foods including, green vegetables with garlic, sesame and ginger. My favorite line-up of foods have become vegetable stir fries, whole grains prepared in broth, fresh fruit such as berries and lean meats such as venison. I’m not a vegetarian, but I enjoy a plant based diet with animal food being my seasoning. I never have more than 4 ounces of animal protein at a time and restrict animal protein to 2-3 servings per week. In the winter and around my period I need more and I will have some. When I want a sweet, I drink tea made of fresh ginger and I love licorice tea. It reminds me of the boxed candy but without the calories. Every so often I will have the most decadent chocolate or flour-less chocolate cake I can find. I’ll chew slowly and enjoy every last bite. I love my new life and for the first time in my life I love my body. I love going to the gym and running a road runners race in form fitting work out gear and being proud of my body. I know how hard it is to allow yourself to be healthy, but you’ll be happy you did. You deserve it!