MY STORY

Since I can remember, I have always tried to live healthy, growing up with parents that was very physically active and extremely outgoing in nature. Growing up in a household like that made me very aware of my physical health. I was highly active in sports, and it made me very aware of how it made me feel happy because of the happy endorphins that were released. My body was strong, but my emotional health was less balanced and centered. As I got older, I had more challenges when I started high school, I became very uncertain thinking that I need to lose more weight and how I thought society wanted me to look, I started thinking I am not good enough. I started believing that if I lost more weight guys would like me and be interested in me and that would make me happy. But now I know how flawed that way of thinking was.

After my first child I became increasingly conscious about my body and what I thought it should look like. After my son was born, I could not lose weight so after my daughter was born it was even worse. I got so conscious of my body that I started to go on crash diets and starve myself. It got so bad that I started to vomit everything I would eat but no one knew what I was doing. It felt like I was on an emotional rollercoaster. After my third pregnancy things got bad because I was dealing with my own health issues and an abusive marriage it all came crashing down. After I got divorced, I started seeing things a bit more clearly and what damage I was causing to my body and my mental health, that is when I realized something had to change.

After meeting my second husband Vincent who lived in the Netherlands, I moved to be with him. At the age of 35 I started having gut issues and when I ate my stomach would bloat so badly that I had to lay down because I would be in so much discomfort and pain. I was so scared to eat because I knew that if I ate the bloating would come back. I would visit my doctor regularly because I could not deal with the discomfort and pain. Eventually after many visits with my doctor he finally decided to send me for a scope to see what was happening in my gut. When the results came, I was diagnosed with severe IBS.

I started to educate myself about my condition and what I could do to ease my pain. It was still a process of figuring out and being able to understand what my body was telling me and what it needed. I suffered for a long time until I came across a video of a health coach that had the same issues and I started to follow her on YouTube and Instagram and that is when I learnt more about my condition. So, I started incorporating all the things she has done and that started with a daily food journal. With the journal I finally started learning more about IBS and the foods that were causing the bloating and discomfort. I started eliminating those foods and I started crowding out and incorporating the foods that were making me feel good.

Today I can say because of all these challenges I had to deal with have led me on my journey into wanting to be happier and healthier. One day I came across Mellissa Wood talking about holistic health and eating a plant-based diet and how it made her feel. And why she became a health coach via the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. I started doing research about the institution and the benefits of becoming a health coach and taking your health into your own hands. That was the day I signed up to become a health coach and I have never looked back. A year later I became a certified health coach. As a health coach I learnt about gut Imbalance and what the common causes of gut imbalances are and that is when my Aha moment came, and everything became so much clearer realizing that food is the common cause of disease in the body. Today I see food as medicine, and we are what we eat and how food can change how you feel because like everything food is energy. Today I am a certified health coach and thriving on a plant-based diet and I have never looked back. Becoming a health coach and investing in my own health has been the best decision I have ever made.