My wellness journey has been a long and interesting path, this
post might as well be put into a book; a feat I one day hope to accomplish to
help inspire people to open their mind and their hearts to nutrition. This post
will serve more so as an introduction to my overall way of thinking when it
comes to nutrition and exercise, and I hope to share not just my knowledge on
the subject but also my FEELINGS and the literature and people that inspire me
to live the way I do. I think and live loudly.
Summers spent in the great outdoors of North Carolina are my fondest memory
Horseback riding: I always talked the parents into it
I thank my childhood and the way I was
raised to the person I have become today. I grew up in a small community in
South Florida, and I was raised not eating red meat and with a solid mantra
that movement and exercise was very important. My younger sister and I were
always very active, taking yearly family trips to North Carolina where we
played and hiked, playing outside everyday and learning to swim at the age of
two, and we both began playing soccer early in elementary school. Luckily,
growing up in Florida allowed me to be able to go outside all year round and
wear shorts and bare feet almost everyday of the year. My youngest memories are
from the kitchen table at our nightly family dinners and taking trips to the
park around the corner to play.
I was a competitive figure skater for much of my later
childhood/teenage years and was what you can call obsessed. I lived at my local
ice arena (an odd sport you can say for a Floridian to take up.) I had some
natural talent and progressed quickly once I began taking group lessons and
soon got a coach who pushed me to train harder and to begin competing. Coming from
a team sport based lifestyle, I learned to really thrive and enjoy relying on
myself rather than a team to win and to grow. I incorporated cross training
into my skating; doing conditioning off ice with my coach, group stroking
classes to gain power and speed, and then he asked me to start doing 30 minute
runs to build my endurance. I enjoyed these runs immensely, but saw them more
as a tool for skating than as a sport itself. Little did I know that I would
grow up to be a runner! I competed throughout High School and had to retire my
Freshman year of college after winning my final competition; and it was great
to go out with a bang. I do wish I still lived as close and had the time to
skate, skating gave me so much in my life. It gave me the courage to try
something new and the confidence to get out on the ice and give my all solo, it
gave me a passion and a level of commitment and determination that I would
carry with me through everything I do, a bond with my mother who continually
traveled to competitions with me and supported all of my decisions, and a
creative edge to make my programs and costumes to interpret the music and
stories of my skating programs. I love figure skating and all that it gave me,
and I miss it dearly!
The nutrition side of things was always inspired by my
parents who taught us to eat healthily and very much plant based. We were
extremely limited on sodas, processed foods, and desserts which formed my
mindset I have today to live a vegan and plant based life while also allowing
myself indulgences but in a limited fashion. I grew up eating no red meat as mentioned
above, eating dairy/eggs/fish/turkey/chicken. At the ripe ole’ age of 12 I gave
up my turkey and chicken after be-friending a chicken named Betsey at a friend’s
home in North Carolina where we vacationed each year. Being raised to
appreciate nature and animals not just as food but as living beings instilled
in me a very sensitive and loving nature towards them. I am vegan today not for
the health benefits (which are immense) but because I believe that animals have
every right to life as humans and are not to be eaten as food. I like to say that I am vegan because I do not believe in any violence, nor cruelty.
After yo-yoing and not treating my body very well through
some of High School and the beginning of college, I began researching more into
nutrition and read the book Skinny Bitch which I can thank for changing my old
mindset on nutrition and exercise. I cleaned up my life, threw away my packaged
and processed meals I was living on in college housing and ventured into Whole
Foods and began a running routine. Immediately I fell in love with whole food
nutrition and running; like skating I only could rely on myself to push myself
and to hit the pavement. And that was just the beginning of my random running
kind of life ;)
Keep running friends~
No comments:
Post a Comment