Food has always been the centerpiece of my family, and quite honestly, it may just be the glue that holds it all together at times. My grandmother’s parents owned a restaurant called Simons in Minersville, a little town located in central PA. In addition to the everyday cooking for the restaurant; her parents had started a long tradition of Sunday family dinners and to this day, we still keep. Come rain or shine, my family will get together on Sunday evenings at 6 o’clock and no matter what is going on in our lives we always show up for family Sunday dinner. When my grandmother developed Parkinson’s disease and it became too much for her to endure, my grandfather took over the traditional prep work and cooking for this special occasion. The food I grew up on was far from what we would consider “healthy” today. In addition to Sunday dinners another tradition was (and still is!) making copious amounts of Holiday Christmas cookies and Easter candy gift boxes to share with various friends and family. Chocolate, sugar, white flour (and lots of it!), butter, meats and my grandfather’s famous sweet tea were common fare at our house and nobody (not even our friends) ever went to bed hungry if you know what I mean.  I was always able to keep my weight in check as a young girl, and the sports definitely helped as I was always involved in some type of sport (i.e. swimming, tennis, gymnastics, etc.). Although as the years passed, my body just couldn’t keep up with it and needless to say I became quite pudgy around my freshman year of high school. I had acne, low energy, poor digestion, horrible PMS not to mention multiple drug addictions. At this time, I had no idea that nutrition played a role in any of my dreaded daily mental and health concerns. It wasn’t until many years later when I realized that lifestyle changes could turn my whole life around. This didn’t happen all at once mind you, rather over the years as a continuum of self-discovery and investigation.

Growing up I was always looking in the mirror. Self image was huge to me and I think part of that was attributed to the fact that my mother was a model and biological father a fashion photographer. So I learned that looking sexy was not only very important but held at a higher standard. Combine the food & feeding loving grandparents with the body image conscious parents and whalah! A food/body fascination was developed! I can now call it fascination, although growing up it was an invariable ying-yang struggle and I was constantly at odds with myself. I was never diagnosed with an eating disorder by a psychologist per say, although knowing what I know now, I definitely had what we call, eating disorder, NOS (non-otherwise specified). I would binge on Pap & Grammy’s yummy goodies and exercise for hours to burn it all off, only to do it all again the next day. I was caught up in a viscous cycle that looked like normal behavior to everyone around me (including me) and ultimately never really got addressed (not until years later).

So when it came time to make a mark and pick a path of occupation I was frozen with fear. I never really thought about it. I was always a people person, knew I wanted to help people, and felt too friendly to be locked into a technical office job, so I ended up working as a medical assistant in a plastic surgeons office (image! of course!) for a few years. Within this time, I realized there was no way I wanted to go to medical school. Even though this was not your traditional doctor’s office, I felt that giving medication and performing surgery was too impersonal and cold for my style, and I found that I wanted to help people prevent sickness and surgery. Why can’t we look younger by taking care of our body so we don’t get sick or saggy in the first place? I thought long and hard about what career path would lead me towards overall prevention and wellness and ultimately came up with the field of nutrition. Honestly I wasn’t crazy about the traditional “dietetic” program. I wanted something more holistic and whole body centered. At that time I was fortunate to have a mentor who was a chiropractor who also practiced nutrition. She encouraged me to go the traditional route so that I would be recognized as a licensed nutritionist and have the ability to legally practice nutrition without running into trouble from the state.

