by Christina | Jan 13, 2020 | Wellness
When I first became interested in the carnivore diet over a year ago, the healing stories really amazed me. People were healing from autoimmune diseases, severe gut issues, hormone imbalances, mental health disorders, and, of course, food sensitivities. One of my friends tried the carnivore diet very early on in its popularity, and he told me he wanted to see if it could get rid of his gluten intolerance. This friend had been following a strict ketogenic diet for years and is extremely well-versed in health science (it was actually his job to research ketogenic diets, amongst other things). He couldn’t remember the last time he had tried pasta, pizza, or any kind of bread. So he did the carnivore diet for 30 days, and afterwards he reintroduced gluten with no issues. He ate a bowl of pasta with no symptoms. That definitely peaked my interest. Not because I have any desire to reintroduce gluten (head here for my thoughts on consuming gluten), but because the carnivore diet clearly acted as a very strong gut reset. It went past being the ultimate elimination diet – it was actually healing the gut.
I tried carnivore for the first time over a year ago and only stuck with it for 2 weeks. I tried it again this year and stayed strict carnivore for about a month and a half, during which time I could definitely tell my body was healing. During the holidays, I started eating more carnivore-ish to prevent any extra stress, and I let myself eat whatever I wanted when we went to Maui at the end of December, which ended up being acai bowls, ribs, and fish. By the end of that trip, I was very ready to get back to eating carnivore. My body honestly felt awful.
Since then, I’m back to eating carnivore-ish, which currently is about 97% carnivore. I feel best this way right now. Anyways, something interesting that happened after my first full 30 days of carnivore was that some of my food intolerances seemed to go away. In some ways, eating carnivore made my reactions to plant foods even worse than before because my body wasn’t used to digesting them, but I was shocked at what happened with dairy, coffee, and gluten.
The first thing I’ve noticed is that I no longer have immediate reactions to dairy. (I can’t comment on what’s happening internally, though.) In the past, consuming dairy always gave me a lot of digestive issues and triggered cystic acne. Whenever I’d have it, that night I’d be in severe pain, get extremely bloated, and either have awful diarrhea or get super constipated. #SorryNotSorry if TMI – that’s what I’m all about. The next morning or the following day, I would ALWAYS wake up with 4-5 cysts forming under my skin.
Since my strict month and a half on carnivore, though, nothing noticeable seems to happen anymore when I eat dairy. I first tried raw, grass-fed dairy, and I had zero problems. I felt pretty comfortable having that regularly, and consider it a healthy addition to someone’s diet if they tolerate it. Then I tried pastured butter, and everything was fine. Then I tried regular butter, regular yogurt, heavy whipping cream, normal eggnog, and regular ole’ milk chocolate, and I was fine. Aaaaand to be honest, I was having a lot more than you might expect. I did notice that after about 2 weeks of consuming it every day, my stomach did not feel great, but that could have just as easily been because the foods I was eating that contained dairy also had plenty of sugar and carbs, which I suspect was really the issue. Very unlike me, but I was curious to test my limits, if I’m being honest. This excites me not because dairy will be a regular part of my diet, but because the carnivore diet is definitely helping me heal. I still prefer not to consume dairy because I don’t want it to activate my immune system internally, affect my hormones negatively, or trigger cravings, but it’s good to know that I’ll survive if it happens to be in something I eat.
The next thing I noticed is that I’ve been tolerating coffee quite well. Christina, drinking coffee?! Who am I?! I feel like a different person because I’ve been drinking more caffeine, but it’s making me feel good, and my adrenals have improved immensely in the last few months. Coffee, though, used to always give me stomachaches, and now I can have it regularly without any stomach pain.
Lastly, the gluten! This is not something I wanted to test out on purpose because of my autoimmune disease, but I accidentally ate some gluten in Hawaii, and I survived. Right after I ate the dessert I felt a little stomach pain, but I took some charcoal and it went away. When I’ve accidentally consumed gluten in the past, typically I’m in excruciating pain for quite some time, throw up, get a huge rash on my body, get blurry vision, and / or have full body aches to the point where I cannot get up for days. There have been about 2 times when I accidentally got glutened and nothing happened, but that’s not the norm. So I’m not totally sure if this was a fluke or really showing that my gut has healed quite a bit, but it was an interesting experiment. I won’t be pushing the limits on that or testing it out, but thought you might be interested in that experence!
