Thinking Seriously About Metabolic Health

My Story

I’m lucky. I was introduced to better health habits at age 14, right after my parents got divorced. My dad, in the thick of his own post-divorce depression, threw himself into the gym and I tagged along. Even on the snowiest mornings in Westchester, NY, he’d drive us there and show me how to use the cardio machines and strength equipment. It was a weird time. We didn’t talk much, but I respected him, and I followed his lead. I’d bring my walkman, drown out the world with hip-hop and house music, and escape into my own dreamland while working out. The gym became my safe space.

That same year, my grandmother, in her classic, unfiltered way, opened up a department store dressing room curtain to see the outfit I was trying on before I was ready, looked at my horrified and blurted out:

“Oh my gosh, you’re getting faaaaat!”

Looking back, I had started gaining weight from after-school snacks with my neighborhood friend, who ironically wanted to get “fat” to avoid being teased for being too skinny. Meanwhile, I was aware that my body was changing but unsure of what to do. I wanted to improve the situtation and, as I always did, I tunred to my mom for guidance. She dusted off a Jane Fonda workout VHS (yes, tape!), handed it to me and said, "You may enjoy this". I began religiously waking up at 5 a.m. to workout before school. That was the beginning of my obsession with fitness. My mom thought I was crazy.

I couldn’t go to the gym regularly at 14 (since I didn't have my own membership), so I stuck with those Jane Fonda workouts, ran outside, and did whatever I could to stay active. Not sure how I found the workouts but I used to make up my own mini "boot camp" workouts that I'd do outside.

Ironically, I wasn’t into sports, hated sweating, and one of my actual goals was to get fit without breaking a sweat. I was also completely uncoordinated. In PE class, during a (forced) game of softball a few years prior, the ball flew right at me. I didn’t attempt, even a little bit, to catch the ball. I just let it hit me between the eyes. I remember the coach looking stunned, then laughing and yelling, “You’ve got to put your hands up when the ball comes toward you!”

As a kid, I tripped often, bruised and scraped my knees, and couldn’t dance to save my life. I was also pretty shy, which I tried to hide as best as I could, but it was fairly obvious, even after 5 years of improvisation at the community theater. Still, over time, working out every day slowly improved my coordination without me even noticing. It was subtle, but it was happening with every passing year.

One day in my living room around age 19, I had a Mariah Carey love song playing and I was dancing and singing like no one was watching… except my mom and grandmother, who were at the kitchen table giggling as I poured my heart out with my dance moves that were getting better slowly but surely.

A year or two later, my grandmother, who had diabetes and was depressed in her older age, but to all of us, seemed as healthy as any woman at that age, was diagnosed with small cell lung cancer. It had already reached her heart. Within two weeks of her diagnosis, she passed away, leaving the family shocked and devastated.

I was 21 years old at the time. It was my first semester in the Wellness program at USF. A lot was going on. I'd been put on various experimental medication for a diagnosis of "mild" ADD, followed by medication to cover the side effects the medication actually caused that included trouble sleeping and anxiety (that I didn't have a problem with prior). I also wound up getting lice from my younger sister who'd borrowed my bed at home. I remember taking one of the two exams (Mid Term & Final) offered for Exercise Physiology and seeing a bloody louse fall onto my exam paper. The medication and blood being sucked out of my brain was making me feel (and act) crazy. I couldn't sleep. I took a sleeping pill after attempting to do an all-nighter study session for the Final Exam about 3 hours before I should have been waking up, due to not thinking rationally. Consequently, I didn't wake up in time. This didn't impress my professor.

I wound up choosing to quit the program (for reasons I may share one day) and threw all the medication down the toilet. It's the only 3 months of my life I've taken medication for "health". It was the only experience I needed to realize I'd rather handle life in a natural way. It definitely has a place, but has never had a place for me.

I did go back to college a couple of years later and graduated with a degree in Communications. I took on internships in PR at the performing arts center, journalism at a local magazine and at a news station (ABC). While I enjoyed learning in the various environments, I still didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do after giving up my initial dream to start a career in Wellness. I just knew it had to be something meaningful.

I also had an opportunity to live in paradise... Just a few months after graduating college, I moved to Southern California, following my brother. I waited tables to get my feet off the ground and landed a few introductory sales positions. My first one was working for an up and coming wellness company that sold the “most purified water on the market”. My second job was inside dental sales and about 4 years later I was hired as an outside medical sales rep for a large home medical company.

Although weather in southern CA was perfect and working out outside felt heavenly, I joined a gym just as soon as I moved into my first rental home, a beach house where my brother let me live with him rent-free for 3 months. The gym wasn’t free though!! But totally worth it and had multiple locations throughout all the nearby cities. I often planned my medical sales routes based on which group fitness classes I’d planned to attend at the end of the particular day. Some days, I’d get up early to take an outdoor bootcamp class, other days I’d take a fast paced cardio kickboxing class later in the evening and lift weights or use the cardio equipment. I worked long hours calling on doctors offices, getting up early to be out the door most days before 7am and I’d still be working on my computer doing admin work until 9pm (after my evening workout). On the outside, I often could pull it off, like I had it all together. Some days, it was obvious that I was a train wreck. Train wreck days began to be more obvious as time went on.

I was getting promoted, achieving a lot… but inside, I was exhausted. I was putting my nervous system through the wringer, running on adrenaline, Starbucks coffee, and eating “healthy” in a way I now know wasn’t right for my body. My sleep was suffering. I kept pushing harder. I worked out even more. I was in the best shape of my life physically and the worst shape mentally and emotionally.

