The Covid Lie

Yes, I’m posting this now. I didn’t feel like waiting until next Sunday. I can do what I want, it’s my blog. :)

There’s really no better title for this blog post than the one I have chosen. This post will be absolutely brutal but truthful, backed up by facts and logic. If anyone prefers comfortable lies instead of honest truths, this post is not for you. This post will be upsetting to some. Turn away now if you do not want to know the truth, because I will expose evil where it stands, no matter how inconvenient those places are. Read on if truth is important to you. Here we go.

Allow me to start with my credentials and expertise on the subject of healthcare statistics, because once it’s established that “whoah, this woman actually does know what she’s talking about more than most people in healthcare” my meager audience might be more likely to listen to me, something I genuinely hope for.

In late 2017, I managed to get back on my feet after a suicide attempt and got a pretty sweet gig as the Risk Adjustment Coding Auditor of the Community Healthplan of Washington- it’s the local health administrator for Medicaid/Medicare claims (read: government funded). I had my Certified Professional Coder certification, and went on to pass the test to become a Certified Risk Adjustment Coder. Before I go further and tell you what my day to day job duties were, let me explain what risk adjustment is. Risk Adjustment is the process of your health insurance companies combing through your medical records annually, picking out all of your chronic health conditions from your records, and reporting them to the government. They do this because the government will then “reimburse” the health plan for the cost associated with those chronic health conditions: the worse they are, the more money your insurance company gets to pocket. Translation? Your health insurance company hopes you’re more sick this year than you were last year because for every new illness, they get paid. I wish I was kidding. That was a whole job- looking for sicknesses in your medical records. A broken bone won’t cause health problems year after year, but chronic health conditions will. Disgusting when I look back at it with these eyes now. It’s literally money laundering and profit off of your pain. Diabetes might net a company 4k per year, but cancer might net a company 12k per year, depending on severity (and stick a pin in that.) My day to day job was auditing the coding of medical records to see if there were any chronic health conditions that the medical coders missed. As in, “This patient may be more sick than we previously knew about. Let’s turn them over and shake loose change out of their pockets.”

Yes, looking back, it really felt like this.

Now- most people are aware that the 2017-2018 flu season seemed to be especially bad. You may remember hearing about it marginally, or noticed you were sick more often. Maybe you don’t remember. Allow me to refresh your memory- the 2017-2018 flu season was one of the most deadly on record, with an estimated 79,000 Americans who perished of the regular flu strain in just a few months. Keep in mind that I knew about this. I knew that Americans were passing away in alarmingly large numbers from the regular, annual flu strain that year because I was assigned to a special project mid- spring 2018. My job was to comb through a seemingly endless spreadsheet of hospitalizations for our Medicaid/Medicare members and pick out the encounters that were seasonal flu related. I am aware of the high number of deaths and I am sympathetic to those who lost loved ones that year, although to me, in my job, it was just numbers in a spreadsheet. My point is that I was aware of it. I want you to understand my full meaning- imagine that 15,000 Americans died of the regular seasonal flu each month for five months, and I knew that it was unusually high, but I knew it was completely normal for people (particularly older folks with pre-existing conditions) to die of the flu. I knew this. 12k-50k Americans die of the regular flu every single year in this country- that’s 2,500-10,000 Americans dying of the flu per month, every flu season. Sick people die. This is not a major revelation to those in healthcare, but to those not in healthcare, you just… don’t know, or don’t think about it unless it’s someone you know.

Keep this information in your head, and fast-forward to February of 2020. I had just gotten married in December of 2019, and I was working in a bakery near SeaTac airport when the reports of a deadly flu strain began circulating around all of the media airwaves. They said hundreds of people have died from this flu strain, and the media is working overtime to convince people that this new flu is something absolutely horrific and that “it’s a pandemic.” I watched all of this extremely confused. Hundreds of people died from a flu strain? Really? That’s what the news is reporting on? The news is telling people to stay in their homes over a flu? Then they locked us all down, because “thousands” of people have died from this flu strain every month for a few months. I am, again, completely confused and dumbfounded. Like seriously, you people don’t seem to know that ten thousand people per month will die of the regular ol’ seasonal flu every month, every year?

The media whipped people into a frenzy. Counted cases. Counted dead bodies. Showed gruesome propaganda of people in body bags being wheeled around. Locked people into their homes. Closed churches but kept liquor stores open. Closed mom and pop stores but left Walmarts open. I knew something was seriously wrong, but I didn’t quite know what yet. I couldn’t believe our lawmakers and media would be so dishonest in frightening people without context- if they’d reported that this was normal for a flu season, then people wouldn’t have panicked. Again, remember that I knew all of this, and most people don’t, so they were easily manipulated into believing Covid was something it wasn’t. 2021 rolled around and Covid was somehow worse the second year. Let me ask you something, though- if Covid was truly a separate and distinct disease, can any of you tell me why the seasonal flu, something that infects tens of millions of people annually, decided to take 2020-2021 off?

It didn’t. Covid was the flu, people. Covid was simply the seasonal flu. And don’t even get me started on the “cases.” MILLIONS OF CASES the news media bleat night after night after night to frighten you, when they PCR tested anyone who came into the hospital, no matter what it was for. If you broke your leg but had the sniffles, well now, that’s another Covid case. If you die in a motorcycle crash but had Covid the week before, boy howdy, it was the Covid that killed ya, don’t ya know. Added to the totals.

This is real, FYI. Think about how many car crash victims they PCR tested and then said “It was Covid that killed them.” Probably… a lot. Part of the brainwashing.

And then the masks happened. The masks. Nazi gestapos were bodyslamming people to the ground in Australia over not masking for a seasonal flu. Daycare workers were putting masks on crying children. You couldn’t go into a grocery story without masking up. Meanwhile the media continues to bleat out body counts like it’s completely unusual for thousands of people to die during flu season. Keep in mind I am watching all of this in abject horror, knowing what I know- that it’s just the seasonal flu, and that this is all out of proportion. I am watching as people are forced to wear a mask until they sit down at a restaurant, then it’s okay to take it off. I am watching marching bands wear masks and play their instruments with their mouth, THROUGH THEIR MASKS IN A HOLE THEY CUT INTO IT. In what world is that based in any kind of scientific evidence? The masks were NOT preventing anyone from getting Covid. Masks were both a mind-control device and an IQ test, one that most people in this country failed. I mean, even I wore them for a while when absolutely forced to early on, but my husband and I were some of the first people to march bravely into the grocery store with uncovered faces, something that the masses routinely attacked us for. And why did I stop wearing these face diapers? Because I knew they were nothing more than a mind control device. Just read the side of the box, people. READ THE BOX. It was nothing more than to force people to obey meaningless rules to their own detriment.

Late 2020, as we approached Election Day, President Trump came out with Operation Warp Speed- which released vaccines for this pandemic to the general public. Do you know what else I know? I know that all vaccines released in America require at least ten years of safety studies so that we know they are safe to inject into ourselves. I was the person reading medical journals throughout lockdown because I actually understand what I am reading in a way most people don’t. I was reading that the problem with MRNA technology is that it can cause neurological damage, that it’s prone to DNA contamination, and that it can cause a disease called Guillain-Barré syndrome, which is an autoimmune disorder which can cause paralysis. It was around this time that I was reading about these shots that were being developed, and frantically emailed my immediate family members and told them all not to take these shots, and I warned my sister not to give them to her children, because there was absolutely no way that a vaccine could be developed in under a year for a “brand new disease.” Absolutely zero way. You need five, ten years at minimum. The media weaponized the seasonal flu to make people believe it was deadly, but you get the flu, you’re sick for a few days, you recover, you’re now immune. Meanwhile, if you inject these shots into yourself, you’re lining up to give yourself something far worse- neurological damage or an autoimmune condition for life.

Early 2021, the shots rolled out under Biden. I watched with horror as the vaccine gestapo censored doctors who spoke out, how they fired medical personnel for not getting in line, how they said this shot was “safe and effective.” I watched as real Covid cures were demonized as “horse dewormer” and I watched as Covid patients were given medication that took their life (remdesivir.) I watched the news media say that hydroxychloroquine (a drug that prior to 2020, the CDC said was safe enough for pregnant women to take) was demonized as something that if you take a single pill, “it will kill you.” I watched horror story after horror story of a Covid patient placed on a ventilator and murdered, with the hospitals getting reimbursed nearly forty thousand dollars per patient they murdered via ventilator (and I can prove this. For every condition that’s wrong with you, there’s a 3-5 digit code in the International Classification of Diseases. For everything they can do to fix you, there’s a 5 digit code called Current Procedural Terminology- a CPT code. Placing a patient on a ventilator has its own 5 digit code that can then be billed for. As soon as a patient had bad enough respiratory failure to require a ventilator, they bill that code to the insurance company and get their $39k check as reimbursement for that billed code. I am 100% telling you the truth.) Then, doctors were literally banned from prescribing Ivermectin, citing that it wasn’t approved to treat Covid. Again, with my medical knowledge, I am quite well aware that doctors are allowed to prescribe anything they want at any time, even for off-label usage. Doctors getting their medical licenses stripped for prescribing a fairly inert medication was absolute insanity to me.

Everyone on social media who spoke about any of this against the media narrative was banned, censored, or called an “anti-vaxxer.” And then the profits began rolling in, and I suddenly understood, with abject horror and clarity, the endgame of the rich government officials and billionaire world leaders- get everyone afraid of a perfectly normal flu season, and then get people to voluntarily inject themselves and their children with the actual bioweapon that would cause lifelong chronic health problems like myocarditis (a swelling of heart tissue that can, and has, killed many people after vaccination.)

Don’t believe me?

Remember when I said that risk-adjustment was money laundering via the government tax dollars, funneled to insurance companies for all of the chronic health conditions they would have to treat? I will translate what the above segment actually says. “We got 100 million people to inject themselves with a poison that we knew would cause them long-term chronic heart problems, so now that those chronic health conditions exist, we will add a code for it so that we can bill them to the government on an annual basis for a huuuuuge portion of tax dollars, paid directly to us.”

That is literally what that segment says. Myocarditis was given it’s own HCC, or Heirarchal Condition Code for risk adjustment- something I am quite literally a subject matter expert on.

Fast forward to this last month, in May of 2025, four years after people started injecting these “safe and effective” vaccines into themselves. The FDA is only now, after four years, requiring Pfizer and Moderna to add a “hey, this vaccine can cause permanent heart damage, our bad” label to the vaccines- something that people like me knew about before the shots even rolled out. We were quietly vindicated with no fanfare, to our own horror at being correct. Our worst fears were confirmed, and we lost even more sleep over it.

I want to make something extremely clear at this point. I am not happy to be right. In fact, the fact that I was right the whole time haunts me daily, like what could I have done better to prevent people from injecting this poison into themselves? Meanwhile, (unsticking the cancer pin) cases of cancer are skyrocketing, and doctors are pretending that they have no idea what’s causing it. Only, I know. I know. I knew the whole time, and the people who knew were laughed at like lunatics, censored, banned, and demoralized by our own government officials and family members.

Consider that the MRNA shots are causing cancer rates to explode. Then ask yourself how much Big Pharma makes on treating cancer every year. Go ahead. Look it up. Feel nauseated. Look at that, they project a 50% rise in cancer profits by 2026. Who could have ever expected this completely random happenstance occurrence?

Then ask yourself why Pharma would ever release cancer cures, with that much of a cash cow in their pocket that they can just keep making money off of. Ask yourself why these people would not purposely cause cancer in young people if they stand to make billions off of it. Realize you don’t have a good answer. Realize that true evil exists, and it bribed society with donuts to inject cancer into themselves.

Where am I going with all of this? Truth be told, I’m not actually sure. I don’t know how to wrap this all up. Fauci said one Covid shot would make you immune to the common cold, and then it became two shots, and then seasonal boosters… and now most people who have at least one, well, they probably have at least four of these shots in themselves. I never got a single one, thankfully. I only had one PCR test, too, and it was against my will while I was hospitalized in March of 2020. It was so painful that I never ever had another one. My doctor pushed the covid vaccine and I said no. I am thankful I had enough sense even while I was losing my mind to refuse vaccination for what amounted to a flu with a 99.95% survival rate if you’re under 60. Which is to say, a completely average and normal flu statistic for mortality rates.

There are a couple of things I wish to say before I wrap this up- one, that the literal definition of “coronavirus” from the American Medical Association textbook in the late 80’s defines “coronavirus” as “the common cold.” This is not photoshopped. This is pulled from a video of the person actually opening the textbook because they had one on hand. Now imagine me trying to scream this all over social media to people who are medically illiterate. Obviously the book has to be wrong, or I have to be wrong, because the super duper official experts can’t possibly be lying in order to make piles of cash… can they?

Yeah. They can, and they are. They brainwashed people to be afraid of the common cold, and those same people screamed at me to quit being a conspiracy theorist.

Also, God’s honest truth is that after this ordeal, it made me hyper-aware that real evil exists. Most people can not comprehend the level of coordination required to pull off such a horrible hoodwinking on humanity, but now I think all of you see what I see, and what I have seen the entire time- that there is a small subset of greedy, evil people in the world who would purposely orchestrate a gigantic lie just to inject people with a bioweapon that would cause chronic health conditions that they will now make tens of billions of dollars treating per year. Create the problem, sell the solution.

Also, please ask yourself why Bill Gates (who is not schooled in healthcare) is touting vaccines as a “zero carbon solution for overpopulation”?

Sounds a whole lot like he wants to murder a good portion of the population with vaccines, huh?

And yes, before anyone asks, that is a real newspaper. I saw a video of a woman holding a physical copy. She saved it because she knew it might get scrubbed from the internet.

I would also ask yourself why a cardiologist (a heart doctor) who claims to speak for God either didn’t get warned by that loving God that these shots cause heart damage… or he simply failed to inform his congregation about it. Either this man does not speak to God, or he simply decided not to warn his church population who look to him for guidance on the right thing to do.

I would ask all Catholics the same question of Pope Francis. Either God just decided not to warn the pope of the dangers, or the pope had an agenda, and was bribed to push the shots.

All these religious leaders in complete lockstep, recommending vaccines to their congregations- using guilt and manipulation in order to do it. Saying God wants you to do it.

what… is this? Brainwashing 101.

And no one seemed to question why the literal embodiment of evil to Republicans, and all the Republican religious leaders, were pushing the exact same messaging. “Give this to your children.”

At no point in history have the good guys and bad guys come together for the betterment of society and agreed on something.

Parents lined up to inject their perfectly healthy children after caving to trillions of dollars of propaganda and brainwashing, which led to… these precious lives lost. This is just a handful that I could find in a matter of minutes. If I searched for hours, I’d have hundreds of names of beautiful children murdered by these bioweapons.

Look at their faces. All lost because their parents believed that rich people who make money off treating sickness had their best interests at heart. All lost because they refused to listen to their loved ones who said the shots weren’t safe.

Now imagine me watching these stories roll through my social media feed over and over and over and over and over and over and over in the last 3.5 years. Imagine how heavy my heart is. Imagine how angry I am, as a mother, that these parents lost their children due to ignorance and brainwashing and pure evil.

There is not enough fire in Hell for how angry I am.

*deep breath*

I continually pray for all of these families harmed by these horrible bioweapons, and I hope this has shed some light on why I feel the way I do, and also why I say

I punch evil in the face.

I am aware that occasionally, evil dresses up like a sweet old man who is holding a Bible.

Sometimes, evil hides behind a veneer of godliness that you’d clearly be a bad person for questioning the motives of.


My God requires that I speak the truth, even if my voice shakes, and that’s what I was raised by good parents to do.

I’m sorry that the truth is horrifying. I really am.

Following Jesus Christ is not for the faint of heart, when you follow Him properly. Remember, He toppled corrupt institutions and called wealthy religious leaders “vipers.” He feared nothing.

I can not say I follow Christ if I am unwilling to embody the same.

I am taking a break from blog posts for a while. I will come back to it once a few life events shake loose over the next few weeks. I mostly want to keep this post stickied at the top, because it’s the most important thread of information I’ve ever put together.

Remember, kids:

Oh, by the way- a little bit of levity to lighten up some heavy information. How I broke my nose.