Either way, I’d say it’s a win that my immediate symptoms to dairy have seemed to go away. This isn’t the most profound effect of the carnivore diet on my body, but I’d say it’s a very interesting one and useful to know if you are someone who really does just want to add dairy back into their diet. I’m excited to see how things continue to change as I keep eating mostly carnivore.
Any questions? Drop them below!
by Christina | Jan 12, 2020 | Spirituality
Now that we’re over a week into 2020, I can confirm that the huge energetic shifts I felt coming at the end of 2019 as we approached the new year definitely came. I don’t usually notice the difference from one year to the next (it’s like a birthday – do you ever really feel different?), but this time I felt it. I had a lot of goals in mind for the new year before it even started, and now that it’s here, I feel very strong energy motivating me to make it all happen.
Last year was my year to rebuild, grow behind the scenes, float, and turn inward. 2020, though, is the year of productivity, efficiency, expansion, and hustling. I have a lot of little changes I want to make in my life this year that I think will add together to create a big impact, and I’m making these adjustments all with the intention of maximizing my productivity.
I want to share my 2020 intentions with you, and they’re a mixture of specific and general, physical and emotional, work-related and personal, manifestations and immediate actions. Some small shifts, and others bigger. For me, though, they all make sense together, and I’m excited to see how things change! In 2020 I plan to…
- Wake up early. This is really the most crucial, and most difficult, change for me. We always want to get to the “root cause” of health issues, and not getting up early enough is the “root cause” of any productivity “issues” I might have. Without this, I won’t be able to get all the things I want to get done actually done. Even if I’m awake for the same number of hours in a day as before, the timing of those hours really matters. My definition of early might be late for you…who knows. For me, I’d like to get up sometime between 5-6:30, depending on the day, and be asleep between 9-10. This will be quite the challenge for me, because I have always been such a night owl. I haven’t gone to sleep before 10 P.M. regularly since I was in the 4th grade. But if I want to get everything done that I hope to this year, I’m going to need plenty of uninterrupted time in my morning.
- Write for 2-3 uninterrupted hours as many days as possible. This is related to waking up early. If I want uninterrupted writing time, it has to be in the morning or at night, so I’m trying to get up early to have a few uninterrupted hours to get deep work done before interacting with the rest of the world.
- Overhaul my schedule. This is also related to the first two. I’ve always had a clear daily schedule, but it needs to be adjusted for maximum efficiency. My schedule last year was pretty much molded to work with my detox protocol and doctor appointments, but this year is about being productive. The interesting thing about productivity is that you can have the same to-do list in a day, but you’ll get work done faster if you arrange your schedule wisely.
- Sleep at least 8 hours each night. I am usually pretty good about this when left to my own devices, but things go awry when I travel. I also was not good about this at the end of 2019 because *someone* was keeping me up late on the phone, which I wouldn’t change. But I was a bit sleep deprived. This is the year of sleep.
- Read every day. Even if it’s just a page! I didn’t get much reading done last year other than when I was doing research, and this year I’d like to consistently read books and actually finish them. I tend to “search” books for the information I need in the moment and never really finish the whole thing, so this year I’d like to change that.
- Stretch daily. I’m the worst about this. I am sad to say I never stretch, which is not ideal. I can feel the tension in my body all the time. I need to set aside the time to stretch at least a little bit each day!
- Finish my mold detox protocol. I took a break at the end of 2019 and it was so nice, but I’m getting back into it now. Detoxing is very time consuming and pretty expensive to maintain, so I’m manifesting that I’ll fully detox from mold this year and leave this chapter behind me.
- Have at least one long technology detox. My technology fast last year was probably one of my favorite weeks of my life thus far. I went to an Airbnb on the beach by myself for a week without any technology, and I have never felt more relaxed or in tune. I definitely want to do a full tech detox again this year, in addition to my regular social media detoxes!
- Outsource as much as I can. I try to do this, but I think I’ve just been in the habit of doing it all myself for so long that I often forget to hand things off to someone else if at all possible. I’m definitely learning, though.
