Food, Faith, and Fitness – My Journey to Healing

This is a series on how God has led me to a place where food no longer holds me captive.  First, I begin with a little back information.  I grew up eating the standard American diet of meats, potatoes, a vegetable (peas, corns, lima beans, and green beans), and your regular boxed treats/convenience foods.  No shame in it.  No shame on my parents for feeding me this way or to those still eating this way. In high school, I followed my interest in “health care” to the local vocational technical high school.  Here, I studied what I now refer to as “sick care.”  This was where my passion in biology, anatomy, and physiology flourished.  After my junior year, I attended the PA Governor’s School of Excellence for Health Care at Pittsburgh University in 2000.  I share that tidbit of information because during this summer program, I was exposed to a deeper understanding of our health care system, the body systems, AND nutrition.  Public Health was my chosen in depth topic during that stay.  Through life events, I concluded nursing would be my “fall back” career that would always be available and I could go back to if needed.

January 2009, my husband and I began our changes to healthier living (far from whole yet) with hopes and dreams that it would lead to conception of our second child.  I began to learn about artificial sweeteners, green smoothies, whole foods, Weston A. Price, David Wolfe, and a whole lot more!  My eyes were opened to health care versus sick care.  In working with a Natropathic Doctor, I had hopes to get healthier, lose some weight, and hopefully get pregnant.  I justified my struggle with secondary infertility by “worse case scenario, I get healthier for my first born.” During this process, I continued to learn about different dietary theories, reignite my passion with how the human body works, and wanting to help others.  We eventually did get pregnant and our second born came in 2011.

Following my continued passion for health care, nutrition, and wanting to help others, I enrolled into the Institute of Integrative Nutrition’s Health Coach program for July 2013.  This program justified much of what I knew, gave me new knowledge, broader perspectives, coaching skills, and so much more.  It gave me, I also realize, more food guilt. How in the heck was I supposed to eat?!?  Which of the 100 dietary theories would work for me?  In the process, our family moved, lived through a kitchen remodel of our new home, commuting my daughter back and forth to a charter school, AND going to IIN….I gained weight.  In some ways, I gave in to the guilt and I ate more.  I began experimenting further with dietary theories on myself….vegetarian one week, raw one day, paleo another, green smoothies, 21 day detoxes, and more.  Not to say these things are bad…each may have their place and time in YOUR journey.  I just share for you to see how so much of my mental energy revolved around food.  Food shame.  Food guilt.  Food envy.  FOOD!

Through revelations only God’s story in my life can share (another time, another series), I started to discover a burning passion in helping clients……find FREEDOM!  I had always been against counting calories or making the scale your success.  I wanted women to feel good about themselves, to find healing in their hearts, their motives, and get healthy in the process.  I started to see the wholeness in clients slowly.  In the process, I had been following this “fitness ministry” online called Revelation Wellness®.  Summer of 2014, I spoke with an enrollment adviser for Revelation Wellness Instructor training.  I was curious.  I LOVED their mission and vision.  I HATED exercise!  Nope. Not going to do it God.

Spring comes and clients’ journeys bring me back to Revelation Wellness and the founder’s “Weigh Less to Feed More” program.  Clearly, why recreate a program that someone else has already written?  Alisa had written the type of program I wanted for my clients…Biblical. Whole. Healthy Living.  Through prayer and a clear yes from my husband, I enroll for a freaking FITNESS INSTRUCTOR program! What gives God?  I’m so unqualified!  I don’t like exercise!  I know it is necessary.  I tell clients to do something for movement.  Yet, I clearly knew it was time.  Time to be obedient……..

Where Revelation Wellness Instructor Training Equips, Convicts, and Heals is next.