So… I got drunk at a wedding one time. Some random guy I met at the bar a few minutes earlier was on the dance floor, and the Dirty Dancing “Time Of Your Life” song came on. After 7 or so glasses of wine, everything sounds like a good idea, so the guy catches my eye, kneels, beckons me to run and jump for The Lift, and I took a running start… and went sailing over his arms, hitting the dance floor on the other side face-first, with my dress flipping up and exposing my backside to literally everyone in attendance. I sat up and just said “I’m fine” over and over. It was the only thing that could come out of my face, as blood gushed from my nose and I was drunkenly half-carried to a car to drive back to my boyfriend’s parent’s house. And said boyfriend wasn’t even at the wedding, he was away, working. Not my finest moment.

Not only was my nose entirely busted, but my two front teeth also got slightly slammed inward in due to the impact and I had to see a dentist to file down the back of my top front teeth so I could close my mouth and actually chew food. And then I told everyone I was in a car accident for years, because the truth was simply far too embarrassing back then. It’s fricken’ hilarious now.

I have been sober for nearly 2.5 years now, and it’s still one of my favorite stories to tell. I don’t even think I could smell a glass of white wine without my nose throbbing.

-fin-

Autoimmune Conditions, Seed Oils, and Statins

Before I get into what I’m learning in school this month, I just have a quick announcement to make- At some point soon, I am buying a butter churn. I’m serious. I told my husband I would ABSOLUTELY churn some butter, and I will wear a bonnet if I must. I can’t wait for unlimited raw milk butter, because butter is one of the healthiest substances you can eat. I am not kidding you. Read on, but let me explain something first.

I know my last post got kind of heavy, but please understand- these are all things I had to learn about myself and the world before I finally shook off my chains and stepped into the power God put inside of me to use. It is so freeing to look at propaganda whether it comes from a church, a government official, a foreign country, etc and be able to see it for what it is- control mechanisms. People are so afraid of “disobeying” that they obey themselves into a form of slavery that takes their money and gives only fear back. I no longer live in that place of blind obedience out of fear, and it took realizing that I am the cause AND solution of most of my problems in life. Yes, people will mistreat you sometimes when you are in the process of learning, but only because we mistreat ourselves, so we give our outer world permission to mistreat us in turn. Once I started being nice to myself, I began to only encounter nice people. The inside projects to the outside.

How wild is it that when we show ourselves perfect love, we only encounter loving people? When Jesus told us to love each other as He has loved us, we forget to love ourselves as He loved us. We are so mean to ourselves, and when we do that, we are not doing His work. White Christians especially are beholden to a guilt complex- we’ll tear ourselves up at night over something stupid we did over a decade ago! Don’t you think the enemy has weaponized our guilt against us so that we feel bad and imperfect and only do comparisons for how far we fall short, rather than see how far we’ve come or recognize the good we do? Why do we do the enemy’s work for him, for free? Why do we have it drilled into our heads that putting our needs first is selfish, rather than important for health? Why do we please everyone else around us rather than just tell people the truth? Why are we so afraid of offending another person that we are willing to stamp our own voice out in order to not make waves?

Believe it or not, this ties into autoimmune conditions- the term for when our body turns on itself and views itself as an enemy. When we are mean to ourselves, our body thinks we are the problem, and it makes us sick. When we try to escape our life rather than accept it and forgive it, our body views us as trying to not be ourselves, and again, this makes us sick. When we feed ourselves garbage, we are telling our body it’s not worth feeding properly, and we get sick. When we need constant distractions because we can’t stand our own company, our body interprets it as “I am the problem”, and it shuts down. When we beat ourselves up at night over mistakes, our body reacts and tries to fight itself. All of these things invite autoimmune attacks- and I am a firm believer that most autoimmune conditions start in the mind- it starts in how we treat ourselves and how we view ourselves.

In my classes this week, I am learning a lot about immune function and how nutrient deficiencies contribute to our ability to heal itself. Eating properly is absolutely key to health, and I’m not just saying this to slap cheeseburgers out of your hands (unless it’s made with local butcher meat and a home-baked bun, then that’s not so bad.) I’m also learning a lot recently about why we have the nutritional deficiencies that we do, and it’s honestly… horrifying. It’s incredibly hard to wake up and realize that we’re lied to by everyone we generally are told to trust- but once you realize that true evil exists and it wears a suit and tie while smiling through CNN interviews, a lot more about this reality begins to make sense.

For example- prior to 1948, cottonseed oil was actually considered toxic waste by large factory companies like Proctor & Gamble. In 1948, P&G did something that changed the course of human history forever- they began to take this toxic waste runoff from their factories that they didn’t know what to do with, they hydrogenated it, and then paid the American Heart Association a $1.7 million dollar bribe to promote their newly hydrogenated seed oil product called Crisco to the public, claiming that it was more “heart-healthy” than traditional butter. The American public, always wanting to be healthy, immediately jumped on board… because if an organization called the American Heart Association says it, it MUST be true. Huge swaths of Americans began to swap our their butter from God-given nature for this processed toxic sludge called Crisco and margarine products, just because there were commercials everywhere advertising it as “heart-healthy.” Welcome to yet another example of why I have shaken off the chains of obedience drilled into me as a child- unless we know the true motivations of who is telling us we can trust them, we absolutely can not trust them.

Over the course of the next 70 years, what happened to us as a society? This dramatically impacted the beef and dairy industry because they lost business, and obesity and cancers began to rise. The human body was not designed to ingest toxic factory sludge, and now, it’s literally everywhere. If you look at a box of Cheerios (yes, the cereal we all fed our children!) you will see two things- one, a stamp of approval from the American Heart Association, and two, that cottonseed oil is one of the ingredients. It’s in our margarine because they said it was better for you than butter. It’s in all of our fried foods. They put it in nearly everything processed these days because the FDA and Big Pharma pay bribes to each other. The more people whose health fails due to eating seed oils instead of butter, the more they will go to their doctor for help with their chronic illnesses, and the more pills the doctors get to prescribe.

On that note, let me get into statins, one of the biggest lies of the medical industry. Did you know that prior to 1970, a total cholesterol level of 300 was completely normal? “New research” to the brainwashed doctors in medical school began slowly lowering the acceptable level of cholesterol to 250, then 190, now 150. Why do they do this? So that they can sell statins, which destroy your brain. Your brain is 25% cholesterol, people, and dementia isn’t on the rise for absolutely no reason! Statins will cause brain damage, neuroinflammation, and mitochondrial dysfunction. Statins will actually cause more strokes than a high animal fat diet. Statins will induce type 2 diabetes, can cause liver damage, and increase the risk of brain bleeds. In short- if your doctors is prescribing statins to you and telling you to eat less eggs, what he is doing is making the pharmaceutical industry more money by creating more health problems in you that they make money treating.

There are good fats and there are bad fats. Good fats are the kind God created- fatty steaks, chicken, cheese, eggs, coconut oil, beef tallow, avocados, butter, olive oil. Then there are bad fats- and bad fats are made by man- “vegetable” oil, Crisco, canola oil, cottonseed and rapeseed oils, etc. This is how you know the difference between a good fat and a bad one.

If you or someone you love is on a statin, for the love of God, please get them off of it as soon as possible, and encourage fatty meats, butter, and lots of eggs into their diet. MCT oil, usually made from coconut oil, is one of the healthiest things you can ingest. When my brain broke, I spent about a year avoiding meat because I felt some moral way about it, and it actually did more damage to me in the short term. Once I began eating a diet sparse in sugar and high in animal fats, my brain actually healed itself. My blood pressure dropped. My stress level dropped. Every single health marker you can imagine improved in me once I shed processed food and ate primarily animal fats and vegetables and avoided sugar like the plague it is.

There’s a reason I say I’ll never go to a doctor again unless I have an injury, and I’d have to be practically dying to allow it.

Here’s the thing guys- Either your doctors genuinely don’t know why you’re sick, or they know the seed oils and sugar are the problem but don’t want to have their medical license stripped from them for speaking out- which genuinely does happen in this country. The amount of propaganda and brainwashing to get us to consume things that literally destroy us from the inside out is staggering to learn and comprehend, and all of those industries hold hands behind the scenes. Big Food will make sure your food is stripped of nutrients and poisoned, Big Pharma will make sure they can sell a pill to manage your health problems that are caused by your nutrient deficient diet, Big Insurance will launder money from the government for all of your chronic health conditions they have to manage, and Big Lobby will make sure your lawmakers pass laws so that all of this is done legally. And again, please remember how much I know about this. I literally wrote healthcare policy for an insurance company in the state of Washington while auditing a team of Risk Adjustment coders. More on that in my next post, and it’ll be a doozy.

Back to autoimmine disorders- our bodies attack themselves because we are filled with foreign invaders in the form of pesticides, parasites, and factory toxic sludge runoff. Remove the toxins from your diet, eat what God provided in nature for us to consume, and watch your health- and mental health- improve. I saw a video the other day of a man with Crohns disease- he switched to a carnivore diet- that is to say, meat, eggs, fermented foods, and a handful of fruits (seriously, that’s all he eats) and he not only cured his Crohns, he’s in amazing shape and now runs marathons, when his doctors said he’d be sick for life and require multiple surgeries, which he no longer needs. There are more stories than I can count of people going onto a carnivore diet and curing all their autoimmune conditions within a year. The foundational research that started my entire health journey was a Stanford article about the link between sugar and mental health.

As a side note, since switching to a high-fat, high-meat, and little to no sugar/ low carb diet over a year ago, I have gone from being late 30’s, mostly sedentary and out of shape with anxiety, depression, high blood pressure and an inflammation issue, to age 40 with zero health problems and able to pass the Army PT physical with a score of 260 (out of 300, mind you, and this score is higher than when I took that test in Army basic training half my life ago.) Just this morning, I did the pushup and situps portion of the test, and passed with a perfect score in each of the two categories. Most 40 year olds I know are on a cocktail of medications and have a whole host of ailments wrong with them or are at least overweight. They can’t run a mile in under 10 minutes unbroken- something I did on Tuesday of this week. I don’t say this to pat myself on the back. I say this to ask you- do you want to trust what your doctors are telling you, or will you finally trust the word of a woman who by all rights healed herself to perfect health at age 40 by literally disobeying what the “authority” (doctors, politicians, and “experts”) told me to do?

If you eat what you eat because you trust people with lots of money, chances are you buy food based on if there’s a stamp on the packaging from the American Heart Association calling something “heart-healthy.” Every time you see that logo, just remember, they were bribed today’s equivalent of twenty two million dollars to lie to you. Today’s obesity, autoimmune, and cancer epidemic is on them. All I see when I see the American Heart Association logo with the heart and the torch is, “Trust us if you want to turn your heart health into a dumpster fire.”

I understand the hesitance to trust what I am saying. I do. I say a lot of radical things that most mainstream sources will disagree with. I am aware that if any of you reading this are on the verge of believing that I might actually know what I am talking about… it kind of makes you wonder what else I might be correct about, and I am aware that the implications are frightening to some of you. Consider, though, that my life has never been more peaceful or healthy, so while completely reorganizing your belief system is scary in the short term, please use me as proof that on the other side, the skies are clear, and it’s smooth sailing. I have no motivation to lie to you because as a born again Christian, I believe I am accountable for my words and actions, and I believe Jesus would want me to share what I know. I truly believe that, and I will stand before God someday knowing I did all I could to spread the truth of what I know and try to save people from a fire they don’t even realize they are standing in.

Next week I truly open the can of worms I’ve been itching to crack the top off of.

Covid.

It will not be pretty. It will, however, be truthful and backed up by fact. That is a promise.

Mindset and Fixing It

Why do I write these blog posts? I’d like to answer that question for you, first and foremost, because this post may be jarring to some who read it. Also, apologies for length.

I write these things because I love all of you (even those of you I’ve never met or talked to) and I believe you deserve a better, happier, healthier life than you’ve currently been living. I will always be the person who tells you a truth you don’t want to hear rather than a lie that makes you comfortable and feel validated. I’m not making a penny off of this endeavor and I volunteer my time for you. I write out my wisdom to share what I have learned, because there are so many people that I love who have given their power away to some outside agency and they are now a victim of their own lives and their own choices. I know of people who, despite having all of their healthcare and bills and groceries covered by the taxpayer, will moan about being a victim and how nothing ever works out for them and how due to what they’ve been through, they just can’t be expected to make good choices or take responsibility for themselves or be held accountable.

absolutely. not.

Victimhood is a mindset. When everything happens “to” you, you are powerless against it, and it just keeps happening, and you don’t know why. The reason why it happens is because you view it as “things happening to you” rather than “things designed to make you stronger.” Women especially are prone to this, because in this reality, we are generally taught that we have no power. But that’s an absolute lie, because while it’s true that, no, we generally don’t have the raw physical power to do what men do, we mistakenly believe that this means we don’t have the power to halt things from happening to us, or to have power over ourselves. Most of us women are simply unaware that our outside surroundings are a direct projection of whatever our inside beliefs are- as in, if you believe you’re weak or powerless, then you will constantly find people trampling all over you as your inner self’s means of validating what you already believe.

I had an epiphany the other night. The biggest lie that we’re taught in this life, as women, is that we have no power, and must defer to the man to meet all the needs and make all the decisions. We have it drilled into our head through media, churches, and just societal brainwashing in general, that we are secondary to the alpha carnivores, which obviously makes us prey in a world of scary man people who like to beat each other up for fun. But what have we done with that information? Rather than endeavor to make ourselves stronger, we seek to defang the very people who protect us and build our world. We try to make our men kinder and softer and gentler and rounder, when they need to be the very opposite. We have sought to destroy the Alpha-ness of our men rather than perhaps rise to the occasion and be the complementary partner for our Alpha. And this is the problem with our society- that weak women who have no control over themselves either seek to control other people as a means of making themselves “feel” empowered (despite only digging themselves a deeper hole) OR they simply find themselves as a damsel in distress constantly, with no ability to solve their own problems because they think they can’t. The feminist movement has absolutely destroyed our society, and I don’t care who gets offended that I say this. All we’ve done is turned women into inferior men while devaluing the men themselves, which in turn makes them check out of society, making life harder for all of us because women now actually have to work harder.

Instead of making ourselves betas who don’t have any power to defend ourselves OR puffing ourselves up to try to equal an Alpha (and failing miserably), why don’t we women choose to be Omegas instead? Think omnivore. Foxes are an excellent example. So are rats. True omnivores are only 3% of the planet, with carnivores making up 64% of the planet and herbivores making up roughly 32%. Omnivores absolutely have the potential to be prey, but they generally have defense mechanisms in place to bite the crap out of you if you try to mess with them. In human terms, an Omega woman is neither preyed on by the Alphas nor does she act predatory to prey. She is the true blend of strength and softness. She is brave enough to march into a coal mine if her husband forgot his lunch. She will bite the head off of anyone who disrespects her man. She pulls her Alpha out of his comfy chair on Saturday afternoons to go to the gym with her. She doesn’t buy him garbage food that is actually poison just because he “enjoys” it and instead stands up to him and makes him eat salads occasionally instead of Pop Tarts- and he listens to her, because he knows her strength. She empowers herself to research recipes so that she can make him Cheez Its from scratch. In short, Omega women make Alpha men stronger and better. More, Omega women can see when human prey is being preyed upon even when they can’t see it themselves. There are wolves dressed as sheep all over this world, and I can see them with startling 4k clarity. Omega women make the wolves dressed as sheep afraid, because I see them for what they are.

Now, a lot of the above is directed at women, but men, it’s your turn, now.

I generally have mixed feelings about Jordan Peterson, but he said something recently that I 100% agree with. Young men, it is your responsibility to turn yourself into an absolute monster… and then tame that monster. If you don’t have the ability to defend your wife with your bare hands, then you are not living up to what God put you on this planet to do. I don’t care how soft you are, how many video games you have wasted your life and your body playing, or how many excuses you have- eating Burger King and playing WOW all evening is an absolute disgrace of your life. Like, I get it, often it’s how you’re raised, and if you were raised soft, then I blame your dad, but after age 16 or so, you have a duty to get yourself into shape and run yourself through an Agoge (the Spartans sent their sons through this training… from age 7 on, they learned to fight, to steal, to kill, to hunt, etc. They came back at age 16 or so, fully men.) Men need fights to fight. Men need to kick other men and bash their arms against things. And amazingly, the strongest men generally turn out the kindest, because they do not suffer from a lack of confidence.