- Share more personal content on the blog. In the last year I turned so inward that I honestly forgot to share as much as I would have liked to, and I was navigating through so many different things that I couldn’t keep it all straight myself. But I built this blog on sharing my story because I know it helps others, so I think it’s time to bring more of it back. This year I have a lot I want to talk about.
- More solo podcast episodes. I had so many incredible interviews last year that I loved, but this year I want to do more solo episodes about different topics you specifically request rather than tailoring the topic to the guest. I also feel more connected to you on a personal level when I have more regular solo episodes, so I’m excited to do them more often!
- Do one thing at a time. I am always trying to multi-task, but that ends up making me inefficient at everything I do. I get impatient and my mind goes a million different places at once sometimes, so I end up trying to do a few things at once rather than giving each my full attention. This year I’m trying not to multitask.
- Finish one thing before I start something else. This is similar to the previous point, but slightly different. This applies with multitasking during the day and trying to do 2 things at a time, but I really mean in terms of projects with work. It feels like I always have 4-5 “big” projects I’m working on at a time, and I need to start finishing one big idea before moving to the next, so I don’t get overwhelmed with so many tasks at once.
- Release at least 3 courses. I have plenty of courses mapped out – but it’s just about finishing my new website updates, carving out the time for course creation, and making it happen.
- Totally finish writing 2 books and be in the middle of the third. I have two books I’m sitting on that I want to finally be totally done with this year. One has been 95% done for 1.5 years, and the other has been about halfway done for a year. The third has had bits and pieces done for some time. I need to focus on finishing those first two so that I can give the third my full attention!
- Grow my Beautycounter team. This is nonspecific for a reason. I’m a nonspecific manifestor, and I simply want to grow my team because I love mentoring so much. It was something I didn’t realize I liked so much until this year, and now I can’t wait to continue to help more women grow their businesses. A growing team obviously brings me more income, and more income is always a goal, but I really say this because of how rewarding mentoring is. I love helping people with business, helping them build their confidence, watching women earn financial freedom, and supporting our fight for important rights.
- Live according to my human design. I became verrrry interested in Astrology and Human Design in 2019, and I started working with a Human Design mentor who teaches you the intricacies of your HD chart and how to live according to your design. (She is coming on the podcast soon!) I’ve learned so much already and the small changes I’ve made have really helped, so I’m excited to keep learning more and making lifestyle changes to fully step into the way my soul was supposed to live!
I have already made a few of these changes, and some of them are in progress, but I already feel this year is so much better than the last. This year is going to be all about productivity, and I know I can make it happen!
What are some of your intentions for 2020?
by Christina | Jan 9, 2020 | Wellness
One of the most common mistakes people make again and again, and one that I have made myself, is taking “health advice” meant for an entirely different type of person and applying it to themselves.
When it comes to health recommendations, the best advice you’ll ever get will be individualized for your particular body, taking into account your health history, your current health status, your lifestyle, your goals, your metabolism, your genetics, and so on. That being said, I understand that not everyone wants to dive right into working with someone 1:1, which is why they turn to the internet for information. The internet is an amazing place to learn so much valuable information, but it’s like the Wild West when it comes to health advice. It can be very dangerous when people try to apply health information to themselves that isn’t really meant for a person in their scenario. This almost always happens unknowingly, which is why people get stuck in cycles with no results.
If you’re malnourished, you probably don’t want to follow advice meant for someone trying to lose weight.
If you have a chronic illness, you probably don’t want to follow advice meant for someone with no health issues.
If you’re a 25 year-old woman, you probably don’t want to follow advice meant for a 50 year-old man.
If you’re an athlete, you probably don’t want to follow advice meant for a sedentary person with no performance goals.
You get my point. I have a lot of personal experience with this. When I was first diving deep into health and wellness, I was also battling extreme gut dysbiosis, adrenal burnout, and severe malnourishment. All I knew was that I needed to get healthier, so I looked for the best advice on “how to get healthy.” In the media, though, being healthy is synonymous with weight loss, and weight loss is usually targeted towards middle-aged men and women who are largely sedentary. I was a 20-year-old, underweight, exercise-addicted woman who had lost her period. I definitely shouldn’t have been following any “general health advice” from the media and other bloggers with no health issues.