So I began my journey and 5 years later had completed my Bachelor’s Degree in Nutrition & Dietetics. I was also eligible to sit for the RD exam since within that time I also completed 900 hours of internships in various settings such as clinical, management and community. I was now a Registered and Licensed Dietitian in the state of Florida. Unfortunately, as a new dietitian the common first job is in a hospital setting. I loathed being in a hospital! I couldn’t stand the way the smelt, the fluorescent lights, the sick people and most of all I couldn’t stand what I was doing! Meal plans, food guide pyramid, calories, grams, ensure, boost, hospital food…Shall I go on? I can’t say that I didn’t learn anything because the knowledge was a great foundation for my practice and for that I’ll be forever grateful. I was what you called a floater, meaning I worked in all departments of the hospital seeing all sorts of ailments and diseases and conditions and because of that developed a very strong sense of the medical realm. Although overall I was very unhappy. I wanted to teach people who wanted to be taught, and in this environment, it wasn’t gonna happen. Ironically, at that time I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to cover the hospital’s adjacent wellness center part time in addition to my clinical duties and from there I really became excited about the field of nutrition again. People were hungry for nutrition advice and I was happy to serve it! As the years rolled on I continued to expand my horizons and branch out to various settings including an acupuncturist office, private practice settings, and eventually was able to completely wave the hospital setting a final farewell. In 2006, I opened up my own doors for business and consulting and since then have fallen into (by no coincidence, I’m sure) the areas of addiction, mood and eating disorders. I also consult with home health agencies where I visit homebound elderly patients. As I mentioned earlier, my grandparents were and my grandfather still is a huge part of my life and helping the elderly just feels good and provides me with the opportunity to give back to our elders.

Throughout these few years I had my own medical and food issues constantly brewing deep down inside of me. Under the white lab coat or fancy suit and skirt, I too was struggling and my knowledge base from the dietetics program did not offer any reprieve. So I was forced to delve deeper into the area of holistic health to get to the root of my medical concerns. In 2005 I was diagnosed with IBS (aka: irritable bowel syndrome). Being the foodie I was, I decided to keep a food journal to determine if my problem was coming from something I was eating. Sure enough I found a correlation with wheat/gluten products and excitedly brought this information to my gastroenterologist (who looked at me like I was crazy by the way) and insisted on getting tested for Celiac Disease.  To make a long story short, all tests came out negative and I was told I could eat all the gluten I wanted to. I immediately lost hope in the medical model and turned to another holistic nutritionist colleague of mine who insisted I order a specific test to determine gluten intolerance of which I did and determined that I was in fact highly sensitive and intolerant to gluten. My remedy: A gluten free diet along with specialized supplementation, yoga and regular meditation healed by IBS 100%. This experience led me down the path to functional medicine which looks at treating the cause and not the symptom. I attend as many workshops and lectures that I can and am constantly amazed at how much disease we can prevent by approaching health by this model.

One of the other pieces worth mentioning here is that I now offer a holistic approach to health and diet. As I mentioned, I was never a fan of the USDA food pyramid and felt there was so much more to a healthy diet than the 5 basic food groups. So I started reading everything I could about holistic nutrition, taking workshops, attending seminars, etc. and over time developed a strong sense of what foods “really” do the body good. But it doesn’t stop there! Working with addiction, mood and eating disorders I realized, wait, it’s not even about the food at all, it’s about the relationship we have with ourselves and others, our past experiences, traumas, and how we have learned over the years how to express or repress our feelings. This opened up a whole other can of beans! I needed to dive into this immediately, and became fascinated with the psychology of eating (also received a certification from the Institute for the Psychology of Eating) and helping people to identify not only how to start to incorporate healthier eating habits but why they were having eating problems or body image issues in the first place. The Institute for the Psychology of Eating was an amazing learning experience for me both personally and professionally. Overall, I believe we are products of our environment and if we grew up in a healthy, normal environment (what’s that?!) than we will live healthy, normal lives.

However, if we grew up with any addiction in our family, substance, physical or emotional abuse, extremes of focus on either body or food, trauma, or even with unhealthy role models than we will need to make an effort to do the work necessary to re-learn what healthy is, how to process feelings in a healthy way, how to express our feelings and just plain “feel” our feelings. We need to become willing to look at our past in order to learn from it, heal and ultimately return to a place of self love and acceptance.

As I write this I’m amazed at how life has a fascinating way of situating us were we know how to help others best, because in the process of helping others we inevitably help ourselves.  As I grow and continue to learn my practice as a health counselor does as well.
I think that from a very early age I understood that food is really just the universal language of love. It’s the physical evidence that connects all of us together and the one thing that we can be sure of that we all have in common, no matter what race, religion or background. It acts as both a mirror and reflection and can teach us how to heal our body and mind if we are willing to make the necessary changes and the courage to look within.

Thank you for allowing me to share what I know with you. It is my truest hope and highest wish that I may be able to convey the message of health and healing with as many as possible.

Namaste’

Health & Happiness,

Nicole