My husband, for those of you who do not know, is one of the most deadly human beings on the planet. He is 6’4 and nearly solid muscle. Beginning at age 3, he took Taekwondo lessons from a Grand Master who essentially taught the Korean Special Forces soldiers how to kill in the 60’s. My husband came home bloody from sparring beginning at age 7. He played soccer, ran marathons, and then enlisted into US Army Modern Combatives training. I am thankful my husband was raised the way he was, because for all the talk about “toxic masculinity,” it’s actually a lack of masculinity that’s the other problem in this world- too sharp of women, too soft of men. A brutal combination. The cruelest, meanest man I ever knew in my life was an obese man-child who beat up on his own wife and son, and he legitimately thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room because he looked into a microscope at a commercial lab once. That guy needs a run through Army Basic Training if anyone ever does, because for men, the condition of your physical vessel is a direct correlation to your inner health. And his wife allowed his abuse for years because he made her feel powerless. She believed him rather than straight punching him in the face over his treatment of her, because she mistakenly believes that anger is bad- because that’s what society says. Don’t get angry, it’s bad. Just tolerate everything, liberals say.

again. no.

I speak on these subjects to demystify them because I am intimately familiar with them. For the first few years of my marriage with my husband, I spent a great deal of time scrunching up my nose and being offended at a lot of my husband’s perfectly normal behavior. I took everything personally instead of letting things just roll off me. If he cracked a harmless joke, I felt like he was putting me down, which was absolutely not the case, considering that men tease to show love, and I didn’t realize that- instead, I tried to control his behavior so that I wouldn’t have hurt feelings all the time. I tried to defang my own husband due to my own feelings of weakness. Then some weird years happened where I had a drug problem and broke my brain open. My early blog posts cover this. But then, something else weird began to happen. I ceased to become “beta” and started to become “Omega.” I became strong enough to stand with him. I regularly force myself into fasting prolonged periods of time. I have self control. I don’t blame anyone else for problems and no one ever tries to hurt me anymore because my higher soul self knows I don’t need those lessons anymore. And yeah, I literally care not at all what other people think of me- it’s their problem, not mine, because I am absolutely delightful. Someone could tell me the most horrible insults directly to my face, and all I’d say is, “Ye who smelt it, dealt it.”

How does this help you?

People, you have to confidently drive your own life. God gave you a car so that you can go anywhere, but it’s up to you where you go and how you drive there. You can’t just sit back and let God drive for you… you won’t go anywhere, because God didn’t create you to wallow in shame and drown your feelings in McDonalds or become agoraphobic or say “poor me.” God created you to be absolutely magnificent. If you refuse to drive your life, now you’re letting the enemy drive it for you, which is where most of us begin to feel put-upon. It’s as if our life is holding our own hands and smacking our faces with it, saying, “Stop hitting yourself Stop hitting yourself.” It only stops once you wrench your hands out of the grip of the one who is making you hit yourself with your own hands and say

no more.

Stop saying things like “Nothing ever works out for me.” Because you’re making that true. Stop saying things like “I’m so bad.” Because you make it true. Stop saying things like “I have no power.” Because you make it true.

And now, to really ram home how much power we actually have, some Hindu wisdom.

There is a Hindu legend about a time when all humans were gods, but they abused that divinity. They so abused it that Brahma, the chief god,  decided to take it away from them and hide it where they would never find it again. Where to hide it became the big question.

The lesser gods were called into council to consider this question: “Where shall we hide humanity’s divinity?” The council said, “We will bury humanity’s divinity deep in the earth, but Brahma  said, “No that will not do; one day they will dig down deep into the earth and will find it.”

Then they said, “We will sink their divinity into the deepest ocean.” Again Brahma replied, “No, not there, for they will learn to dive into the deepest waters, and search the ocean bed and find it.”

Then the lesser gods said, “We will take it to the top of the highest mountain and hide it there.” But again Brahma replied, “No, for eventually humans will climb every high mountain on earth; they will be sure some day to find it and take it up again.”

Then the lesser gods gave up and concluded, “We do not know where to hide it, for it seems there is no place on the earth or in the sea that humans will not eventually reach.” Then Brahma said, “Here is what we will do with humanity’s divinity. We will hide it deep down inside the humans themselves; they will never think to look for it there.”

Ever since then, the legend concludes, humans have been going to and fro throughout the earth, climbing, digging, diving, exploring, and searching for something already within themselves. The divinity within humanity is still the best-kept secret of the ages.

I know better than most- our power is within us. Amazingly enough, Jesus also taught this concept, but modern churches say “The Kingdom of Heaven is Within You” is just a mistranslation which is such a breathtaking display of brainwashing, because when you have enough life perspective, you begin to see how everything in your life happens for you and not to you. After being widowed, living through prostitution and homelessness, healing from a drug problem, and giving up my child for her happiness, I have all the excuses in the world as to why I just should have rolled over and given up- until one day, I realized that living a life of victimized weakness is exactly what the enemy wants for us. Jesus wants you to hit the gym at 6am before work so that you can punch evil in the face. Jesus wants you to eat a salad instead of McDonalds. Jesus wants you to give up sugar and alcohol and other worldly vices because those vices aren’t of Him. And now? I am actually thankful for my life. All of the awful parts of it made me stronger and led me out of a pit I didn’t even know I was in- a pit I could only see once I had gained altitude.

Part of fixing your mindset is coming to terms with the fact that nearly everything on this planet that is made by man is designed to weaken you and sicken you. Yes, nearly EVERYTHING. The TV. All fast food. Seed oils. Sugar. Modern wheat. Non-organic vegetables and fruits. Pasteurized milk. Air fresheners. Polyester sheets. The very people you trust are quite often bribed to lead you astray. They will tell you half-truths without giving you the full story. I grew up in a religion that taught about fasting, but only for half a day. This robs people of the health benefits of prolonged fasting and doesn’t actually teach you why it’s important. They also teach that cannabis is the same as alcohol- a “drug” - when one is a plant that God put here for our medicinal usage and the other is created by man and promoted everywhere from billboards to commercials on TV. One shrinks tumor cells, the other gives you fatty liver disease. By lumping weed in with alcohol, an avenue of healing has been removed from good people over a belief that a plant God put here on this world purposely is somehow forbidden. No one has been able to give me a convincing reason why a loving God would give us a plant that cures cancer but would punish us for using it… perhaps we have such high cancer rates because certain religions say God prefers you not use the cancer-curing plant or you will be punished.? We as humans disavow things that could actually be good for us based upon what someone else has said about it instead of using your God-given critical thinking skills to find out for yourself. Yeah, it’s scary finding out what’s true and what’s not, but I’d rather wake up in a vat of goo and realize I used to be a slave, than to refuse to see the truth and continue to be a slave. You can’t fight evil if you aren’t aware of how it operates.

Trust me, I am as gentle as a dove to a newborn, any child, a person in distress, etc. I hug grandmothers and I pray for the homeless. My hands wash dishes, pray, feed others, change diapers, and make shadow puppets. I am as kind as can be to every human on the planet, whether you are a predator or prey.

But I am absolutely capable of punching evil in the face.

Because that is what my God requires of His battle angels, and I truly believe that if you are incapable of fighting evil, then you are unwittingly doing its bidding.

War is not won in a single moment, but rather, in 100,000 individual bullets. I make a good choice instead of an unhealthy one that the enemy wants me to make, 100+ times per day. Sleep in? No, get up early. Skip workout? No, go running. Coffee with lots of sugar? No, adaptogen tea with honey. Donut? No, scrambled eggs with spinach. Take a nap? No, work on building your business. Lose your temper at a customer service person who messed my account up? No, make her laugh, and thank her for her time. Be lazy? No, take a shower. Talk over a person who has a differing opinion from mine and insist I’m right? No, hear them out in case I can learn something. Eat two portions of dinner? No, just one. Ice cream for dessert? No, just a handful of trail mix. Leave dishes in the sink overnight? Nah, knock them out before bed.

Consider that everything the enemy wants you to do is easier than what Jesus wants for you, and now you understand the trap. (I want to make it clear, however, I’m still human. My clean laundry occasionally sits on my couch for days at a time, and for every 100 decisions I make that are good, I might make three lazy ones.)

No one tells you how lonely it can be learning to punch evil in the face, but no butterfly can explain flight to a caterpillar, either. It’s sort of a, “Just trust me bro” kind of thing.

Find the strength to grow wings, my friends, and stop fearing consequences for challenging your beliefs. When your validation comes from the light inside instead of fitting in with the crowd, you fly.

Long story short, you are either the victim of your life, or the victor of your life.

No one can decide but you, kiddos.

Fasting- Update

I broke my fast this evening out of necessity after the 72 hour mark. My husband and I decided I’d simply lost too much weight, and I wasn’t large to start with, being a fairly muscular 5’9 and 140ish pounds. I absolutely could have gone two more days on just water and coconut water, but it was his decision that I stop this evening and have a meal, so I did.

I began my fast technically Sunday evening, although all I had to eat on Sunday was about half a scrambled egg, a spoonful each of quinoa salad and hummus, and a small cup of mixed greens and protein powder. I got through Monday and Tuesday with just pinches of salt in water, feeling absolutely fine. This morning I branched out with some of my greens in water, I had a small cup of basically plain coffee with some MCT oil and a tiny pinch of keto creamer, and then coconut water all morning and afternoon. This evening I was still feeling fine, but my husband, upon hugging me, told me that five-day fasts were for severely overweight or severely unhealthy people, and that in his research, autophagy maxes out at 72 hours, and just because I CAN do something, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily healthy for me to do so. And he’s correct.

This little experiment was interesting. Mentally I was absolutely prepared for two more days. It really is mind over matter when you decide to do something. I can easily push through the first two days like a breeze when I do fasts- it doesn’t even faze me anymore. I suppose this proves that I could starve myself to death if I really willed it, which just goes to show how much mental willpower I’ve developed in a house full of food, while cooking dinners for my husband.

I guess the wrap-up is this- a three day fast is great for anyone, I think, once per year, with a few 24-48 hour fasts thrown in annually for good measure, especially after a big holiday like Christmas. But if you’re working out 3 days per week and not a pound overweight, more than 3 days and you start to wither a bit. I found this out so that now you know.

Blog post on mindset and willpower coming Sunday!

Bonus- Keto Fudge Recipe

My older sister makes some amazing fudge. So did my Grandma Nellie- in the form of “Stained Glass Window” cookies. They weren’t cookies at all, but rather, a log of chocolate and colored marshmallows that she cut into slices. It was a Christmas staple annually, and I can literally still taste it if I think about it hard enough. However, I view those treats in a very different light these days- because I’m aware that a single small slice of that chocolatey goodness is packed with more sugar than I now eat in six months. And yet it was normal to mainline several pieces of it in a row back in the day.

When I started my keto journey- I truly believed that meant I’d never eat anything that tasted good ever again. Boy, am I glad I was wrong, and one of the things I invented was a recipe for keto-ish fudge. I say “keto-ish” because the jury’s still out on the usage of coconut sugar and dried dates. I’m not as strict as most keto eaters, but the little I do let myself have is still better than what I used to inhale while depressed- which means it’s perfect for people just starting out on this journey to health.

If you have a food processor, you can whip up a batch of these bad boys in a matter of 20 minutes, and they keep in the fridge for a month (if they last that long). I recently went two weeks without any chocolate at all as a challenge, knowing I had a bag of these fudge squares in the fridge. They kept good for weeks, and promptly disappeared after my challenge was over. I am human, after all.

Ingredients:

22 Medjool dates with pits, preferably organic (pre-pitted ones tend to be drier- whole ones work far better for this recipe)

3/4 cup of any nut butter you prefer (I like almond or cashew butter)

3/4 cup dried raw coconut shreds or chips, unsweetened (Bob’s Red Mill makes the best bag of coconut)

1 cup of Guittard’s Coconut Sugar Chocolate chips, divided in half (Yes they are expensive. Yes they are worth it.)

3 heavy tablespoons of coconut oil (eyeball it is fine)

1 cup of any nuts you like (I prefer walnuts and pecans)

1 tbsp each of flax seeds and chia seeds (this is optional, but the seeds add a great, healthy crunch)

Prepare a bread loaf pan by cutting a piece of parchment paper so that it goes cleanly down the two long sides of your pan and up over the outsides, hanging over the outside. Handy trick I learned for freeing the chilled fudge.

Put your dates into a large glass bowl and cover them in hot water- not quite boiling, but almost. Set aside for 10 minutes.

Come back to the dates once the water is cooled enough to plunge your fingers into, and then kind of smush the date with one hand and remove the pits with the other hand, then place the meat in your food processor. *Mind that some of them have end caps as well- you don’t want that in your fudge.

When you’ve got all your date meat in the processor bowl, add your nut butter and coconut, then process until just combined, then stop.

Next- either use a small double boiler, or a glass Pyrex cup in a small pot of boiling water, and add 1/2 your chocolate chips and the coconut oil. Melt them together in the cup or double boiler pot over low simmered water until mixed together and liquid, stirring frequently. Turn heat off burner and carefully prepare to pour chocolate contents into the food processor.

Return to your food processor and add the rest of the chocolate chips, the nuts, and the seeds if using. Process, then as it’s running, pour in the chocolate and coconut oil mixture until it’s all combined and looks like it’s very wet and a little greasy. Carefully remove the processor blade and then scoop the contents into the prepared loaf pan. Press the mixture hard into the pan, pushing it firmly into each corner and making sure it’s level- you can use a spatula for this, but what I do is take the two ends of the parchment that hang over the sides and fold them back over the top, and press on it over the parchment. It helps really get it pressed firmly and evenly. If the parchment is stuck into the mix, remove it carefully and leave the paper loosely folded over the top of the pan, then stick the pan in your fridge for appx 2 hours. *It WILL look greasy. I promise, that’s just the melted coconut oil, and it will set perfectly. Trust me.

When you return to it, take a butter knife and slide it along the sides that aren’t covered in parchment to loosen it, then take the two ends of the parchment paper and lift the whole brick out of the pan, then set it on a cutting board. From there, you can cut it into squares (I do half longwise, and then 2x1 inch rectangles, but you make it last longer if you cut it into 1x1 squares), stack your chunks onto a fresh piece of parchment, wrap, shove the package in a gallon Ziploc bag, and hide it in the fruit drawer where your significant other won’t raid it (I’m just kidding, I make my husband his own batches- he likes oats and peanuts in his).

Then grab a chunk and enjoy. I am telling you, this stuff is better than any of the chemical garbage you can buy at the store, and it’s full of powerhouse nutrients while scratching that chocolate itch.

You are quite welcome, y’all.

And yes, I DID write out a post detailing my fudge recipe while on an extended fast and having only eaten 500 calories on Sunday. I told you that you can do hard things. I’m feeling fantastic and I’m sure I still will come Friday.

Fasting

Okay kids, we’ve arrived at the topic no one likes- that’s right, the dreaded fasting.

Anyone who knows me at all knows I love food. I am always eating. Seriously. When I worked in a construction office, I had an entire cabinet drawer devoted to snacks. I take after my mother’s metabolism and prefer 4-5 small meals in a day to the standard three squares. I’m pretty sure the powers that be marketed “breakfast, lunch and dinner” to people so that we’d eat heavy three times per day rather than do what’s healthier for our blood sugar and do what I do- stuff like randomly just have a single handful of trail mix and then be on my way. So yeah. I am always munching on something, and I’m pretty sure it’s a crime what I spend on groceries each week (organic or bust, yo)

All that being said- for a person who loves food as much as I do, I also routinely do without it for prolonged periods of time. (Water is always allowed. You die pretty quick without water.) Already this year I’ve done a couple of 1-2 day fasts, but as this blog posts, I’ll be rounding the corner into beginning my first 3-day fast of the year- Sunday night through Thursday morning. I have done a 72 hour fast three times in my life, and the first time was definitely the hardest, because it was no-man’s land for me- a complete unknown, and unknowns are actually pretty hard for a lot of us. We fear the unknown because we fear there’s bad stuff in the unknown. But what if you ventured into the unknown and all you found by the end was strength, confidence, and a renewed sense of health? What if you left the light to walk into the dark, but found there was more light on the other side of the darkness?