Because of that mismatch, I continued to get even worse despite doing everything I was told was “healthy”….. yet I had no idea why my health kept declining. Even when I started working with different nutritionists, a few of them simply gave me the same generic nutrition sheet / meal plan they gave to everyone. Of course that didn’t help!
When I finally found a nutritionist who individualized a plan for me, I had a tough time sticking with it because I second-guessed everything she said. Even when I started finding much better, quality advice in my research targeted towards people with severe gut dysbiosis, autoimmune diseases, and chronic illness, it took me quite some time to really listen. I still had all the noise in my head of what I “should” be doing to be healthy – Drink a green smoothie every morning! Run for an hour a day! Eat lean protein and steamed veggies with your meals! Flax and chia will save your digestion! – so at first it was hard for me to let that advice go.
It wasn’t until I finally realized that health advice for me was not to be confused with advice meant for someone who was overweight, sedentary, an athlete, a middle-aged woman, or someone with perfect digestion, great hormonal balance, and stable mental health. I needed to eat more food in general, to eat more fat, to rest more, to avoid certain fibers, to stop cardio, and to avoid liquid meals – all things that Cosmo magazine and Sally Sue on her health and fitness blog definitely weren’t promoting as “healthy.”
You’ll never get anywhere with your health goals until you start following advice meant for you. I can’t tell you how many clients have come to me after spending months or years desperately trying to improve their health, but only digging themselves into a deeper hole because they were trying to follow their favorite blogger’s health advice or something they read out of a book. “Well, isn’t this healthy?,” they ask. The real question is, though, What’s healthy for YOU?! It’s ironic how often people actually need to do the opposite of what’s been marketed to them as the healthiest habits.
Remember that everyone has different needs, and you’ll reach your results much more quickly if you look for information created for someone in your situation. Start thinking about where you’ve gotten information and where you’re learning things from. Have you been accidentally trying to follow recommendations for someone in a completely different demographic?!
If you’re looking to lose weight, look for advice for someone who specializes in your age range and gender. If you’re struggling with an eating disorder, don’t follow advice for people who are overweight. If you’re an athlete, look for advice for someone who focuses on performance, not advice for people just getting into fitness or who are generally sedentary. If you’re post-menopausal, your body will work differently than a pre-menopausal woman’s body. If you want to bulk, don’t follow advice for someone who wants to cut. If you struggle with bloating, constipation, or diarrhea, look for someone who focuses on that type of gut health issue. If you have adrenal burnout, don’t follow advice meant for the average lazy person on the web.
For any women out there, this is especially relevant to you. Not only because women are targeted more often for “health advice,” but also because our bodies are more sensitive to stressors than men’s are. It doesn’t take as much for us to throw our hormones out of whack, stress out our guts, and burn ourselves out overall. Pay extra attention to what you’re consuming and implementing. Not being able to let go my libertine relations with my partner + other partners (regular or unknown), I wasn’t going to back off when my erections grew faulty. I took a Cialis 10mg one hour before intercourse. Even under the effect of the tablet, I would end up getting out of it, obviously not living the moment well. Probably, some psychological issues are due. Also, when I’m on Cialis, I have to take Maalox for my acid reflux due to my faulty stomach.
Sometimes the problem isn’t that people don’t want to change, it’s that they don’t know how to. Sometimes the problem isn’t that people don’t want to get information or that they don’t have information, it’s that they have the wrong information for someone in their situation. You’ll save yourself a LOT of time if you ditch the “general health advice” that’s not really talking to anyone in particular, and focus on finding gems that are relevant to YOU.
Have you ever fallen into this trap?
by Christina | Jan 3, 2020 | Spirituality
Over the last few years, I developed the tradition of staying up way too late the night of New Year’s Eve (technically, being up way too early on New Year’s Day) writing, reflecting on my last year, and setting intentions and goals for the year ahead. I’m not someone who believes in waiting around for a new year to set a resolution, but I do think that the New Year is the perfect time for an annual personal check-in on all fronts.
