My Story
My goal with this platform is to inform you how I personally live a healthy life and the small changes I’ve made to feel my best from the inside out. Looking back, health was always a part of my life. I was born in Los Angeles, California and moved to Cleveland, Ohio when I was two years old. My dad was offered a job in Cleveland and he and my mom both agreed they didn’t want to raise my older sister and me in LA. My dad did some house hunting and we loaded up the truck and drove cross country to Cleveland! We lived in a small town called Brecksville and quickly adapted to the Ohio lifestyle--jumping into piles of leaves in the fall, drinking hot chocolate and sledding in the winter, getting excited when the leaves start to grow in the spring, and spending all day outside in the summer. About two years into our Ohio life, my dad got another job offer, this time in Palm Desert, so it was back to California we went!
In the desert, my parents always joked that my sister and I were like fish...we literally spent all day in the pool. Living in Palm Desert was the best because it’s where my Nana and Papa lived so it has always felt like home. About a year later, my dad got another job offer ironically in Cleveland so it was BACK to Cleveland we went! This time, my parents decided to build a custom home in a new neighborhood to establish our roots in the midwest. My parents built our home with their west coast taste in mind, we had a big outdoor deck, a large backyard, a firepit, and an herb garden. Sometimes my mom would ask me to pick fresh mint, dill, basil, or rosemary from the garden to add to our dinner, so I grew up learning how even the smallest touch can transform a meal. My family ate dinner together every night and my mom would cook gourmet dinners using fresh ingredients. I would say we ate pretty healthy compared to the average midwest family (minus s’mores at the firepit and pancakes & bacon every Sunday #balance). I used to beg my mom to let me buy lunchables and TV dinners when we went grocery shopping but she always said no because they “weren’t healthy”, so I developed a sense of what was and was not healthy at a fairly young age.
We were pretty active as a family; my parents would spend weekends gardening in our backyard, and we would go bike riding and hiking in the Metroparks. I grew up dancing at a local dance studio and absolutely loved it. I’m a girly girl so any chance I could wear head to toe pink I took it. Ballet was my strong suit because I’m built like a ballerina, tall and lean. Dancing taught me how to be graceful, strong, and poised. It also taught me that movement is a form of expression and also a major stress reliever. I danced for 15 years and wish I kept up with it to this day. Growing up, I was that girl who ate like a horse but managed to maintain a “string bean” figure. When I went to college, I quickly learned that that metabolism doesn’t last forever.
I went to Arizona State University and loved every second of it. It was a completely new experience coming from the midwest. I consider myself shy so it forced me to step outside my bubble and start a whole new life. During my first semester at ASU I gained weight like the average freshman and really didn’t feel like myself. I also started dating my current boyfriend, Ed, and he and I both wanted to lose those extra college lbs. so we started cooking healthy meals and going to the gym together. One summer I accepted an internship at a PR firm in Solana Beach, California where they had me subscribe to health and wellness newsletters so I would be up-to-date with the latest trends. I began to love learning about health and wellness and still receive the newsletters to this day. Since Ed and I were long distance that summer, we would text all day long and send each other pictures of what we were eating. My mom would tease me when we sat down for dinner every night because I always had to snap a pic before we could begin eating. It became a habit and I’ve been taking pictures of my food for 5+ years, so fine with food has been a long time coming!
Through the years, I’ve read countless articles, listened to numerous podcasts with registered dietitians and health experts, and learned how to nourish my body the right way, which I am so excited to finally be able to share with all of you!