A great quote I saw once (probably at my chiropractor’s office) said “Make time for your health or you’ll be forced to take time for your sickness.” This quote absolutely applies here, because most people never take the time to stop pushing or being productive, and we don’t realize that we are NOT supposed to live this way. The way the human condition is supposed to work, we’re supposed to rest, we’re supposed to take time off, we’re supposed to have health breaks, we’re supposed to balance our chi and get massages and sleep in without alarms. But in this current climate, that’s not the messaging, and that’s why most of us are sick- because a lot of us would rather swing through McDonalds on the way home from work late than just miss dinner and start afresh at breakfast. Why do we do this? Because we’re essentially programmed to- the FDA, the government, pharma, yes… they all have a hand in trying to make you as sick as possible. I know we’ve been over this, but it’s really important that we all realize that the “food pyramid” they peddled to us in the 90’s was brainwashing to give us all Celiac and IBS and depression. Miserable people go to the doctor and buy pills. Happy, healthy people don’t.

I will probably never go to a doctor again as long as I live. Because they don’t know how to fix you. They know how to prescribe things so that your next test “looks” better.

The human body is an amazing thing. It was created by an amazing, intelligent designer who gave us all the tools for immortality, if we’d just look inside ourselves, do the hard thing, and use those tools. The word of the day is “autophagy.” Definition? The process of your digestive system having no active food in it to digest, and instead, it directs its attention to eating the dead parts of your own body instead. Yes, I am quite well aware that this sounds like the beginning of a horror movie (The body started eating itself, the horror!) but it’s really not like you think. Our body is made up of countless trillions of cells. These cells are individual but part of a larger whole called… us. We who are immortal souls driving mortal bodies have some challenges in these lifetimes of ours, namely, can we force ourselves into being uncomfortable for short periods of time so that our overall lives can be better? Really, this is the entire secret of health- purposely do the little uncomfortable things, and never have to deal with major health problems. I’d rather run than be bedridden by 70. I’d rather fast than get cancer or lupus. I’d rather skip sugar than get diabetes. And so on. I’m currently in the immune intensive of my classes, and I am here to tell you- when the food we ingest is more plastic than food, our body -will- attack it as a foreign invader, so when our cells absorb that chemical mess… it’s our very own cells being attacked. I no longer wonder where autoimmune conditions come from- sometimes, unfortunately, foreign invaders enter our bodies in the form of S’mores Pop Tarts or Blue Razz Icee’s. And something else no doctor will tell you- depression and anxiety are autoimmune disorders. We turn on ourselves and either kick ourselves or make ourselves afraid. And we do this because we ingest more sugar in the average week than humans used to in an entire year, 100 years ago. Birthday cake was special because it was so sweet and you didn’t get it that often. Now there are people who drink four Pepsis every single day. (another of my tinfoil hat theories is that Pepsi destroys pepsin- an enzyme in our stomach that breaks down protein. Destroy the gut, destroy the mind.)

But we as humans have come to love our creature comforts. We’ve become little hobbits, who just want our morning cup and pastry, and the idea of not eating the morning pastry is just a foreign concept to us! We have also come to identify any “bad” feeling as, well, bad. We have come to pursue only what feels good, rather than what IS good, and this is why so many of us have unhealthy bodies right now- because we have not been taught how to properly care for them, how to rinse them out, how to flush liver gallstones, etc. We’ve been taught to just buy pills. And this is the biggest problem of all- we’ve given our agency away to a monster that doesn’t care for your happiness, but rather, how much money it can take from your wallet because of decades of poor food choices, for a lot of us. And we haven’t realized we do not live in a black and white world. Uncomfortable doesn’t automatically equate bad. It can equate unusual, or strange, or unknown, but discomfort leads to growth. Not a single person ever grew while comfortable. Take that to the bank.

A three-day fast is one of the purest forms of self-love that can exist.

It is saying “no” to your body’s impulses because you, the soul, the driver, is telling it that it deserves better than to be unhealthy, and so you’ll go through an uncomfortable process in order to bring health to said body. Self-discipline, as in, doing the right thing for yourself not because someone is telling you to, not because you feel you have to, but because you choose to, is the road to self-mastery. Matthew 16:24 says, quoting Jesus, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” Have any of us stopped to consider what this means? It means Jesus was smarter and giving us deeper truths than any of us want to admit. The 7 deadly sins are what they are for a reason. America has a severe sloth and gluttony problem right now. What we have wanted to do for the last 50 years is clearly killing us- and what we have wanted to do is eat fast food and ice cream and then sit on the couch and binge Netflix… for thirty years. I am no exception to this. I spent a third of 2016 and half of 2017 eating thousand calorie pints of 7-11 Salted Caramel ice cream in between bottles of white wine while watching TV and trying to drown the feelings of how much I hated myself. We as a society have gotten to a point where just hating ourselves but pretending not to has become the norm.

“You will stay the same until the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of changing.”

I know this better than most, which is why I challenge you- what if instead of hating yourself and what you’ve let your life become, and instead of distracting yourself from the reality of your choices, you put that energy into actually fixing yourself and becoming the best version of you that you can be? The best way to jumpstart feeling better about yourself is a prolonged fast in which you reboot your entire immune system in just 72 little hours. That and you can recalibrate your taste buds. People don’t realize they’ve acclimated to garbage food. They’ll put three spoonfuls of white sugar in their coffee, four times per day, but have no idea why they are depressed, anxious, and get stomach aches all the time. You do a three day fast, though, and now all you need is a single spoonful of coconut sugar or a little squeeze of agave syrup in the morning joe, and you’d be amazed at how sweet it tastes. A ripe apple after a fast tastes like Mana of the Gods. I can’t imagine swigging a soda these days, any flavor. All I would taste is chemical poison. Which is exactly what soda is. And when you go back to food after the long fast, you suddenly think about those aforementioned Pop Tarts. You ask yourself, “Does my body want this or just my mouth?” Chances are, it’s just the mouth, people, Just the mouth.

I have spoken to a number of people who have blood sugar regulation problems, and as such, they eat as often as I do, which is to say, constantly. Or they say they can’t go longer than half a day without eating because of shakes, brain fog, weakness, etc. I am certain most of you can relate. I don’t knock those who eat constantly- I do it because I enjoy it and feel healthier that way. But I don’t eat that often because I think I have to. That’s the difference- that I am mentally in control of my blood sugar and have no problem regularly skipping a meal or two without losing my mind. I am not a slave to food. It is a friend and a useful tool, not a necessity.

Here’s something that will blow your mind to learn, though. Those of us who do regular prolonged fasts… you’re aware that we also feel those shakes, the weakness, and the brain fog, right? You’re aware it sucks just as much for us as it does for you, the first time? That we simply choose to power through being uncomfortable because we know what we are doing is healthy for us?

“But Holly, how do you deal with being productive if that’s the case?” I plan to do nothing the first day. No errands, little to no cooking, etc, no strenuous housework, etc. Which is why I said what I said about taking time for your own health. I recommend you take a Friday off from work and fast Friday through Sunday. Boom. Now you’re only really out a single day and you’ve just made fantastic strides for your health. And I say a single day for a reason- because most people have the impression that they’ll be shaky brain goop crankypants for all three days, but here’s the magic- God designed our bodies to do this, right? Do any of you think it’s an accident that by prolonged fasting, your body will just eat and discard cancer cells? Or do you think that maybe God never intended for our bodies to turn on themselves in such sickness, instead using the beautiful gift of fasting to bring us back to health? It’s the second one, I promise you, because around 24-30 hours into your fast, something happens. Your ketosis switches on. And whroooomph, just like hitting runner’s high, you find you have tons of energy and you’re not even hungry anymore.

I am very serious. This happens.

Let me give you just a handful of the benefits of a prolonged fast- from the Googles:

Ketosis

After glycogen stores are depleted (typically within the first few hours of fasting), the body begins to burn fat for energy, entering a state of ketosis. 

Weight Loss

The calorie deficit created by fasting can lead to fat loss. 

Improved Insulin Sensitivity

Fasting can improve how your body responds to insulin, which is beneficial for individuals with insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes. 

Autophagy

Fasting may trigger autophagy, a process where the body removes damaged or old cellular components, which can be beneficial for cellular health.

Increased growth hormone

Fasting can elevate human growth hormone (HGH) levels, which helps preserve muscle mass and burn fat. 

Other Benefits

Some studies suggest that fasting may reduce inflammation, improve cognitive function, and potentially even extend lifespan. 

So… it’s really, really good for you. I am aware it is also hard. Ask my hungry husband how hard it was when he did it with me once. As soon as it was over, he wanted a pile of biscuits and gravy. I didn’t have the heart to tell him he was supposed to ease back in slowly. Nope. He wanted a plate of grease, so that’s what he got. And to this day he’ll tell you it was the best biscuits and gravy of his life, which I don’t doubt. My biscuits and gravy are probably almost as good as they make them in the South… but not quite, Southerners. Not quite. *bows to your biscuit glory*

Look… I know it’s daunting. Most people don’t have the courage to walk into the dark, fearing that the light will never come back. People often don’t have the courage to force themselves to willingly suffer. But…since you all know how much I love Jesus, ask yourself this- how can we be like Him if we are not willing to suffer on purpose for the greater good of our own lives? Are we that devoted to our own chains that we would believe the adversary when he says we can’t do something? Or are you willing to take a leap of faith, trust God, and know that He will lead you through what amounts to one hungry day and two energetic but somewhat weak ones, in order to jumpstart your own healing? You can reset your entire immune system on a simple three-day water fast and potentially get off some of your medications. Your thinking will be clearer, you’ll have renewed confidence, you’ll feel proud of yourself for doing something hard, AND you’ll potentially drop a pants size. Just in three days.

If Jesus can get up from His tomb after three whole days of being dead, you have the power to get through a 3-day fast. I believe in you, because I was you, and this will be my fourth 3-day’er in two years. No sweat.

The only way to overcome hard things is to face them… and overcome them. Mind over matter, kiddos. (Edit: Due to my own yammering about overcoming hard things, I have challenged myself- just to put my muffins where my mouth is. As of today, Sunday evening, I have decided to turn this into a five-day fast, ending Friday afternoon. I know who drives my life and I trust He will help me through it. Remember, you can do hard things.)

“No one tells you that courage feels like fear.”

That, and occasionally belly gurgles.

Supplements!

Well boys and girls, as promised, a blog post on supplements. This post may get heavy into what people might call “tinfoil hat” territory, but if you think I’m crazy, ask yourself whether you’d rather be crazy and sprinting up several flights of stairs in your 40’s, or “sane” and wheelchair bound by 50. My proof is in my pudding, and I did 50 pushups in a row last week, so since I doubt most doctors can do that, maybe the crazy lady knows a thing or two when it comes to your health.

In my Functional Nutrition schooling curriculum, my classes are divided into 8 roughly equal segments about 5-6 weeks long each. I just finished the entirety of my digestive module, and I have already learned so much! That being said, in each of the modules (I just finished digestion, we’re going to do cardio health, immune, nervous system, etc) there’s an “herbology bonus.”

Remember when I stated that I am pretty sure I spent a life as the weird herb lady in backwater Scotland? We’re getting to why these people actually knew what they were talking about.

Herbology is the practice of knowing exactly which plants that God gave us will cure whatever condition we’re suffering from. If we look hard enough at nature, there’s an answer for everything. Take quinine, for example. The Googles states: “Quinine is a naturally occurring substance (alkaloid) extracted from the bark of the Cinchona tree, native to the Andes region of South America. It has been used for centuries to treat malaria, and was the first effective treatment for this deadly disease.”

However, notice we aren’t prescribed “quinine” pills today. We are prescribed things like “hydroxychloroquine.” What is hydroxychloroquine? Again, to the Googles: “…It is a synthetic derivative of quinine.

• Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are synthetic drugs developed in the 20th century based on the chemical structure of quinine.

• They are not extracted directly from quinine or cinchona bark. In essence, hydroxychloroquine is inspired by quinine but is a distinct, manufactured drug.”

Oh. Okay. So what you’re telling me is that I could have the real, undiluted cure, but instead, you make a chemical copy of the cure with no cure in it and market it as the cure, because just the chemical structure of it is good enough, according to you? It’s shaped like the cure, therefore as good as the real thing?

Let me make it clear- hydroxychloroquine is a fantastic medication that cures and also prevents malaria. The CDC listed it as safe enough for pregnant women prior to Covid (and I won’t open that particular can of worms today). But it’s a synthetic derivative of the natural plant, and companies like Pfizer would have you believing that the natural tree bark will make you sick but their synthetic drug that they can charge you for is perfectly safe.

Do you know why companies like Pfizer market drugs like hydroxychloroquine? Because they can’t patent what exists in nature. This is true. Look it up. IE, “drug” companies can’t make a profit off of selling their own, watered-down version of something if people know that the original something actually works better, and thanks to Rockefeller medicine, they really have brainwashed society to believe that the plants are poisonous but their petroleum (read- you refine petroleum down into gasoline) based pills are healthy. That’s right, before about 1900, people were actually just healthy and living healthy lives well into 100 years, rather than dying with a whole host of ailments by 78. Rockefeller’s medicinal hijacking put a stop to “traditional” cures (ie plant based) and said, “Nah, we’ll just prescribe pills that we can sell for trillions of dollars per year.” Sacklers, I’m looking at you. This family wanted to make OxyContin (basically heroin) available OVER THE COUNTER.

*breathes heavily into a paper bag*

Okay, now that my point is made, let’s continue with plants.

I read somewhere that the average American only eats something like 15 species of plant per week at most. I can’t remember exactly where I read that, but it honestly seems… well, scary if true, and horrifying. Think about it- we may eat some lettuce and tomato on a burger. We may eat some pickles. Maybe an ear of corn, or perhaps we go wild and actually eat a spinach salad with some radishes in it. But considering that there are literally thousands of beneficial plants that exist in the world, the fact that we only eat the familiar, comforting ones is jarring.

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I start my day with a warm glass of “morning greens.” What’s in that, you ask? I have a habit of buying multiple “supergreens” powders and mixing them together. At this point I’m not actually sure how much of each I have in my “morning blend” but I can tell you what they are primarily composed of:

-Bloom’s Supergreens and Probiotics Coconut flavor

-Amazing Grass Greens Antioxidant blend

-Kuli Kuli Gut Bliss Greens

-Green Foods Magma Plus

If you are interested, look up those four greens blends. Look at the ingredients list. Now ask yourself how many species of plant I ingest first thing in the morning every single day. It’s at least 150.

As a helpful tip for accumulating such things, two of the four above I got at Grocery Outlet for less than $15 each, and I can often find the other two on sale for less than $30. Mixing all four together gives me six months of morning greens. That’s $100 total for half a year of jumpstarting my day properly. If you think you can’t afford to eat healthy, cancel your Disney Plus for three months and you’d pay for it easily. Again, ask yourself what matters to you.

Other than my “morning greens” I also take a few supplements regularly. I am a huge Huge HUGE believer in adaptogenic mushrooms for brain health. I have seen a difference in my own life as well as in the lives of those around me who have started taking them. They are available in mushroom coffee, mushroom green tea, mushroom protein powder, just powdered mushrooms in a bag by themselves- you name it, there’s a way to take them. I like a blend of them- Om brand makes a Master Blend of adaptogen mushrooms that I mix into things like protein powder. Hugely and highly recommended.

In addition- I accidentally discovered a supplement called MSM or "methylsulfonylmethane”. It’s a naturally occurring compound found in a lot of plants and has fantastic anti-inflammatory properties. Putting the foil hat on again… if you Google MSM, websites like WebMD will tell you “there’s no good evidence to support its usage.” Of course they’d say that. If you refuse to ever publish a study proving it works, then it’s not exactly a lie to say “We have no evidence.” They do this to cover their own butts. If no significant modern study has ever been done to show that it works conclusively, then they can, in their minds, say that there’s no evidence that it works and not be lying. This dissuades the average American from using it, forcing us to purchase and rely on on traditional pharmaceuticals like Advil that cause liver damage. These people are quite crafty in what they do to keep Americans sick, weak, and unhealthy in every single way- they cause the problem, and then sell the solution.

Let me tell you what MSM did for me. I had an inflammation problem that started up a few years ago- my toes would get swollen and inflamed, and it was painful. MSM pretty much eradicated this problem of mine. It oxygenates tissues and reduced my inflammation. I now have mostly normal toes again. So ask yourself again who companies like WebMD work for- you, or their shareholders who accept bribes from Pfizer?