This year, however, was different. Right now I’m writing from the airplane on my way home from Maui, where we spent New Year’s Eve. Instead of bringing in the new year with a cozy night in, a face mask, watching the movie New Year’s Eve, and my usual late-night journaling-turned-blog-post, this year my friend Michelle and I listened to the fireworks from our back patio, chatted about what we wanted to leave in the last decade and what we wanted to bring into this new one, had a tarot card session, and recorded a podcast after the clock struck midnight (Hawaiian time). Thank god for the extra chocolate in the fridge, because I probably would have fallen asleep about 15 minutes into the podcast without it.
I am very grateful I was in Hawaii this New Year’s Eve, because it was a big one. I’ve been talking a lot about the energetic shifts heading into the new year, and new decade, for a few weeks now, and I felt that energy even more strongly in Maui. Hawaii is an energetic portal for so many reasons, but especially because you are so connected to the earth. I have been physically feeling the energetic end of 2019 for quite some time now, and it was amazing to truly feel the shift on New Year’s Eve. I have been so excited for 2020 because I know it will be the start of an amazing decade, one that will be full of beautifully tumultuous shifts, unparalleled growth, and open space for the universe to send things my way.
Looking back on 2019 felt underwhelming at first. I usually feel like I have a list of things to rattle off as accomplishments by the end of the year, but for me 2019 felt like slowing down in front of a stop sign before picking up speed again. I’ve felt drained for quite a few years now, and this year my body wasn’t going to let me keep fighting it. I was forced to slow down, shift my focus, and physically surrender.
Professionally, this year was a lot of behind-the-scenes work on my end, getting things in motion for everything I want to release this year. Some of that includes projects I planned on launching in 2019, but didn’t have the energy to. In some ways, there is never a right time for anything, but there can certainly be a wrong time. Intuitively, 2019 felt like the wrong time to hustle too hard, and definitely the wrong time to release anything if I didn’t feel in alignment. It was about building and prepping so that I could really go for it in 2020. I’ve been working on relaunching my website for almost a year now. It got dragged out partly because of me, and partly because of factors out of my hands, but I reached a point where I just wanted to work on all the changes slowly rather than rush it, not sleep, have too many things go wrong at once, and feel overwhelmed. I realized I had no reason to be in a hurry, which is a huge mindset shift from how I typically am – forcing myself to get things done even when I know it doesn’t feel right.
This year I mainly focused on building the membership on my site as well as upcoming courses and books I plan to release in the next year, and I know it will be worth it to wait to release everything. It was bittersweet to end the final round of my group coaching program for women, but the content is still always available as an online DIY course, and it was necessary for me to be able to grow the membership in the way I want to. I’ve gotten such great feedback since opening up the membership, and I plan on continuing to expand that as much as I can in order to help the most people possible at a low price point.
Besides pumping out a ton of weekly content and working on the backend side of my business to prep for 2020 launches, I also hosted an unforgettable retreat here in San Diego with the help of my amazing assistant Kelly Scott and then-intern, now official assistant, Erin Dunne. Like the last retreat I threw, this one hit my soul in so many ways. It was a transformational weekend for everyone who came, and I don’t think anyone left without shedding a lot of tears (in a good way). Here is a video recap if you’d like to see a bit of what we did at the retreat!
What else did I accomplish this year?! I created a smoothie to be on the menu for a limited time at one of my favorite local restaurants, Powerhaus Pizza, and creating a menu item at one of my most-frequented eateries has been a dream of mine for quite some time. I also promoted to Director at Beautycounter, which allowed me to attend my first ever LEAD conference, an inspirational conference for directors and above. Each year I focus more and more on my Beautycounter business, and becoming a Director was a huge milestone in approaching my ultimate goals with my business. It also means I step more and more into business mentoring, and this year I discovered that is something I absolutely love to do.
Reiki also became a huge part of my business this year, especially after settling into an office in San Diego. Interestingly enough, by the end of the year I had even more distance clients than I did in-person clients, and I’m curious to see if that shifts again in 2020. As Reiki has become a more and more important part of my life, it has also become an increasingly important part of my business and content. It’s had such a strong impact on my tumultuous healing journey, and I love talking about all things spirituality and helping people tap into their intuition. This type of healing dives deeper than traditional nutritional therapy, and I love to help others reach ultimate healing by combining different modalities.
