Welcome To A New Day...A New View

 My name is Marisa, and I’ve become a true Food Optimist.  My journey truly began almost three months ago.  Although I had “dabbled” in eating healthy—or “healthier”—I hadn’t quite truly grasped what it meant to eat healthfully and FEEL healthy.  Recognizing and understanding what a “whole” food is compared to a “processed” food; eating “clean” opposed to commercially grown or partially processed foods.  I started my journey to become healthy over 10 years ago!  I was in my mid-twenties and morbidly obese.  I was desperate to lose the weight, join mainstream America and do “normal” tasks and activities like most other people.  I had done the all the research I could do that gave me options and information on weight loss.  Everything was a fad—short-term and unrealistic.  I had already tried most of them, and then I had heard about gastric bypass.  After I watched as many informative news reports on the topic, or read about the celebrities that had made that choice and succeeded, I knew that as drastic and permanent as the procedure was, it was my best option for long-term happiness and longevity.

Honestly, if I had known then, what I know now, I wouldn’t have chosen the gastric bypass procedure.  BUT, I made my choice, and yes, I lost a substantial amount of weight with little to no medical repercussions, and that’s a blessing.  However, what the surgery doesn’t do for you is educate you about WHY certain foods are better for you than others, and what benefits come from eating whole, natural foods opposed to eating commercialized food and other processed products.  Again, I lost weight and that weight loss made a big difference in where I could go, the activities I could participate in, and yes, my energy levels naturally increased, but looking back, I never had that “burst” of, or “zest” for life.  Fast forward to today…

I met Chef Natalie, the ultimate Food Optimist in April.  She was looking for “guinea pigs” to test out some recipes she was working on, all compiled with benefits working together.  I volunteered for the experiment and was A-MAZED at how I felt after purging the “food” I had been consuming from my body and actually feeding it nature’s bounty.  I know it sounds cheesy, but it’s the truth.  Sure, I felt like crap the first week, week and a half of eating differently, but, seriously, it was like a fog had lifted in my head; I had energy I didn’t know how to expend it was so new to me…and sleep?!?!...OH! The incredibly solid night’s sleep!! Chef Natalie turned my world upside—in a good way—and if turning my world back to what it was before she came along meant losing all the life I gained, then upside down I shall remain!!

So, now I invite you to follow me, my journey…JOIN my journey if you’d like.  Take the path less traveled and become a Food Optimist too.  You’ll be happy you did.  What do you have to lose other than negativity, lethargy, depression, frustration and maybe even some weight!? Sounds horrible, huh?