Another supplement I take regularly is DHEA. It’s an adrenal hormone that declines in the human body with age and regulates my energy and mood. Of course, yet again, the Googles would have you believing that “more research is needed” and “safety is still being debated”- over using a hormone that my body naturally makes.

Now google SSRI’s- a class of antidepressant psych drugs which include Prozac- Google says, “SSRIs are generally considered safe and well-tolerated.”

Do you see how the general public is being misled? They would have you believing that a hormone that your body already makes but makes less of as you get older may be harmful to take as a supplement, but a psych drug that literally causes suicidal thoughts is “generally considered safe.”

people. realize what I am saying.

I am going to close this blog post out with a story about God’s sense of humor.

A wonderful woman at my church contacted me because she knows I’m in nutritional counseling classes. She is very concerned about her children who have digestive issues. Well, we said some prayers together for healing over her children’s guts, and then I told her what I’d just learned last week- that marshmallow root and slippery elm are two herbs that can help heal what is referred to as “leaky gut” syndrome- that is to say, if your gut’s structural integrity is compromised, then it almost won’t matter what you’re eating, you’re going to have issues. She in turn asked me if I could recommend some brands for supplements. After doing a quick search on a favorite website of mine (vitacost.com) I stumbled upon the perfect supplement for her children- a probiotic and marshmallow root blend. The best part? The brand name is “Amen.”

Sometimes God needs a minute to answer a prayer. Sometimes, God has an answer right away.

I am a huge believer in doing your own research and finding what works for you. I can give you information but without you doing your own reading into WHY things work and knowing all the ways how you are being poisoned, you won’t have the inner gumption to heal yourself from the inside out. For that reason- I advise you to type these words into Google: “herbal natural remedies for” and then whatever you’re suffering from. Inflammation, brain fog, digestive issues, high blood pressure, low blood pressure, anxiety, etc. You name it, you can find it. Find what herbs are recommended and try a couple. Herbs can be used in conjunction with most other herbs and shouldn’t cause problems with medications- but again, do your own research and check with a doctor if you take a lot of medications. If that’s the case, I advise that you find a naturopath- someone who is licensed for medicine but also knows about herbs. I do not dispense medical advice- I am sharing what I have learned that works for me and for others, but I am not telling you what to do besides research and deciding for yourself.

After all, your power comes from within you. Remember that. Nothing external can heal you until you want to be healed. Of course we all SAY we want to be healed… but healing means taking responsibility for your life and refusing to play along with the poisoner’s game. It requires discipline, research, and in my case, learning that true evil exists. You can’t fight a war you don’t know you’re in, and you can’t fight evil unless you realize it exists and wears a suit and tie and threatens to fire you from your job if you don’t take an experimental vaccine with no long term safety studies.

The real war on drugs should be fought against the pharmaceutical industry, not those who inhale a plant that helps them sleep. Anyone still in jail for marijuana possession should be freed immediately. I stand by that statement and I will die on that hill.

I’ll just add this- cholesterol levels above 500 were perfectly normal and acceptable 50 years ago. Medical schools have “new research” that teaches their physicians that high cholesterol causes heart problems which I have found isn’t true, and prescribe you statins to lower your cholesterol “for your health”. Your brain NEEDS cholesterol. It’s fat! It is my fervent belief that statins are the cause of Alzheimers today. Case in point- when I switched to a high-fat diet, my brain function improved.

I can’t legally advise you get off your statins, but I can highly suggest you use Duck Duck Go or Twitter or YouTube to research statins and their link to brain impairment. I highly, hugely, strongly suggest you read into that. There are several doctors with videos out there talking about this.

Why?

In the Bible, Revelation 18:23 states- “By their sorceries were all nations deceived.”

The Greek word for sorceries is “Pharmakeia.”

Now ask yourself why we inject mercury and aluminum into two month old babies.

And then ask yourself where SIDS comes from.

Don’t let yourself be deceived by sorceries you willingly put into yourself and your children. Become your own health champion and begin listening to the “crazy conspiracy theorists.” We’re generally silenced for a reason, and it’s not because we’re wrong.

Next blog post will be much lighter, promise. This was all just too important to not share. The weight of what I know about all of this keeps me up at night occasionally.

*she says, while editing her blog post at 11:29pm*

Interlude: For the Love of Rats

This blog post isn’t about food. It’s about rats. I’ll do supplements next week, this seemed more important. Pardon the interruption, I’m just feeling wistful tonight.

Yes. I am talking about rats. The most adorable, snuggly, inquisitive, sneaky, loveable creatures you can have as pets.

In the summer of 2022, my husband suggested to me that we needed to add to our family. He had pet rats in college and told me how smart they were. I admit to being slightly dubious, but I said, what the hey. Let’s give it a go. We came home with two brother Dumbo rats who were rescues- they are called dumbos because they have giant ears. I kid you not. My husband introduced to me the concept that a paper bag was about the greatest thing in the world to a rat, and we filled their new cage home with lots of bags and cardboard. I fed them little rat kibble bites and was delighted to discover that they eat everything on their hind legs, using their front hands to hold whatever they’re eating like you or I would eat a sandwich. And upon doing internet research, I discovered that they have a whole host of taste buds and really like a varied diet. And thus, our two brothers were dubbed Merry and Pippin… so named by my husband because our spoiled boys got two breakfasts every day- once when my husband got up at about 4am for work, and another when I got up at about 6.

Huh. I guess this post is about food after all. I guess at least I’m consistent.

Pet rats are gold, people. Merry nipped my nose one night while learning about me, and I thought it was hilarious. The boys also loved to lick our fingers to give us kisses, regardless of whether there was snack residue on them or not. We used to put them behind us on our computer chairs because rats love tight hidey holes. To this day I can still feel Merry nuzzling behind me as I sit in my chair writing these words.

Sadly, our Pippin passed away in his cage only a couple of weeks after we got him. I don’t know why he got sick, but blamed myself, as I’d fed them tomatoes not long before, and I read online that an underripe tomato can be poisonous to a rat. To this day I don’t know if that was what did it, but regardless, we buried our sweet boy and set out on a hunt to find our now solo boy rat a playmate, as rats are very social creatures- you never want to have just one of them.

My husband found a Craigslist ad for a single male rat for a good home, and we went to go pick him up. Unfortunately we sort of ignored red flags about the house, noticing that this poor brown rat had been solo in a small cage without any entertainment. Regardless, we couldn’t let Merry live by himself, so we took him home. The meeting was… rough. Merry didn’t know who this big, bulky weirdo was, and the newcomer didn’t seem to be terribly intelligent. It was at that point that my husband figured that this newcomer rat (who we also dubbed Pippin) was probably used to breed feeder rats and otherwise left alone, traumatized. We rolled up our sleeves and decided we’d just give him the best home possible, with lots of places to play and things to find. Our new rat was Rat Gump. He was a bit special and kind of… slow. Merry tried to teach him how to play, but the new guy just wasn’t really having it.

So, my husband decided after a month or so that we’d adopt a third little lad, if we could find another baby boy to join our mix. Enter another little baby dumbo rat my husband promptly named Bandit, for he had a black Zorro mask over his eyes. Also, my husband said he stole his heart, the little thief. I fell in love upon meeting him, and our strange little rat family coexisted peacefully for a good long while. Bandit had the intelligence Merry needed and we were relieved that he finally had another real playmate, something the poor little guy hadn’t had since his brother died. Our special lad New Pippin was content to chew holes in his little slings we made from old bandannas and just watch the hustle and bustle of the other two.

A few months into our trio of playful boys, disaster struck. Our little ratty Gump started to get cranky in what we believe was old age, and it began to take a lot of work to coax him out of hiding so we could do things like clean the cage out. One night as my husband retrieved the old grumpy boy, he sank his little rodent teeth deep into my husband’s index finger, and we had to quickly remove the rat from my husband’s knuckle before there was permanent damage. We got him off, and put him in a separate, smaller travel cage away from the other two while I bandaged up my husband’s finger. We ended up deciding that this poor probably abused rat was more of a liability than our other two boys deserved, and so we took him to a local shelter to be put down. It really made us sad to do it, but we figured at least this old cranky guy got to eat delicious food and enjoy an entertaining home for a while before his final days. We did the best we could.

And then there were two- Merry and Bandit. We moved homes and the rats came with us. I embarked on a new tradition of creating a cardboard box mansion for them every single week, as rats enjoy new environments all the time- they get bored easily. I spent far too much on little hammocks and swings and steps and chewy wood toys. And I proceeded to feed these two pet rats better than many adult humans eat. I’m not kidding. These boys usually got a breakfast of fresh fruit, cheese shreds, cheerios, and something like spinach or cucumber with their rat kibble. Their evening meals ranged from custom veggie and chicken pasta salads to ratty fried rice. I legit made them their own cooked dinners. I am insane and will not apologize for it. The most fun part was setting their food dish into the cage and seeing the little chunksters paw through the healthy stuff at the top to find the nuggets of avocado or a piece of cashew I hid under the healthy stuff I wanted them to eat first. I also discovered that if you cut cucumber slices into little wedges like watermelon, they chew away at the inside just like we eat watermelon and then they leave the rinds behind, with tiny little tooth marks in them. I also adored how our two boys had their own individual tastes when it came to treats. I’m a huge nut eater (they say you are what you eat, make of that what you will) and I would grab a handful of a variety of nuts to offer my boys when I was feeling particularly spoil-ish. Merry would always, hands down, go for the macadamia, while Bandit enjoyed an almond or walnut.

Ask any rat owner what the hardest part of having rats is, and invariably the answer will be, “Saying goodbye.” Rats only live for about two years on average.

Late 2023, we gave our two boys a bath (we did that regularly, they just kind of swim around until we pull them out) but this time, Bandit kicked Merry under the water by accident, and we assume Merry got a lungful of water. He proceeded to get a lung infection that made it hard for him to breathe, and he ended up with prescribed medication I had to shove in his mouth twice per day with a little dropper, which, you guessed it, he hated. In January of 2024, our Bandit had developed a calcified fat deposit on his chunky little leg, and had started chewing on it, which led to an infection. I mean, I was all prepared to pay thousands of dollars for surgery for Bandit, but they couldn’t even guarantee he’d live through it, and my husband gently reaffirmed to me that we can’t just rack up the credit card for a maybe, especially since Merry was also sick. Both of our boys were in bad shape, and although it broke my husband’s and my heart, we knew it was time to say goodbye to our boys.

Late January of 2024, we set an appointment to say goodbye. All week, Merry and Bandit ate like kings. Lots of avocado, grapes, pasta, and lots of nuts. I even baked them tiny little rat cookies with peanut butter and granola. And because I am a crazy chef woman who was so in love with my rats, I decided the first batch of rat cookies I baked wasn’t tasty enough and baked a second batch fit for rat kings. (I mean, it was full of human ingredients. I’m not over here eating rat kibble) We loaded our sweet boys into their little carrier, gave them each a cookie, and with heavy hearts, we took them to the edge of the rainbow bridge and said goodbye.

They are buried in an undisclosed location in Washington state, in a park, near a creek.

I have pictures of our rats hung up in collages on my wall, and I’m looking at them as I type these words. Those boys were so friendly, so sweet, and they loved us -so- much. My husband used to get these little teeth chitters out of them- they’d sort of vibrate their teeth together and make the tiniest fast clicking noise, and it’s apparently the rat equivalent of purring. I used to let them loose in our bathroom with the door closed to get some exercise out of their cage, and I’d sit on the floor reading a book while they played. A couple of the books on my bookshelf have tiny little rat tooth bite marks in a few pages because Bandit wanted to inspect what I was reading.

People, if you ever get the chance to have pet rats, do not pass it up. Being a rat mama reminded me of when my baby girl was a toddler- honestly, they probably would have enjoyed most of the same breakfast foods, and you cut the food into similarly small pieces. It caused an ache inside my grieving momma bones while simultaneously healing that same ache. I can’t describe it any better than that.

Anyway, that’s the story about our pet rats.

I will return to my regularly scheduled nuggets of wisdom next week.

Thanks for listening. See below for pictures of my bestest good boys, the two we had for a year and a half.

Bonus Post- Eat This Instead Of That

One of the things that overwhelmed me when I started trying to eat keto was the weird feeling that I’d never eat anything enjoyable again. Being a foodie by nature, I love delicious food. I like things that taste good going down and give me those sweet, sweet (literally) dopamine hits. Some people get that feeling from eating anything, which is bad news for you if you like your drive-throughs, because I can wholeheartedly tell you that fast food is the absolute FIRST thing you should completely trash from your diet and never eat again. I had an In-N-Out lettuce burger a couple of months ago and I’m pretty certain I’ll never eat a fast food burger again in my life. Don’t get me wrong, it was delicious- but I have to practice what I preach. The lettuce doesn’t negate the fact that it’s oozing in questionable grease.

Another thing that weirded me out when I began my keto adventure is reading labels of everything I used to enjoy and seeing like 8-10 grams of sugar per serving in something like crackers. Um, what? Then we have the “bioengineered ingredients” problem (and you should be reading your boxes, people. We’ve discussed this.) Also, please be aware of sugar alcohols- they’re a very unhealthy crutch. The Atkins brand stuff is chock full of them and I say avoid it like the plague. Read on, because I have found ways around sugar limitations. I eat a LOT of delicious stuff. I want for nothing.

First it was about elimination. Any massive diet overhaul usually has an elimination phase and then a phase where you add things back in. The things I eliminated first were:

All white sugar

All potatoes

All pasta

All rice

All cereals

All crackers

All granola

All bread

… and no, it wasn’t easy.

Something really weird happens to you when you’re trying to give up carbs for the first time. There’s a phase about 2-4 weeks in where you’d just about stab somebody for a baked potato. Being a fairly non-violent person by nature, this was intriguing to me. It was almost as if my body was going through the 5 stages of depression, and anger is definitely one of them. You feel hungry all the time, and you don’t want a salad, no sir. You consider rooting through your garbage for that stale, half-eaten box of Wheat Thins you tossed out a week ago. It’s that weird. I also recommend a prolonged fast to kick start the process. A lot of people think they can’t go more than a few hours without getting shaky or falling apart, but the people who think they can’t, you’re most in need of it, brothers and sisters. Start with a juice fast if nothing else- organic, cold-pressed juices for a couple of days will still recalibrate your taste buds. (My recommendation is to go to the refrigerated fancy juice section of your local grocery store and select an orange/carrot juice, a mixed reds juice with beets, and a mixed greens juice. Breakfast, lunch, dinner.)

I firmly believe that we’ve acclimated our taste buds to being used to all this sugar, which is the problem- we’ve grown used to our poisons!!! We have dietary Stockholm Syndrome where we are now desperately clinging to what is slowly killing us. To further make my point about acclimatization of the ol’ tasters, I actually tried eating a regularly-sugared pistachio truffle about a month ago. That bite spent appx .03 seconds in my mouth before finding its final resting place in the garbage. My taste buds have thankfully recalibrated to the point where a small swirl of honey in a morning tea is sweet enough, and when you get to that place, trust me, the hard moments on your journey are worth it. That truffle tasted like chemical trash, and I used to mainline twelve of those in a row on a holiday like Christmas. Blech.

To get you from point A to point B, I have compiled a comprehensive list of things you can swap in your diet today to start making a shift to more healthy meals, and it won’t be as painful as you think, because everything I am listing here, I have taste-tested and it’s not only incredibly healthy, but it passes “food snob” muster.

Swap 1. Swap your regular wheat/white bread for Ezekiel Bread. You can get it at Trader Joe’s for about four bucks a loaf, and sometimes Walmart carries it too. I don’t go up into town that often so I buy them two at a time and pop them into my freezer. I grab a slice whenever I want one- a loaf will last me a month or more. I still eat this bread occasionally because it’s primarily made of ancient grains and seeds, so the amount of wheat in it is negligible and doesn’t spike my blood sugar too badly. It’s a cheat for me to be sure, but it’s a great place to start your keto swaps. There’s also a brand of bread called Hero Bread that’s low carb, but it’s also like… nine dollars.

Swap 2. Make a switch from white/brown sugar to coconut sugar. You can get it in any decent sized grocery store, possibly labeled “Palm Sugar.” An organic bag of this will run you about seven bucks. No, it’s not as sweet as white sugar- but remember what I said about recalibration. Ingest absolutely nothing beyond water for three days and then try out some coconut sugar in your coffee. You’ll be amazed at how good it tastes. (I’ll do a post on fasting soon- tips, tricks, how to not go insane, etc. I’ve done several and it’s seriously mind over matter. You can do it.)