In 2019, I dove deep into all things spirituality and intuition. I’ve done a lot of very fulfilling and transformative work with different healers and intuitives, and I’ve studied with multiple spiritual mentors who have taught me how to strengthen my energy work and mediumship abilities. Having regular mentorship sessions has done amazing things for me.
Along those lines, I also became very interested in the Enneagram, Human Design, and Astrology this year. All have taught me invaluable things about myself, my history, my soul’s purpose, how I “work,” and how to make the most of my time here. I highly recommend getting an Astrology reading and learning more about your Human Design and Enneagram type if you haven’t already. Check out this episode and this episode of my podcast for more on Astrology. You can figure out your Human Design type here. You can take the Enneagram Test here. If you’re curious, I’m a Type 8 on the Enneagram (previously thought I was a 3), a Generator (non-specific manifestor, strong sacral response, “raw” digestive type, etc.), and an Aries with a Gemini moon sign and Taurus ascendant. I started working with a Human Design expert towards the end of 2019 to really begin to learn how to live according to my type, and there is so much to learn. I’m excited to see where that work takes me in 2020!
2019 for me was about settling into San Diego professionally and socially, and focusing a lot more on my personal life and self-development. I’m extremely happy I took the time to focus on those areas of my life. I moved from Los Angeles to San Diego in November of 2018 before immediately traveling for the holidays, so 2019 was really my first year in a new city. I got an office in San Diego to see Reiki and nutrition clients, started rebuilding my professional and social networks, and really just focused on getting comfortable in a new place.
San Diego is a different pace of life than Los Angeles, and definitely a different population. It’s slower, but it’s much more community-based, which I love. I was able to host quite a few meet-ups and events this year and really connect with people in real life versus just over the Internet, which is so rewarding. Rebuilding a network can seem overwhelming at first when you’ve spent so long building one in a previous city, but I’ve met such amazing fellow businesspeople and entrepreneurs in San Diego that I’m extremely appreciative of having to go through the process. There are times when I really miss L.A. and my network there, but I’ve built a great one here as well. The other business owners I have met in SD are so incredibly supportive, and I’ve made amazing friends in the process who all want to help each other reach their goals. It was also really great to finally meet so many people in person who I’ve “known” for a long time, whether that be previous podcast guests, distance clients, or colleagues from Instagram. That’s the beauty of having an online business – you have “people” in every major city, and sometimes supporting someone else’s project gives you a great excuse to travel!
On a personal level, I dedicated a lot of time to my social life, which is something I wanted to catch up on when moving to San Diego. It can be difficult balancing your social life while being an entrepreneur and working crazy, weird, long hours, but I really wanted to make an effort to find more balance this year. I think I did. I hung out more often with friends, had a lot of visitors from out of state, gave myself more “me” time when I needed it, and went on a lot of dates. The dating scene was bleak in L.A., so it was nice to go to new places and meet new people in SD. Yesterday Michelle asked me what the biggest surprise was for me in 2019, and it was definitely my dating life. I’m very picky, and was pleasantly surprised in the end.
Beyond that, I felt like I had a much healthier balance with travel this year compared to the year before, when I would spend maybe a week a month in my apartment and be gone the rest of the time, bouncing from place to place. This year, I took plenty of quick trips up to L.A., a few to the bay, and some to different places for work like Portland, Austin, Denver, and Tuscon…and of course Maui for pleasure this past week!
Speaking of personal development, my favorite “trip” of the year was my 5-day technology detox. It was the best thing I did for myself this year. In April, I booked an Airbnb right by the beach, about an hour and a half from where I live, and I took 5 days off from all technology. No phone, no computer, no TV. I slept, meditated, walked by the beach, journaled, and repeated. I came out of that week feeling so incredibly connected intuitively, so relaxed and rejuvenated, and so reinspired. I’m a big fan of regular social media detoxes, but getting rid of all technology was on an entirely different level. I would like to do that at least once a year from now on.
