Hi there friends! I’m Kristen + Welcome to Nourish!
I love all things that bring joy. Bubble baths with epsom salts after a long day, running outside with my dog, soaking up the sunshine on a beach, a good book + a strong glass of red wine. I believe that everything is better with butter + that coffee is good for the soul.
For me, real, whole food is king. I don’t know about you but I would much rather eat a juicy, grilled, medium-rare steak + a roasted sweet potato with a big ol' dollop of butter over a frozen pizza that tastes like cardboard and has some “man-made” version of cheese on top of it. Most of the time you can find me in the kitchen trying new recipes, grocery shopping (I seriously love it) or hanging out with my Newfoundland, Edison, who’s my loyal sidekick. I love to sing, I talk way too loud, I hate cranberry juice + I dream of one day having a farm full of cows + chickens.
The way I see it, we all have a story. A combination of events that piece us together to make us who we are today. Like most of us, mine has been a winding road to bring me to this point. A big part of my story started when I was a little girl. Growing up in a big Italian family, food is the end all be all. You eat when you’re happy, when you’re sad, when you’re angry, when you’re grieving, when you’re full, and at the rare chance that you actually are hungry… you eat twice as much.
Food is tradition. Each dish has a story behind it. Each meal is a chance for new memories to be made and old stories to be brought back to life. I fell in love with food + cooking as a little girl… rolling mini meatballs for Italian Wedding Soup with my mom, baking sugar cookies + jelly thumbprints with my brothers at Christmas, learning from my Nonnie the trick to making the best rice pudding. And then a funny thing happened.
Life Throws You Some Curve Balls
In middle school I began struggling with my weight. Being bullied and never feeling comfortable in my body, I turned to food as my comfort. That’s just what I was always knew right? Yo-yo diets became my obsession and at the age of 13 I went on my first diet… counting points + calories + serving sizes and eating “free” foods from boxes + snack size bags that were all free from the most evil word in a chunky girl’s head… “FAT”. I hated my body and how I felt and after obsessing over every bite that went into my mouth, I lost 30 pounds the summer going into high school.
High school brought its own set of challenges and an undiagnosed illness that shook my world. At the age of 16 I ended up in wheelchair for 8 months and didn’t have a lot of hope for things to improve. On the surface I put on a happy face but deep down I was scared and uncertain of what was to come + kept asking “how did I get here?” After seeing countless doctors + being on more medication than my grandma, I appeared to be “cured” from what we finally determined was Lyme Disease. My symptoms went away, I could walk again and I could continue on my normal life. But the repercussions of what my body, my hormones + my immune system went through during that time of being sick affected my body for years to come + in ways I never could have expected.
The icing on the cake if you will, happened after getting diagnosed with endometriosis at the age of 25. After having surgery to remove the endometriosis + cysts I knew something had to change. These three big events over the course of half my life at the time were all pretty big wake up calls for me. I didn’t want to settle for a life of illness + not loving the one body I was given. I have never been one to take "no" for an answer + I knew things could be better. I knew this wasn’t what living a healthy life was all about and that’s when something clicked. I knew there was a better way to live.
The Light Bulb Moment!
My roommate in college started seeing a holistic nutritionist to help improve digestion + I knew I wanted in. What was this whole food movement thing all about? You mean you can eat the WHOLE egg and not throw away the yolk?!?! You can eat REAL bacon?!?! I started seeing this practitioner and something clicked. That's when the light bulb went off and I’ve never looked back since.
I made it my mission to get to the root of the problem. To heal my body from the base up + to nourish myself from the inside out. I started eating real food…without labels + bags + ingredients that I couldn’t pronounce. I started listening to what my body wanted to eat + what it needed to heal. I started loving my body + all the amazing things it could do.
The way I see it, we cannot control what happens to us. But we can control how we deal with those events and how we choose to move forward. I also think we have a duty to share our knowledge + gifts with the world, to try to make it a little better place. So I made it my life’s mission to empower others to love themselves + to see that they too can heal their body’s from the inside out + the roots up.
My wish for you is that you nourish your mind, body + soul to find your happiness + your own joy. Because at the end of the day, I knew I wanted a different ending to my story... one of vibrancy, hope, nourishment + happiness…one full of joy.
And I know you can get there too.
xo, Kristen