Swap 3. Swap out your breakfast cereal for keto, grainless granola. Trader Joes has a fabulous one sweetened with honey and coconut sugar, and I’m also a huge fan of the brand Three Wishes. They make three varieties of grainless keto granola, and they’re all delicious. I am also a fan of the brand Elizabethan, but that one is slightly more spendy. Spendy, but tasty. I like to buy them on Vitacost.com. Three Wishes also has a number of low sugar, high-protein breakfast cereals in various flavors, also available on that website, just in case you need another step between giving up your Cocoa Puffs and making it to keto. I’m here for your success and will give you every trick I’ve got.

Swap 4. Instead of rice, buy yourself some riced Hearts of Palm. What is that, you ask? Go ahead and google it. Someone online said the flavor is reminiscent of an artichoke or asparagus, and I’ll agree. The brand Palmini has not only several flavored varieties, but also several textures. They make hearts of palm rice, linguini, mashed, lasagna noodle style, etc. You can get a few packs on Amazon for about fifteen bucks, and I get two meals out of each pouch- one pouch would work for two people for one meal. They store nicely in the fridge in a baggie for a few days after opening.

Swap 5. If you’re a noodle person, and I am, then eating becomes a challenge when it comes to keto. In addition to the Palmini noodles I mentioned above, I have located a brand of shiritaki noodle called Miracle Noodles or Skinny Noodles. Some people aren’t a fan of the texture, but I hardly notice it. They’re best mixed into a stir-fry with some homemade teriyaki sauce, I’ve found. Again, Amazon is where I source them.

Swap 6. King Arthur has you covered for keto flour and flour-based baking supplies. They carry keto wheat flour, keto pancake mix, even keto pizza crust mix. I’ve had them all and they’re all good. I believe they process the wheat with extra fiber so that the fiber cancels out the carbs. I’m not actually sure, I’m not a flour-ologist, but I know that if you want to start lowering your carb intake, these can help you along the way.

Swap 7. Agave syrup is beyond divine. It’s quite versatile and is fantastic for making your own sauces (like that homemade teriyaki I mentioned.) It mixes well into coffee, into baking, and anywhere else you need liquid sugar. Organic stuff can be between 6-10 bucks a bottle at any major grocery store, but it’s so sweet you go through it sparingly. It’s a staple in my home.

Swap 8. When I first discovered medjool dates, I thought they were too good to be real. I am not kidding you. You buy a container of medjool dates and bite into one (careful of the pit, mind you) and your brain melts into mush as you savor a divine treat that you could swear was an old fashioned butter caramel. They are literally that good. And, coincidentally, “date caramel” was how I first heard of them. I make a keto fudge using these bad boys that can rival any sugared fudge you can make, and I’d put money on that. If you soak about 20 in some hot water for a few minutes before popping the pit out, you can put the meats into your food processor to make caramel if you add a little coconut milk, or you can add some oats, coconut, peanut butter and chocolate chips for a pressed granola bar. These things are wildly versatile and absolutely insanely good. I’m about to go eat one right now, brb. Totally did. Totally amazing.

Swap 9. One of the harder ones for me was figuring out which protein powders weren’t full of sugary junk. After much trial and error, I stumbled upon Four Sigmatic. I have gone through several cans of their vanilla variety. They include adaptogen mushrooms for brain health and are sweetened with maple syrup, something which is definitely sweet but comes from nature, so it treats me pretty well. It can be found online or at nicer health food stores. Far cheaper online, however. Save yourself the cash. Expect to pay between $28-34 online for a can, but it lasts a good long while, and it’s very high quality.

Swap 10. When those chocolate cravings hit and they get nasty on you, I have two solutions for you- Goalz and ChocZero. Depending on what kind of chocolate person you are, you may prefer one or the other. If you like milk chocolate or prefer things like snickers bars, I’d peruse the ChocZero website. They actually have quite a number of keto staples for your pantry including cofffee syrups, cookies, jams, baking ingredients, and many varieties of chocolate treats made with monkfruit. Taste-wise, I can tell you to avoid the white chocolate varieties. They just… don’t taste quite right. However, their milk chocolate truffles and other treats are quite delicious. If you are more of a gourmet dark chocolate aficionado like me, however, Goalz is the way to go. Their chocolate is made with allulose, a fruit sugar found in figs and raisins. Both the milk and dark varieties are delicious, but the dark chocolate sea salt *chef’s kiss*

Bonus- PaleoValley has the best protein superfood bars I’ve ever had. They come in four flavors, chocolate, lemon meringue, apple pie, and red velvet- the last, I am not a fan of, but I’ll take a 3/4 success rate. Your mileage may vary . They are a little pricey, but occasionally on YouTube you’ll see an ad for BOGO and I highly recommend them. They are clean, full of good protein and fruit, and they’re way delicious. PaleoValley has their own website with lots of other delicious things I recommend, including their clean protein meat sticks and bone broth protein powder. I also have found that the brand IQ bars are wonderful as well, and those come in many varieties. They include adaptogens for brain health and are also keto certified with low sugar. Every flavor I’ve had of those, from banana nut to blueberry muffin to chocolate almond, has been delicious. Sourced on Amazon.

*Edit on 6/2- I just discovered Stars and Honey protein and collagen bars. ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. I just bought a thirty pack of Dark Chocolate Coconut, Cookies and Cream, and Maple Blueberry flavors, and I am splitting them halvsies with my neighbor who loves protein bars as much as I do. Can’t get them on Amazon, they have their own website. Peruse it.

Even if you just swapped out a few of these things, your body will come to thank you.

So what does Holly primarily eat? Here’s a sample day for me:

I wake up in the AM and first thing, I have a small scoop of supergreens powder mixed into warm water on my empty stomach. It sets my gut up for success for the day. About an hour after that, I’ll have a Mud Water tea or something similar (I have an embarrassing number of different morning drink powders in my cabinet) with a half cup of steamed raw milk. This honestly satiates me for several hours, so then around 9-10am, I’ll usually have a few bites of kimchi and then one of two breakfasts- either plain Greek yogurt with honey, fruit, and keto granola with nuts, or an omelette with veggies and raw milk cheese. If I’m on the go, a couple of hard boiled eggs and an apple will do me fine. Often I’ll need a snack a few hours later, and end up nomming on a piece of fruit and a protein bar. A handful of mixed nuts completes my snacking for the afternoon, and then dinner- the most complicated of meals when you’re married to the digestive equivalent of an industrial meat grinder. (He earns it. The man often spends his whole day carrying 80 lbs up flights of stairs… all day. My sweetie could eat an entire large pizza to himself and lose five pounds. We should all be so lucky, but I don’t want his job. Shudder)

Dinner usually consists of one pot being full of some variety of meat and veggies, and two separate smaller pans have our individual sides in it. The Mr. will get rice/mashed potatoes/couscous/ pasta with his meal, meanwhile I have a pan with some palm rice/miracle noodles, or just a pile of extra sauteed zucchini or spaghetti squash, which I have come to find complements nearly anything. I dish up our dinners and we chow down together. Often I just have a scoop of whatever the meat and veggies are and forego the extra side if I’m in a hurry or not that hungry. I try not to overcomplicate things. When sweets cravings hit at night, a piece of my keto fudge (or the coconut butter variety I invented- I’ll put both recipes up in the future) will do the trick, as will a handful of trail mix with dried fruit. A lot of websites would tell you no fruit at all on keto/paleo, but I poohpooh that notion for the most part (but be careful with dried fruit, make sure it’s only sweetened with apple juice. Read your labels!) I love fresh apples, pears, and strawberries best these days- I do generally avoid pineapple and red grapes even though I love them- because of the high sugar content. Yes, being this healthy means you give up things you love in the short term for long term happiness. It’s also worth noting that I eat a lot of the same foods nearly every day. There’s hardly a day goes by I don’t eat at least one egg, sometimes it’s a pile of them with onions, spinach and half an avocado. Thankfully I’ve always enjoyed healthy food so as long as I mix it up somewhat, I’m never usually bored. My body is quite happy with my food routines.

When I go out to eat, that can get complicated. I do enjoy salads but you don’t want those all the time. Usually I’ll just ask the server if they can dish me double veggies instead of the starch with their main meal, or if you’re lucky, you land at a place like Over The Moon cafe in Tacoma, where they serve a lasagna with butternut squash instead of noodles. I’ve recreated it at home several times. Lasagna is bangerang with butternut squash.

Edit: I promised a blog post about supplements next, but ended up writing a love note to my beloved deceased pet rats instead. Regular health posting will resume on May 25th. Promise! ^_^

Raw Milk

That’s it. That’s the whole heading. Raw Milk.

For the last several years, Amos Miller, an Amish man in Pennsylvania, has been absolutely embroiled in a legal battle over being able to sell raw milk to the public. It took literally years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to get our “here to help” government to leave this guy alone and let him sell his milk to whoever wanted it. Last update earlier this year, he prevailed. Our government tied this innocent man up in courts for years over selling the kind of milk we’ve been drinking for… I mean, for as long as there have been cows. Pasteurization is a relatively new thing in human civilization, and it has actually harmed us through the killing of good enzymes and bacteria in the milk straight from the udder. If any readers are in Pennsylvania, go get some milk and food goodies from this guy. I just scoped his online store and I have never wished to be among the Pennsylvania Amish more. Give me the modest dresses and the bonnets. I’m down.

I’ve been learning a ton in school about our gut and its connection to our brain health. In just a few weeks, I’ve completely overhauled how I’ve begun to think about health, and I couldn’t be happier. Lately I’ve been reading testimonials from parents of autistic children who fed their children raw milk and they actually healed their child. And of course, our government shuts down research into cures, because, remember, they want us sick, depressed, fat, and unhealthy, so that they can sell us pills. They want our children autistic. They want to cause harm to families in any way possible.

Last week, my husband and I tracked down raw milk at a local co-op. It was thirteen dollars per gallon, but I ponied up the dough and home I went with our milk.

People.

We have absolutely been robbed.

It’s nectar of the GODS.

It’s as creamy as half and half, it’s a lovely creamy ivory color, it just feels good on the belly. And it apparently cures autism in kefir form.

Lately I’ve started a trend of buying fewer groceries but more expensive, higher quality ones. I’ll pay $9 for a dozen pasture raised eggs. I’ll pay $20 for raw honey. I’ll pay $13 for milk. Yep, sign me up. Know why? Because I’ve noticed that the higher quality of food I have begun eating, the less of it I actually need. This has blown my mind. The amounts I have eaten each day have dropped easily in half.

Of course, trying to get my very hungry carpenter husband to stop after the third bowl of cereal in a row is like trying to put an octopus into pants, but I’ll take the little wins where I can find them, considering he now refuses to eat any bioengineered ingredients anymore, either. Read your labels, people. If it comes in a box, look for the Non-GMO Project logo. Yeah, that means your crackers are six dollars per box, but it’s worth it. Trash food is cheap and plentiful, and if you go for cheap and widely available, you’ll be miserable past age 50. My beloved sweetie lamented his Cheez-It loss until I learned how to make those from scratch, too. Kitchen-Aid Mixer for the win. Yes, I am a busy wife.

Another thing I learned in classes the last couple of weeks is just how important “ferments” and “krauts” are to the belly. I’ve begun enjoying kimchi, saurkraut, and kombucha lately. My belly is so happy, it sings my praises. A few mouthfuls of ferments on an empty stomach will probably extend your life.

For women, our gut health is especially important. It’s our second brain! Men tend to base things on left-brained ideas like logic, facts, and evidence. Women kind of just go… “Uh, ick feeling. Maybe avoid that.” So when our gut health is thrown off, our whole system of intuition goes by the wayside, too.

An excerpt from my nutritionist teacher’s lesson this last week:

“I was actually at a thyroid conference, several years ago, sitting next to a Russian doctor. She now practices naturopathy here in the states, but she was trained as a medical doctor in Russia. As we chatted along and she got a sense of the work I do, she started to pepper me with questions about how I work with the gut and gut healing. Somewhere along our conversation she said to me: “every time I see someone with IBS, they also seem to have mental health challenges (depression, anxiety, ADD/ADHD), do you see that too?”

She was clearly starting to connect the dots — move into the physiological associations that help us to be better problem-solvers. And I had to admit to her that, yes, we’ve seen particular temperaments — mental temperaments — in relation to particular states of dysbiosis in the gut. It's very fascinating. You can start to be a detective about someone’s gut by the way they behave!Ponder that for a moment. And if you have digestive issues yourself, don’t fret, but maybe think about if your mental state or your emotional temperament is different now than it was before you began to experience those issues. How do the two (gut and brain function) track on a functional timeline? Toward that end, have you ever wondered why an impending job interview can cause an attack of intestinal cramps or butterflies in your stomach? And why do antidepressants cause nausea or abdominal upset in millions of people who take them?The reason for these common experiences is because each of us literally has two brains — the familiar one encased in our skulls and our second brain, the gut. They’re kind of like Siamese twins, completely interconnected; when one gets upset, the other does, too. When people say to me that they don’t know if what they’re experiencing, like sugar cravings for instance, is psychological or physiological, I always say you cannot separate the two.”

Listen, I know we’re all starved for time and resources, but making conscious choices as to what you put into your body is paramount to a happy life. If you set aside a few hours on a Sunday afternoon to do food prep for your week instead of scrolling TikTok dance videos, you’d avoid eating out, you’d save money, and your health will be better. If you were to make just a handful of healthy swaps in your diet, over time, you’d notice your entire world changes! You’re happier about yourself, you’re losing weight, you’re more optimistic, less prone to depression, and have more energy! I’m the living case study for this!

What are some of the swaps I make? My next blog post will be all about swaps. Stick a pin in it.

Now, I hear you saying, “Holly, I just can’t afford that expensive food.” As yourself how much random Chinese crap you bought off of Amazon or Temu this month. Look at your video subscriptions. How much did you blow at Starbucks? Yes, you can afford more expensive food. You just have to decide what your health is worth to you, because for the cost of a McMeal, you could invest in a package of six low-carb side dishes. Knowing how to cook is absolutely paramount in this day and age- because, as previously stated, no one who orders in eats salads every night.

For me, cutting back on trash and buying carefully chosen indulgences has been priceless, and I recommend it.

Maybe just start with the raw milk and go from there. (There’s a warning for elderly people and pregnant women, but all of you outside those two categories, you need raw milk in your life. Trust me. Google is your friend. “Raw Milk Near Me” is how I found the two local co-ops.)

If an Amish person eats it, chances are it’s great for your diet. Now please excuse me while I invest in a bonnet and a butter churn.

Special Announcement!

I started school a few weeks ago (by the time this posts) but my blog posts up to this point have been mostly about how I got here. Breaking the fourth wall, here, this blog and website is awesome because I can write posts several weeks ahead and schedule when they are to publish. Boom. I could go for a tropical vacation in Tahiti for a month and still get my blog out every week.

I have a special announcement for the handful of you who read my blog, though, and it’s… amazing. Tell your friends. This is a testimony, to be sure.

Anyone who knows me knows I am God’s biggest cheerleader. No one is more faithful than the converted and saved. I also am a staunch believer that God uses the bad things that happen to you for ultimately better good than the bad was. Translation? Something we perceive as negative will end up as a net positive given enough time.

I went out of town with my husband on a work project the same week I started school. I had a low back injury in 2019 that was mostly healed but then of course, in classic Holly form, I went and lifted a box I shouldn’t have lifted over the weekend before. I felt fine for a few days, but then while out of town, my back just goes… “aaaaand NO.”

I limped into a local chiropractor for a small fix while I was in town (shoutout to Dr. Ross in Wenatchee, you’re a prodigy, dude) and then when I came back, I had to go back to my regular chiropractor who happened to be 45 minutes north (we moved, not her). I was still willing to make the trek because I love my chiropractor (shoutout Dr. Ashley) but her office was closed the entirety of last week. She couldn’t fix me.

This forced me to establish care down south here in Olympia where my husband and I moved last autumn. More dramatic crying and wailing noises. What a pain.

Wouldn’t you know it, though, I found an AMAZING chiropractor by the name of Dr. Derrick, and I had mentioned I also own a little lip balm business when I went in. He said I should come back in and sell some of my balms in his office, so I came back in the next day and prepared to make the sale.