Lastly, let’s discuss the health category. The most important thing that happened to me this year was that I finally got my period back after 4 years of amenorrhea. I AM SO HAPPY. Check out this podcast episode if you want to learn more about how I got my period back. The quick version, though, is that overcoming amenorrhea required a lot of mindset shifts, slowing down, gaining weight, eating a lot of food, working on underlying health issues, and focusing on energy healing. Getting my period back seemed to turn my body back on in a way. I feel like I finally hit puberty this year, at 24, oddly enough. I grew two inches taller after getting my period back, which might seem bizarre, but it makes sense when you think about how amenorrhea affects bone density.
I also worked with my friend Rachel Barber to rewire my brain, which was an invaluable experience. Rachel specializes in helping people heal from chronic illness through the power of the mind, and I highly recommend her Total Healing program if you have any type of chronic symptoms. Retraining my brain changed my life in the best way, and I know almost everyone in my life noticed a huge shift in my personality and how I viewed the world. I came out of that program a much more positive, confident, spiritual person, and the program helped me get rid of any lingering underlying anxiety (which I struggled with for most of my life) and taught me how to manifest in a very powerful way.
The difficult part of this year, healthwise, was dealing with mold illness, which really hit me at the end of the year. I found out I had mold toxicity the year before while living in L.A., and part of why I moved out of that apartment was to get out of the mold. I felt much better after moving into a new apartment in San Diego, but as the year progressed I noticed worsening symptoms – inflammation, brain fog, memory loss, body aches, and fatigue were at their worst. It came on slowly at first, but at some point it felt like too much to handle. My digestive issues suddenly became worse than ever before, and I really couldn’t go on feeling like my body was not functioning. I put myself on a protocol to get rid of Hydrogen Sulfide SIBO, and then I started working with a few incredible doctors to start a Lyme / mold detox protocol that involved supplementation, ozone therapy, daily sauna, colonics / enemas, castor oil packs, dry brushing, etc., and adjusted my lifestyle to be able to fit it all in. It was emotionally and physically draining. After a few months of intense die-off, my gut protocol seemed to work, and I felt like I was slowly but surely getting better.
I tested my apartment and found out that, unfortunately, it had mold levels too high for me to live in, so I found a new apartment as soon as I could. When you have mold illness and have to move apartments, that also means getting rid of almost everything in your old place – furniture, clothes, books, letters, personal care products, and so on. The moving process was honestly exhausting, especially at a time where I felt so weak, but I immediately felt so much better upon getting into a new place. It is remarkable how much environmental factors can affect our health.
It was also an important lesson for me in minimalism. I definitely did not become a minimalist (maybe someday…), but I’ve always had an issue holding onto things, so the experience forced me to let go of a lot.
Lastly, I tried quite a few different health trends in 2019. Experimenting on myself is my favorite thing to do, and I want to highlight some of my most memorable experiments. First, I tried drinking celery juice every day for a week. It tasted good, but I didn’t notice any differences, and it was way too expensive and too much work for me to keep up with. I also tried the potato diet this year, which meant I ate only potatoes for two weeks. Yup, only potatoes. No salt, pepper, oil, or anything else. I actually really enjoyed the simplicity of it. I learned that I am definitely intolerant to white potatoes, though, and sadly I developed a slight intolerance to sweet potatoes after the experiment. That being said, it was a lot of fun to try, and it led me to some interesting research about low-fat diets. Later on in the year, I spent a few months on a higher-carb, lower fat-diet, which was radically different than how I’ve been eating over the last 5 years (I typically lean low-carb / keto). That was another great learning lesson for me in how my body responds to different macronutrient ratios, and I figured out that a big hit of carbohydrates was the solution for the “chronic hunger” I had been told for years was due to bacterial overgrowths. It’s not always so complicated, you know?
