Hungry beginnings

Growing up in a Filipino household, food was a way of showing our love. I remember every Christmas, my mom would bring my sister and me into the kitchen to make lumpia so we could give them as Christmas gifts. I never looked forward to those days when we had to roll up hundreds of lumpia, but seeing the look on our friends' faces lighting up when they received the plate of lumpia was always heartwarming. Food was also very social. All our family friends would catch up and reminisce over the food they grew up with in the Philippines. I remember we would make so much food for our parties that we would have leftovers for a week. Food was love and friendship for me, however, while I was enjoying the love another war was taking place in my mind. That's when my relationship with food started to change.

It started in undergrad when I was studying Kinesiology and I obsessed over what "healthy" was. "Healthy" was loosely described as eating fruits and veggies, drinking a gallon of water, getting enough protein, and eating/drinking out in moderation. My family would tease me about being health conscious, but I stuck with it because I wanted to lead a healthy life. I was looking at getting into the medical field and if I was going to tell my patients to be healthy, I wanted to model what living a healthy life was.

Fast forward to graduate school, I was in classes for 8 hours every day and coming home mentally exhausted I didn't want to do anything else besides eat, relax, and sleep. Knowing that I was now more sedentary, I switched to what I called a "flexitarian" diet (which was 80% vegetarian and 20% omnivore) thinking I didn't need as many calories since I wasn't as active as before. I never felt satisfied on this diet and most of the time was low energy and sluggish. I was either snacking a lot or eating too much in one sitting. I knew I had to change something and that transformation began early 2022 when I signed up for a fitness challenge with my gym.

By this time, I was back on my workout routine and wanted to do more for my health. I had this vision for how I wanted to look and I just needed a bit of help to get me there. I shared with my accountability coach, who happened to be a sports nutritionist, that I felt I was "stuck" in my health journey and not sure what my next step was. Nutrition was the one thing I was missing and after adding in nutrient dense foods to my diet, my body started changing. I noticed my energy levels increased and my mood was better. After the challenge, it didn’t make sense to stop what I was doing so I kept my nutrition habits because my body felt good on it. Fast forward to now, I've taken processed foods out from my diet, have been eating a lot more protein, and hardly go out to eat (except if it's with the fam).

It's hard to find a diet that works for you and change is always hard to get through, but trust me when I say this, an animal based diet is the way to go. It brings you back to the root of eating, back when humans first roamed Earth. They lived off the land. They grew their own fruits and raised their own animals. They had fresh dairy and eggs. Let's get back to wholesome eating. Your body will thank you for it.