I started talking with a lady in the waiting room who I assumed was another patient, until she mentioned she was actually Dr. Derrick’s wife, Lisa. I took to her instantly because she had a sweater with “I Love Jesus” right on the front of it. I mentioned I was in school to become a nutritional counselor, and she goes, “You should talk to Dr. Derrick about that, because he’s trying to build a network of providers for holistic health in his office.”

um, whaaaat?

The Good Doctor comes out of his office and we chat for a minute. I tell him what I told Lisa, and he essentially told me I should set up a practice in his office when I graduate.

UM WHAAAAAT

Let this be a lesson, kids. To you, in the moment, all you’re feeling is “my back dun broke.”

To God, it’s, “Let’s bring her to a doctor who will help her establish a nutritional counseling practice once she graduates.”

Our ways are not His ways. Our understanding is not His understanding. If you focus on the negative in your trials, you may miss out on the opportunity to make something awesome out of it. If I had been grumpy and in pain and sour grapes about having had to move chiropractors, I wouldn’t have been smiley and cheerful and made the connections that I just did. Smile through your pain, people. You never know what’ll happen.

The next time you think something in your life is negative, give it time. God can turn it into a net positive for you somehow. He uses our tragedies to make our life overall better, and ain’t that just the real secret of life? This is why we have to be thankful for our tragedies and trials- because there’s something good God’s working with them, even if we can’t see it yet.

This concludes our special announcement. Regular blog posting resumes Sunday.

Things I’m learning in school…

I started school to become a Certified Functional Nutritional Counselor this last week. On first blush, this program is simply amazing.

This is an excerpt from the very first class of week 1:

“For most of the history of what we call “conventional medicine,” the 6 non-naturals were
the primary tools for addressing the body’s health. These non-naturals were first articulated over
six thousand years ago in Ancient Greece, and they included: diet, sleep, exercise, breath,
excretion, and emotions. Check it out… over half of these--diet, excretion, and emotions—link
directly to the digestive system. The idea that food, mood, and poop are critical to our health and
well-being has been a consistent part of both folk-knowledge and elite medicine for thousands of years.”

Too many people in modern medicine are trying to reinvent the wheel! How many times has your doctor asked you about your emotional state or what trauma you carry? How many times have they asked if you’re breathing well, even if your lungs are healthy?

Not enough.

We used to get by just fine without Pharmizer making trillions of dollars per year selling pills. We were more hale as a species, probably lived longer, and were much happier, too.

What happened?

We got lazy as a species.

We preferred greasy takeout to cooking a dinner from scratch. We began buying food at stores rather than growing it ourselves. We gave trust regarding our health to agencies like the FDA who approves things to be sold for consumption that should be NOWHERE NEAR a human body. Most of your cracker, cookie, candy and frozen food aisles are full of literal chemical garbage. And once you realize that agencies like the FDA and CDC get paid bribes by pharmaceutical companies to approve things for human consumption, you realize Pharma only makes money when people are sick. Therefore, go ahead and ponder the intentions of such agencies. Really consider if they are incentivized to feed you slow-acting poisons that only deteriorate your body when built up over twenty plus years.

Let me tell you a true story.

I traveled with my beloved husband out of town to stay with him a few days in a hotel while he worked on a construction project nearby. I generally make him sandwiches for lunch, and you can’t have a sandwich without pickles. According to my husband, there’s a law written somewhere that requires a savory sandwich have pickles, and this law comes complete with heavy penalties for failure to comply, according to the very real and serious research my husband has done on the subject. I mentioned in the last post how my pressure canning hobby all started with pickles, and dadgummit, I’m sure I started because of that very law. I’m not a troublemaker.

Since I forgot a jar of homemade pickles on our road trip, which was nearly unforgivable, I had to buy some at the local Safeway along with some other basic groceries for the trip.

I stood in that pickle aisle, I kid you not, for ten straight minutes reading labels.

Open Nature, I’m disappointed in you. Your products are supposed to be organic and not-toxic. You advertise “No artificial flavors” while including chemicals like Polysorbate 80 and Calcium Chloride in your pickles. For shame, Open Nature. For shame.

Horribly, most of the rest of the pickles were the same. Um, there should only be cucumbers, salt, vinegar, maybe a little sugar, and some dill/mustard seed/garlic. That’s it. THAT’S WHAT PICKLES ARE.

Finally I found one single jar from Seattle Pickle Company that was ten freaking dollars, but they included no chemical garbage additives. One jar, out of twenty five or so brands and varieties of pickles.

That’s what we’re dealing with, folks.

You need to assume that 9/10ths or more of the food available for purchase has some sort of chemical additive that will slowly poison you in some way so that in 30 years, you need a cocktail of regular prescriptions at fifty bucks per pop just to stay alive. Please buy your groceries accordingly.

Back to my original subject, we really don’t realize how much our mood affects our overall health. This is why it’s important to not bathe yourself in things that make you stressed out. Politics can really stress some people out. Listening to violent music can do the same, whether we know it or not. Reliving old memories and kicking ourself for not doing better? It’s doing the same thing. My nutritional teacher with something like 12 letters after her name professionally is absolutely right.

Everything we need to heal ourselves is found in nature. During the Covid lockdowns, people actually got sicker because they stayed cooped up inside and didn’t get sunshine or fresh air. Sunshine, fresh air and exercise will cure a lot of mental health problems, and you get positively abused on Twitter if you say so.

This goes back to- people have gotten lazy. They would rather get their stomachs stapled shut than go running. They would rather swallow pills than just eat less and do some pushups. I realize I might be speaking more to the under-50 crowd here (since we have more time to right the ship, as it were) but movement will extend your life. If you spent your life sedate, you need that movement twice as badly as someone who regularly goes for evening walks. And Ozempic? Gosh, people. There’s studies that it will make you go blind. If you’re young, please just eat salads with oil and vinegar and go running. I promise, slow and steady works better than blindness shots.

I am not about band-aids or get-fixed-quick schemes. I am about personal responsibility and personal accountability. Fixing yourself from the inside out isn’t easy, but with hard work and awareness, you got this.

One other thing I learned this week was about something called the GAPS diet. Gut And Psychology.

What is it?

The GAPS diet is a strict elimination diet that requires its followers to cut out:

• grains

• pasteurized dairy

• starchy vegetables

• refined carbs

In her book, Dr. Campbell-McBride states that the GAPS dietary protocol cured her first child of autism. She now widely promotes the diet as a natural cure for many psychiatric and neurological conditions, including:

• autism

• ADD and ADHD

• dyspraxia

• dyslexia

• depression

• schizophrenia

• Tourette’s syndrome

• bipolar disorder

• obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)

• eating disorders

• gout

• childhood bed wetting

When I was a child, I was squirrelly with lots of behavioral problems. Interestingly enough, the doctors were recommending this diet to my mother without it being defined as the GAPS diet when I was a child.

My mom is my hero, btw. She refused to let them put me on adderall.

So I went for most of my childhood with boxes of Rice Milk handy and not getting birthday cake at parties, which, trust me, I raged about as a child, but as an adult, I’m incredibly grateful my parents acted upon the hard rights instead of the easy wrongs.

I notice that it’s extremely similar to keto (which I already do) except it also excludes pasteurized milk and milk products. I’m going to be trying this modification to my already-existing keto diet and see how I feel. I’ll report back after I see how I feel!

Much to my chagrin, it appears triple-cream brie cheese is out for a while.

Excuse me while I fling myself onto a fainting couch and weep dramatically.

Healing Myself through Feeding Others

Something really interesting began to happen to me around the time I started going back to church, in January of 2022. I began finding little old ladies to feed in my community.

No, I’m serious. I began to collect them. Everywhere I moved, I collected another little old lady to feed, without fail.

You see, it all started with pickles. I learned how to make pickles from scratch for my very tall and hungry husband because he could eat half of a jar of pickles in a single sitting. In my journey to health, I decided if he was going to eat pickles, he’d eat homemade ones with homemade ingredients so that I knew he wasn’t mainlining Yellow 40.

I then made a jar of pickles for my elderly neighbor in our triplex, and baked her cinnamon rolls for her birthday.

Then there was another lady at church who ALSO got cinnamon rolls for her birthday.

Then my husband and I moved to a condo community where I collected a lovely Catholic woman who lived across the complex. She was disabled and just had knee replacement surgery when I met her, so naturally I offered to bring her a couple of hot meals while she recovered. In talking to her, she’d been living alone a very long time and got so excited about simple things like getting red meat to enjoy, which she generally couldn’t afford on her fixed income. I began bringing her over a hot dinner a couple of days per week.

Around this time, I began to learn how to pressure can.

I wished I’d known about pressure canning YEARS ago. You can’t can cheezits or fruit snacks or french fries or marshmallows. That may seem obvious, but there’s a point to me saying this. You can pretty much only pressure can what exists in nature (minus grains and dairy for the most part. I’m sure there’s cheats, but that’s the general rule).

Pressure canning is the art form of spending four hours in your kitchen over approximately fourteen bowls of ingredients and three pots of different flavored stocks and making endless combinations with them while micromanaging an extremely hot and pressurized container. My sweet husband quipped one time that I looked like I was directing a “food orchestra” with my wild spoon-waving and all of my ingredients chopped up, filling every bowl in the house. And I won’t lie, on pressure canning day, I occasionally get a little stressed. It’s kind of stimulation overload. My husband came in to make himself a cup of coffee and I yelled at him because one more device making noise would make me lose it.

That was a funny day.

Pressure canning is fantastic for buying lots of meat and veggies at once, and then preserving them to be shelf-stable for a couple of years. I have popped open a jar of chicken soup from over a year ago and it still tastes like the afternoon I made it. I am serious. Lots of people have concerns over botulism, but may I remind you, women were pressure canning in the 1800’s. If it seals, it’s generally safe. You can tell by how the lid sounds, If you flick the lid with your fingernail and it’s a light “plink” rather than a heavy “donk”, your jar is safe.

Yes, plinks and donks. I will die on this hill. Canners, back me up. Plinks and donks.

When my husband and I moved down to where we live now, in Olympia, Washington, I was able to return to the church I had originally found God in, given that we’d moved out of the area for a couple of years. This was such a blessing, because, again, I found yet another little old lady to feed, a precious woman to me who invited me into her home for scripture study in a women’s group a couple of years before. This year, however, she and her husband had been going to lots of medical appointments, and I began bringing them various jars of soups and stews to tide them over on busy nights.

My pressure canning has gotten extremely refined. I highly recommend the book The Canning Diva by Dianne Devereaux.

Recently, as I came to a Wednesday night prayer group with my church, I found myself talking about my health journey through food and my keto diet. I found myself counseling a young woman on fasting, and another woman asked me for advice on my keto diet, which I promptly spent hours typing up to send to her. I talk about my brain health-food health connection to anyone who wants to know my story.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I made contact with my neighbor, an absolutely lovely woman about my own age who works at home (and works too much) in a high-stress job. Me being me, I asked her about her diet, given how much I know about the link between mental health and what we eat. I offered to become her personal chef, and she happily and gratefully agreed!

I made my first food delivery to her midweek last week- flank steak and vegetable stir fry with brown rice, salmon, veggies and brown rice/quinoa, some keto chocolate fudge bars with dates, and a batch of egg and bacon muffins. Tomorrow I make her next batch of food- turkey pesto meatballs with spaghetti squash and a chicken verde salsa mexi bowl, with local butcher pork sausage and egg muffins for breakfast and a round of homemade lemon hummus.

This is all stuff that’s easy to make. Cooking is not hard. You just have to get to know your food.

Then today, as I went to the grocery store and was accosted by the Girl Scouts with their poison boxes (which, word on the street is that the Girl Scouts are being sued for heavy metal toxicity in their cookies, which is why I call them poison boxes), I decided to tell them about a ketogenic diet instead. The woman was floored when I told her that in me, it cured nearly everything. I then told her where to buy allulose chocolate (goalz.com, shoutout to the best chocolatiers on the planet) and she said I should become a nutritional life coach.

And now we have arrived here, to the exact moment that I am typing up this blog post.

People, I am telling you, what you eat, and what you don’t eat, will make the difference between you living a happy life and living a miserable one. There is no further black and white way to say this. WE ARE WHAT WE EAT.

Some of us are puddles of Coors Light and a pile of seed-oil fries.

Some of us are endless oceans of pepperoni and cheese.

Some of us are piles of sugar rotting us.

What are you made of?

I decided to become made of nature, and I am not lacking in goodies. My date bars with coconut sugar-sweetened chocolate chips and walnuts can rival any fudge in existence.

The closer we eat to nature, the closer we are to health. And when we cook in nature, and we give that nature away to others, what you are saying to them is, “You deserve to be nourished.”

It feels good to nourish others, as I have learned that all other people are really just a mirror of ourselves. By feeding others, we also make sure we, in turn, are fed, and being fed isn’t always food. Sometimes doing good works is spiritual food.

More on that another day.

Learning that Food is Medicine

Not long after I got out of the psych hospital (with a cocktail of prescribed meds, mind you) I figured out I needed to make a change to my life- or rather, lots of changes. My brain was still a complete carnival of crazy and the prescriptions I was taking didn’t help, they only muted the feelings so that I couldn’t reach them to deal with them.

You have to feel it to heal it, friends.

When you hit the point of a complete nervous breakdown, there are only two options, y’all- surface, or drown. Yes, it’s harder work to kick for the surface with lungs full of carbon dioxide. Of course it is. It’s WAY easier to just succumb to the darkness, I won’t lie to you. It comes down to what you want for yourself though. What’s your legacy? That you gave up and wasted away, like Layne Staley, or that you ditched the substances and started “lifting things instead” like Trent Reznor? The dude is nearly 60 and has arms nearly as big around as my head. He’s still making music that rocks because he cleaned up his life.

(I did mention I’m 40. The musical references should make sense given my age.)

Thanks to an extended camping trip I took with my husband a few months after the hammer episode, I forgot my psych meds at home, and I just decided not to go back on them. They weren’t doing me any favors anyway. *not medical advice. This worked for me, mostly because I hadn’t been on them that long.

Around this time my beloved husband (who I don’t give nearly enough credit to, he is my rock, my salvation, my calm in the storm, and the reason I survived) suggested I take up martial arts. He has a black belt in ITF Taekwondo and is very physically fit. Not surprisingly, my husband is also extremely mentally sound. Healthy inside, healthy outside.

I did some some research into how exercise can really help jumpstart your mental health, and that had been an area I’d been sorely lacking in. I worked desk jobs most of my life, relatable to so many people out there, I know. I also hated running. Exercise, ew, right?

Ah, this is where we learn something, young grasshopper. Exercise is about far more than making your muscles hurt. Exercise builds mental toughness as well as muscle. Can you do one more when your arms are tired? Can you run one more lap? How hard are you willing to push yourself?

Mind over matter, kids. You can choose to be sore, or you can choose to simply hurt. One of those options gives you mobility and range of motion when you’re 70. The other confines you to a chair.

I did Taekwondo for about a year. Around the same time, I started running. I went to the gym. And then, after stumbling into a Christian church locally and beginning the journey back to spiritual health (and apologizing to God for all the messes I created when I was miserable) I finally began looking at what I was eating.

Obesity in this country is at an all time high. It’s insane, and quite frankly, it’s disgusting. I could write a whole other novel on the evils of the food industry and how we’ve been pitched food “products” that don’t actually have any food in them, but this blog post will suffice for now. Let’s just put it this way- mentally healthy people don’t gorge themselves to 300+ pounds. They just don’t. Remember- the medical industry profits off of us being sick, overweight, and depressed. They can’t sell pills to happy, healthy, normal-weight people. If you weigh more than 275 lbs and you’re not a 6’8 Icelandic bodybuilder named Bjorn, you are unhealthy. Period. I don’t care what lies you want to tell yourself, they’re lies.

I began researching the best diets for mental health, and one kept popping up- the Ketogenic Diet. Reading into it, there was a study done on an elderly woman with debilitating schizophrenia, and a keto diet gave her 90% quality of life back. Stanford University did a very good study on keto diets and improving severe mental illness.

I decided that would be the direction my life took me, but failure is part of the process.

Since I’ve always enjoyed cooking, I didn’t have too much trouble with the food prep necessary for a keto diet swap, but given that I still cooked for my extremely hungry carpenter husband, it was very hard at first to stick with it before lapsing back to my old diet of heavy starches and sweets.