While eating high-carb made me feel great in some ways, it brought back a lot of my gut issues. When I started doing my detox protocol, my doctors recommended I get back into a ketogenic state to heal and reduce my inflammation. Not only that, but because of my Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, I seemed to be reacting to every food, and my body was on overload. My doctor recommended doing a strict carnivore reset for 30 days. Before hopping in, I did my first 72-hour water fast. By the third day, some of my inflammation had finally gone down. From there I went into a strict carnivore diet, which was the second time I’ve experimented with the carnivore diet. Last time I ate carnivore for 2 weeks, but this time I ate carnivore for almost 2 months. It took my body a few weeks to adapt, but after adapting I could tell a meat-only diet was allowing my body to heal in a way it hadn’t been able to before. I also learned a lot more about the carnivore diet itself, and it allowed me to figure out what foods really were causing me inflammation.
Beyond that, I also tried out infrared sauna, colon hydrotherapy, and ozone therapy this year for the first time, and all have played very important roles in my detox protocol. Infrared sauna became a part of my daily routine, and colonics and ozone therapy became weekly events during the most important phases of my detox. I am alllll about detoxification nowadays.
I started the year in a new apartment, and I ended the year in a different new apartment. Mold illness hit me again with a vengeance, but it taught me to lean into my spirituality and myself in a way I didn’t know how to before. The last year held space for a lot of personal growth and self-reflection, and I feel like it was the perfect setup to launch me into 2020 with the right mental space, plenty of motivation, and many plans for an amazing year ahead.
What was the most memorable thing for you in 2019?!
by Christina | Dec 24, 2019 | Recipes, Wellness
This is the second pie recipe I’m posting in 2 days. Is that too much?
Ehhhh, I don’t think so.
A very wise person once told me there is no such thing as too much pie. The only thing I have to say about that statement, though, is that it better be good pie.
This is a damn good pie. It all started this Thanksgiving, when we had sweet potato pie for dessert. That turned into having sweet potato pie for almost every meal until we finished the pie, which turned into experimenting with other variations of sweet potato pie to find the best one.
Somehow that turned into 5 pies, and an epic taste test. Not a bad experiment, right?
I liked all of the pies, but I do think that purple sweet potatoes create the best texture in a sweet potato pie overall. You could replace the purple sweet potato with any kind of sweet potato, but the purple sweet potatoes create a dense, thick, firm pie, while the orange ones give the pie a slightly different texture.
Even if you don’t usually like purple sweet potatoes, they taste amazing in the pie – trust me. If you already love purple sweet potatoes like me, then obviously you’re good to go!
This is an easy dessert to make for any holiday – it’s festive, customizable, and sweet without being a total sugar bomb. This pie is sweetened with maple syrup, so no refined sugar is used at all. And there’s something about that purple color that’s extra satisfying!
The most time-consuming parts of this pie are boiling the potato and baking the pie. Other than that, it’s as simple as mixing everything together with a hand mixer and popping it in the oven! The hardest part is waiting for it to cool before eating it. (Pro tip – use the freezer.)
Feel free to use a pre-made crust or the crust recipe I provided below. There’s something about a homemade crust that you can’t replace, though. You also don’t have to pre-cook the crust, because it will cook when you bake the pie.
This recipe is paleo, gluten-free, dairy-free, and vegetarian. If you’re looking for a delicious take on a sweet potato pie, look no further! That purple color will definitely get you interest, and one bite will have anyone sold!
Paleo Purple Sweet Potato Pie
Serves: 8-10
Time: 2 hours
Ingredients:
Crust Ingredients:
- 2 cups almond flour
- 2 tbsp coconut oil or ghee
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 2 tsp vanilla
- Optional: 1 tbsp maple syrup
Filling Ingredients:
- 1 lb purple sweet potato
- 1/2 cup coconut oil or ghee
- 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp maple syrup
- 1/4 cup coconut cream
- 1/4 coconut milk
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 3 tsp vanilla
Instructions:
- Boil the sweet potato for 40-50 minutes, or until fork tender. Run cold water over the sweet potato, and remove the skin.
- Preheat your oven to 350*F. Grease a 9-inch pie pan with coconut oil.
- Combine all crust ingredients together in a bowl to form a dough. Press the crust into the pie pan, making sure to cover all sides evenly.
- Break apart the sweet potato in a large bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients into the bowl and mix everything together with a hand mixer until the mixture is smooth.
- Pour the filling into the unbaked pie crust.
- Bake the pie for 45-50 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. The crust should be golden-brown.
- Allow the pie to cool. Serve and enjoy!
