My Intuitive Eating Journey

Since this is my first blog post, I’d love to tell you a little bit about my journey and how I got to where I am today with my intuitive eating journey. Let me tell you, it was not a smooth road! 

First of all, thank you. Thank you for being here and wanting to dive deeper into what I’m putting out there into the world. I appreciate you for clicking through to this blog post. I hope you feel inspired or get to know me a little better by the end of it. 

Growing Up 

My childhood was pretty great, I grew up in a loving family with two amazing parents and two older sisters that I always looked up to, and still do. We lived on a farm and had a big garden full of fresh vegetables. I have fond memories of picking fresh food out of the garden and eating it with my family. 

I was always a pretty shy kid and kept to myself a lot, but that didn’t stop me from being playful and enjoying life as a child. I did dance, gymnastics and cheerleading, which is probably where my passion for yoga stemmed from – I’ve always loved testing my flexibility. 

When I was 16 years old, my mom lost her battle to pancreatic cancer. From the moment we found out, to the moment she was gone, it all happened in about a year. As you can imagine, this completely turned my world upside down.

However, from that moment on, I knew I needed to do whatever I could to help others live their healthiest and happiest lives. As my mom always used to say, “the happiest people are the healthiest.” 

My Struggle with Food

As a teenager, I became obsessed with food and not in a healthy way. I went through a rough phase of being super unhappy with myself and my body. I put immense pressure on myself to get that ever so desired “ideal,” thin, toned, beach body. I developed a constant fear of gaining weight and that absolutely crushed my body image.

I tried all the fad diets of the time, you name it – I probably dabbled in it. After trying countless diets and pressuring myself to exercise all the time, I fell into a huge cycle of binge eating and dieting. This went on for a few years, and I was honestly quite miserable. 

Flash forward to university, I still had no clue what career path I wanted to follow. I ended up studying kinesiology to see where that would take me. Then in my second year, I decided to add a nutrition degree to my plate, which was the best decision I ever made. 

Finding Intuitive Eating 

I’d like to say that my struggle with food went away once I started studying nutrition at university, but it didn’t. I was still in what seemed like a never-ending cycle of restricting and bingeing. 

Then I started to learn about intuitive eating. I was very intrigued because I was so sick of feeling awful about myself and my eating habits. 

As I learned more, I started to incorporate intuitive eating principles into my life. After some time, I began to feel shifts in my mindset. I started to allow myself to eat unapologetically. I no longer pushed myself to exercise to “earn” my calories. I finally started to love my body. 

Now, this may sound cheesy, but intuitive eating honestly changed my life. I would likely still be stuck in my cycle of restricting and bingeing if I didn’t find out about this transformative way of living. 

Where Yoga Comes In 

Why “The Nourishing Yogi,” you ask? There is a meaning behind those words that I will get into in another post; but in short, yoga is an important piece of the puzzle for me. 

I have been practising yoga for over 8 years now, and find that it is a practice that has deepened how I practise intuitive eating. Yoga is all about tuning into yourself and your body and connecting to your inner wisdom. To me, that sounds a whole lot like intuitive eating. 

With yoga, you practise mindfulness and breathing techniques that help you to become more present. These same techniques can be used in everyday life, not just on the yoga mat. This is a concept I hold dear to my heart and is the essence of The Nourishing Yogi.

My Mission 

I have finally found peace with my relationship with food and myself and I want nothing more than to share what I have learned with you. Keep in mind that this road to intuitive eating is a never-ending journey for me. It’s not perfect, and never will be, and that’s okay! 

I hope that through this blog, sharing my experiences and knowledge, I will be able to make some kind of positive impact on you, whether it is big or small.

If you want to know more about my journey, I would love to connect. Interested in learning more about mindful eating? I created a free guide to help you get started and would love for you to use it as a resource to help you find peace with food yourself.