I finally kicked the refined carbs for good over a year ago- barring a handful of minor exceptions, which is why the cookbook I have planned for the future will be called “Mostly” keto. For me, the usage of honey, medjool dates, and dried fruit in general is kind of a gray area, and I must occasionally taste jam that I make from scratch when my husband isn’t around to taste it for me. I also enjoy the occasional brown rice and sweet potatoes as treats. If you’re getting to a place with your diet where brown rice is considered a “treat”, well done, you don’t need my advice anymore.

Whether you believe in a higher power or not is up to you, but if there are laws to nature, there has to be a lawmaker, that’s all I’m saying, and I finally hit a place where I went , “Okay, God. I don’t think I can fix me. I think only you can do it.

It is in the fixing that you realize just how real God is. I am a living testimony to it. You don’t have to believe it, but I guarantee you, if you ever get to a low enough place, and ask God you help you… God will send you what you need.

As further proof of a simply kick-ass Creator, there are so many delicious foods made by the planet. You can literally plant a seed in the right part of the world, and you’ll end up with pineapples, which is one of the most delicious things anyone can ever eat. I mean, mind blown, right? Pineapples! Oh, and let me tell you a little secret about pineapples. If you take the outside peels of pineapples and the cores you cut out and boil them in some filtered water for about 10-15 minutes and strain it into a jar for your fridge, that juice apparently has an enzyme named bromelain in it that supports joint health. Um, what? That’s not just trash? No, it’s not. Nature is so beautiful, there’s a way to use nearly everything we pitch into the garbage. It’s why I currently have like twelve baggies full of dried spaghetti squash seeds, because I eat so much of it and I can’t bear to throw the beautiful seeds away.

I will be a crazy lady in my 50’s with a spaghetti squash farm at this rate. Ask me how devastated I am that this is bound to be my fate.

Spoiler alert, absolutely tickled pink about it.

On the subject of “nature provides everything we need” why are we ruining our health ingesting engine grease (seed oils) toxic waste runoff (fluoride) addictive white poison powder (refined sugar) and why do we rub dementia under our arms every single day? (If you do nothing else, please, I implore you, buy aluminum-free deodorant if you want to be cognitively healthy past 60 and stop cooking with foil)

Realizing all of this, I took it a step further. What if I only began eating foods that exist in nature?

This was the beginning of my food journey, and I am happier, healthier, smarter, and more free than I have ever been. This is why I decided to create this blog and help others- because I know most of you have no idea where to start, and don’t have three years to read endless medical journals and balance it with what people like me know doctors lie about. For example, ever notice that doctors will tell you to eat less butter, salt and eggs before they tell you to eat less french fries?

That’s just the tip of the iceberg, people.

The average person wakes up in the morning and stumbles for their coffee pot, ingesting molds that linger on coffee and impact their kidneys. Then the average person will either eat a starchy breakfast pastry or worse, a sweetened one, or they get a McDonalds breakfast meal. The average person has just demolished any chance of gut health for the day, and as I came to find out, gut health is intricately tied to our overall health.

The average person might bring lunch from home (a bright spot of salvation in an otherwise depressing food routine) or maybe eat a salad from the cafeteria and pat themselves on the back for making a “healthy” choice. Then the average person might go home to a home cooked dinner, but might as easily swing through Burger King on the way home.

The average person doesn’t know what a probiotic is, how to count carbs or read labels, or how to recognize that trisodium phosphate (found in some children’s breakfast cereals) is an industrial cleaning agent you can buy at Home Depot. The average person has heard of adaptogen mushrooms, maybe, but looks for them in the produce section.

The average person is in deep trouble.

The Traumatic Brain Injury that saved my life

I ran from my problems for a solid fifteen years after my husband died. Five years after his funeral, I gave birth to a beautiful and perfect baby girl, conceived as a miracle from a short-term relationship. Her dad and I probably should have broken up not long after we got together, but we were both too broken in different ways to love each other properly. Today’s psych lesson: Trauma Bonding. The concept that if you believe yourself to be terribly broken, you will attract to yourself only other broken people, often while not having a great opinion of humanity in general.

I developed a severe drinking problem after her dad and I split up, when she was about a year old. We shared custody while I worked several jobs to try to keep us all afloat. After my dumpster fire of a life situation moved me out of state, things got strained, and my drinking habit got worse. After several years of moving around, trying to work and keep up with child support, and subsequently falling into a fairly abusive relationship that didn’t last very long, (remember, trauma bonding) I found myself jobless and homeless in the autumn of 2017. I had pushed my entire family away in my grief, and what little time and money I had to spend on my child wasn’t enough. Her dad threatened to have my license revoked or have me jailed if I didn’t cough up child support money. Or, he casually suggested, I could just give him full custody, and he’d make the rest go away.

For the record, he’s not the villain in this story. I had been a human dumpster fire for nearly ten straight years. I hated myself. My family was sick of me (or so I felt). I had no one to lean on (barring a single friend who picked up the phone when I called and another friend who took me in. You both know who you are. Props, dudes). So I signed full custody of my daughter to her dad and he promised me a photo once per year on her birthday. Signing those adoption papers for his wife was the hardest piece of paper I ever signed, and yet, I knew it was for the best, because that way she could grow up without me messing up her life, and speaking as the child of divorced parents (there’s a lot of us out there) I felt like it was the first truly noble thing I ever did as an adult.

I managed to claw back to my feet with the help of my two friends, and got another healthcare certification (the letters I got at age 32). I worked in healthcare some more, and learned what risk adjustment was- the process of your health insurance company combing through your medical records and hoping you have more chronic diseases because they get checks from the government annually. I wish I was kidding. Your health insurance company hopes you’re sick. Really think about that one for a while.

After a year of this job, something broke in me. I couldn’t do it anymore. I had a great and well-paying job in health information technology and I threw it into the trash to go work in a bakery for minimum wage. Not long after, I found myself in hard drugs to cope with all the trauma I hadn’t dealt with for roughly eleven years. And there was… a LOT. I had just gotten remarried and I thought I was fine because of the happiness of newlywed joy, but the darkness I had avoided crept back in shortly after our marriage which led to the substance abuse.

Shortly after beginning my spree of drowning myself in hard drugs, an inflammation problem in my feet started up. Since I worked in healthcare so long, I knew that an anti-anxiety medication I had been prescribed was also prescribed for inflammation. Since I was thinking “inflammation” and not “brain” when I took this drug, I took it alongside hard drugs that messed with my dopamine receptors. I had been warned not to mix psych meds with MDMA (the street drug, ecstasy). Let me tell you why this warning exists, and further, maybe don’t do drugs, kids, because this is when my brain metaphorically ripped itself in half. When the neurons in your brain are being competed over by both uppers and downers, that’s when your brain goes to war with itself, and I spent approximately fourteen months completely insane. Most people think of traumatic brain injuries as being a physical injury, like a car wreck. In those cases, you know why you’re suddenly acting weird, but in my case, I actually had no idea. It was a chemical injury, and it didn’t even set in right away, which made figuring out the problem all the harder.

This brain injury actually saved my life.

Holly, how can a traumatic brain injury save someone’s life?

I’ll tell you.

Imagine you have a big shiny balloon full of cake. Why is there cake in a balloon? No idea, but we’re going full speed ahead with the metaphor anyway.

You put that balloon on a shelf because it’s shiny and pretty, and the cake is in good condition when you shoehorned it in there, but you leave that balloon full of cake on the shelf so long… you forget there’s cake in there. You are completely oblivious to the rot inside of that balloon because the outside is still as shiny as the day you shoved cake in it.

In my case, it was wedding cake. I never properly grieved my husband’s death, which led to substances that I only used to distract myself from the pain I never addressed.

Imagine eleven years of not addressing rotting cake in your bedroom. There’s a stench in the room, you are getting stomachaches and headaches, you aren’t sleeping well, and yet you have no idea what’s causing it because you totally forgot about the cake. So you go to the doctor who wants to prescribe you four different drugs and two of them have death listed as a possible side effect. You deteriorate worse and your doctor makes a bonus for selling those pills.

That brain injury was a needle that popped my balloon, which spewed rotten cake all over my bedroom. Rotten cake is splattered on my bed, the ceiling, all over the carpet. There’s rot and stench everywhere. It’s disgusting, and one might think well and hard about just burning the whole house down rather than endeavor to clean that awful mess, because there’s just so much of it.

For months, I was essentially schizophrenic. The two halves of my brain fought each other, night and day. I didn’t sleep well. I stopped eating because “everything is poison.” I was suicidal for those months. I talked to myself, ran around at 3am, and even cut myself at times. My brand new husband who saw me through my drug addictions toughed it out and did his best to support me, but it took months for us to figure out what had actually happened, and even once we knew what the problem was, it was an uphill battle. *This man, y’all. There are not enough steaks or beers to thank him for his perseverance and love, but dadgum, if it takes me a century, I’ll try.

I thought I was getting better, but then I fell off the wagon back into drugs six months later, and then two days after that, after not sleeping OR eating, my husband found me hitting myself on the head with a hammer. To this day, the only explanation for that I have was “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” was playing in my head.

He called 911 and got me an ambulance.

I spent six hours in an ER room crying my guts out. It was the first time I ever properly felt all of the loss I had suffered through the course of my life, and this short post is the truncated version- I’d been through a LOT. I spent a subsequent week in a psych hospital eating and sleeping, before coming home to fix the mess I’d made of my life.

When I came home, I donned a hazmat suit and ordered 42 boxes of Magic Erasers off of Amazon.

It was time to clean up the cake.

***

You know what the best part about traveling through hell is?

Not being there anymore.

True story.

Take it from a former dumpster fire…

Look, I get it. We all make excuses when it comes to our health. “I’ll do it tomorrow” you may lie. “It’s just not that important” you tell yourself weakly. When you hit age 40, however, it starts hurting when you get out of bed, and you’ll wish you hadn’t scrolled away the health of your youth.

I didn’t take care of my physical, emotional or spiritual health for nearly two decades. I turned into a flaming garbage heap of a person because of all the excuses I made when I was younger and trust me, those excuses were ample, so I know more about excuses than most people. I also know what it’s like to live a life extremely sick and have no idea how to heal it.

When I was 23 years old, I got married to the love of my life, and then he died in a motorcycle wreck five weeks later.

Yeah. THAT happened.

Everyone in my life thought I was so strong for simply soldiering on and trying to paint on a brave face day after day. What I didn’t know was that the same toughness that helped me survive that had also made me numb to pain because I always ignored what that pain was trying to tell me, and when your body hurts, there’s a reason for it. Instead, I just bricked my pain away and pretended like it wasn’t there, and doing that made me a very ill person. That sickness manifested outward and harmed those around me. If you suffer from chronic disease, you know it makes everything hurt, and when you hurt on the inside, you often make others hurt, too. Hard truths, but there’s going to be a lot of those coming from me.

When it comes to our spiritual and emotional health- when the egg cracks from the outside, life ends, and when the egg cracks from the inside, life begins. Nothing external can cure you. It starts within you, and you have everything you need inside of you.

Again, I know better than most.

My life went from average, to blissfully happy, to shattered, to elated while still depressed, to drunken, to homeless, to remarried and burying my pain, to utterly broken nearly beyond repair… to finally repairing.

The repairs only came when I began to address what I was putting inside of myself.

I used to be a major comfort eater. I used to be depressed I had no money, so I’d go charge fifty dollars worth of Thai food and say “Okay, I’ll treat myself tonight then cinch up the belt.” And then never cinch up the belt.

It’s a vicious cycle that poor people often find themselves in- we tend to waste more money because we tell ourselves we have no nice things, so we might as well treat ourselves once in a while. Newsflash- those “treats” eat up half your disposable income, especially if you don’t know how to cook, and if you are focused on enjoying your poverty rather than saving to improve your circumstances, you’ll remain poor. It’s a mindset- one I lived in for many years.

Even if you’re not poor, if you don’t know how to cook for yourself, you are poor in health. I guarantee. No one orders a salad EVERY night if they’re ordering, and you have no idea how much hidden sugar is in those salad dressings anyway. Also, here’s a fun fact to make you want to barf: two of the salads from the Cheesecake Factory have over 1,700 calories each. I don’t think I eat that many calories in a given DAY.

If you follow along with me on this journey, I guarantee, I will help you heal from the inside out. I’ll be your friend who holds your hand, looks in your eyes, and says “You deserve to live better than this.” And I hope you’ll nod and agree. A lot of it is food related, but what we “consume” is so much more than that. It’s the media we read, the movies we watch, the horror and atrocities we see on social media, the music we listen to, the vaccines we take. It’s all connected- what goes into you makes a huge difference to your health.

The thing to remember first and foremost- is that you are the one person you can not lie to.

People think that makes sense, but reeeeally think about it.

What lies do you tell yourself?

What lies have you told others that you later believed because you told it so many times?

When you tell your significant other nothing is bothering you, is that true?

Part of what I aim to heal is what makes us tell those lies. Usually it’s a trauma response, or a feeling that you’re just not good enough.

That’s the worst lie you’ll ever tell yourself, that you’re not good enough. That’s the worst lie. You’re magnificent. Yes, you. We’ve just got to uncover you from all of what the world said you were or weren’t, and let the real YOU shine!

After all, if a former human dumpster fire can learn to self-love, anyone can.

Next post- on why I never judge anyone for their history. Ever.

Not you, either.

Nutritional health coaching- how did I get here?

A bit about me… I absolutely insist I spent a former life as the weird lady with a house full of jars in backwater Scotland. You know, the old lady that all the villagers simultaneously feared yet came to with all their health problems. But I digress.

In this life, to be quite blunt, I understand better than  most what doctors do and do not know.  I spent nearly two decades in healthcare. I started with my first aid and lifeguarding certifications at the tender age of 15, then went on to earn my EMT certification at age 19. By age 22, I had graduated a healthcare trade school program. By 30, I got my first set of letters after my name professionally. At age 32, I got the second set of letters after my name professionally. In total, I spent roughly half my adult life auditing medical records for a living, and I can promise you, 99% of medical doctors have no idea how to cure what’s wrong with you. In fact, getting killed by a medical error is the third most likely way to die in this country.

I repeat. Doctors do not know how to cure disease. They know how to prescribe pills, and that’s about it. 

Dis-ease is exactly that- your body not being at ease.  A lot of our physical conditions are caused by spiritual and emotional health problems, and doctors know next to nothing about this. Sadly, most physicians don’t even get  more than a couple hours of training on nutrition. It seems to be all about what pill to fix what ailment, when that pill will cause three other ailments. All you’re doing in modern medicine is robbing Peter to pay Paul, and some people’s bodies, well… the check is coming due all at once.

Doctors are great when you shatter a kneecap or get into a car wreck, but regular visits to doctors will make you sicker. You can take that to the bank. Goldman Sachs once published an article that queried if curing patients was a sustainable business model, which tells you everything you need to know about the medical industry and their shareholder overlords. Go ahead. Google it. Recoil in disgust, then return to me.

I am also in the process of earning my Functional Nutrition Counselor certificate, so I’m not just some crazy lady on the internet.

Well, not just.

Through my life travels, I have delved deeply into the link between what we eat and our quality of life. If you really think about it, this makes sense, however people rarely put two and two together. The most malnourished people you will ever meet in your life are also some of the most overweight. Their body is literally starving for nutrients, yet their body carries so much excess. Part of that weight we carry is why  we are eating. What are you carrying, friends? What are you ready to put down so that you don’t have to lug it around anymore? Have you ever even heard  of generational trauma and how to put down the things we didn’t even know we carry?

Of course, some people have chronic pain due to injuries, and some have autoimmune diseases that eat up their lives. I see you, and I sympathize. Trust me, I’m hurting with you.

There is hope, though. The human body is stellar at healing itself with the proper guidance, and if my instructor Andrea Nakayama (who lives with an autoimmune disorder) has managed to live a healthy life despite Hashimotos, purely through food medicine, I’d say there’s hope for everyone!

Drop me a line and say hi! If you want to know more about me, read on, the blog publishes every Sunday evening. I will be sharing things I’ve learned in my studies about how to transform your health through food, and I will be a CFNC in roughly ten months. Then the real magic happens.

If you REALLY want to know more about me, my life story memoir will be available soon. Stay tuned.