Right around the time of the 2008 housing crisis, my father lost his 2 only brothers. One uncle, my dad’s younger brother, was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. He went through chemo and radiation, lost so much weight and passed not long after attending my brother’s wedding. My dad’s other brother was diagnosed with a brain tumor and declined treatment. He lived for three more years, defying predictions, but eventually passed too. My dad was now the only surviving sibling. Both his brothers were gone. His parents were gone. And he was alone. I carried his pain like it was my own in addition to other stress, but I didn’t realize the impact it and other stressors were truly having on me.

I was doing extremely well at work but I was under a tremendous amound of stress. I was spiraling. Still functioning really well, still working out, sometimes twice a day and always no less than for 2 hours in duration, but mentally, I was unraveling. I’d keep a smile on my face. But I felt like a complete mess and wasn't sure what to do about it.

For years, I'd volunteered with the Alzheimer’s Association in Orange County. I’d often watch Dr. Daniel Amen, M.D., a regular visitor, speak at their events. He taught about how to care for the brain and what we do to harm our brain. I lived near his clinic and one day, when things felt unbearable, I decided to get a brain scan. I was terrified. I thought maybe something was wrong with my brain. I feared they’d find that it would look worse than any brain they’d ever seen and I stated in medical documents that I didn’t want my results shared with anyone!

While in the scan machine, I cried. And while taking the psychlogical questions on the computer, quiet tears rolled down my cheeks as I sat alone in a room, my mind ruminating with anxiety.

At the end of all the tests, an assigned psychiatrist looked at me as I sat across the table from him and he said, “On all the tests, you keep answering that you're not depressed… but you’ve been crying throughout our conversation. Your scan also indicates you may be depressed. I'll ask you again, are you depressed?” I stubbornly said, “Noooo.” Not because I believed I was fine, but because I knew medication wasn’t the answer for me. I believed in my body’s ability to heal. I was afraid of what I'd experienced in the past. And I believed then and now that life is full of ups and downs and part of life is getting through it, good times and bad. Please don't misunderstand me, they were not pushing medication on me. It was totally a fear of mine. I was even fearful of taking multivitamins back then. I didn't continue ongoing help at the time from Amen Clinics because I figured I could figure out how to help myself, eventually, on my own. (These days, I take their BrainMD vitamins).

After living 10 mostly amazing years in California, I moved back to Florida, hoping for a fresh start and following my brother again who’d moved back to FL a few years prior. I went back to the medical sales company I'd left in CA and was hired for a similar sales position in FL. I got into a long term relationship pretty quickly and went on with life. The new relationship and lots of fun travel helped buffer things. And again, I believe life is always simultaneously full of both good and tough times. I enjoyed those next few years and they did help heal me from the high stress I’d endured, but there were changes happening in my body and mind and I wasn’t sure why. In CA, I'd began getting headaches once per month and they were getting worse. Much of the time, I looked like I was “doing well” again — but beneath the surface, I was often just managing. Holding it together. After a couple of years, I left medical sales again, searching for something within the field of wellness. I knew I couldn’t keep living the same way and expecting things to feel different. I needed change, real change. So I did something scary: I left behind the steady income, the career I knew, and everything that felt safe, and I pivoted completely into a career where I could slow down to figure things out. I began attending massage therapy school, which was only 10 minutes from where I lived, during the evenings for a year while working another full time job in sales. I ended the relationship I was in and moved out. There I was, starting from scratch, again.

Then… Covid happened, only about 6 months after graduating from massage school and getting my state license in FL. I'd jumped straight into a career in massage therapy, leaving the professional sales gig, so money was tight. Family left FL for a new life in TN. Now I was alone in FL in a new career and not making a lot of money. With everything up in the air, I visited Tennessee, considering moving closer to family again. I didn’t expect the city I visited to be so chamring with lush, tree-lined streets, gently rolling hills and full of historic homes that glow with timeless character. I fell in love with the quiet beauty of it immediately. Next thing I knew, I was moving to TN.

For a brief moment, I accepted another job in medical sales upon moving to Nashville, mostly out of financial fear. But after two months, it was clear: my heart just wasn’t in it anymore. So I bet on myself and went all in building my massage therapy business from scratch in TN while also working at a local high end spa a few hours per week. It wasn’t easy. I worked seven days a week at first. Income was uncertain. But something felt different this time. I felt aligned. Even during the chaos, my nervous system slowly started to regulate. I was no longer on the constant hamster wheel. I was healing. Being close to family again helped. The clients I’ve attracted are some of the kindest, most interesting people I’ve ever met.

Another huge part of my healing has been being part of a self development app called #GrowthDay. I've been a member for almost 5 years, about as long as it has been available and it really helped during the uncertain past several years. It’s become my daily mental gym. Instead of collapsing inward, I’ve poured my time into studying personal development, preventative health, and everything that supports a vibrant, long life.

Why Metabolic Health Matters Now

All of this — the grief, the burnout, the healing — has led me here. To this new season where I’m not just interested in looking healthy. I’m obsessed with feeling well, staying mentally sharp, aging vibrantly, and helping others do the same by helping to decrease stress via massage therapy and by writing about what I am learning about the latest findings in preventative health. I also will continue writing about inspiring stories about how others have improved their lives by choosing healthier habits.

As of late, I’ve started diving deep into the concept of metabolic health. Not just blood sugar or weight loss, but how every system in our body works together, how energy is created and used, how inflammation forms, and what we can actually do about it. One book that I’m reading is completely opening my eyes. It’s called, Cancer as a Metabolic Disease, by Dr. Thomas Seyfried. He details how disease can be prevented with the right lifestyle changes. He wrote it in 2012 and I just discovered it, which is crazy. I want everyone to know about it. I’ll be writing more about his research and others who are changing the way we understand health and longevity.

What to Expect on This Blog (within the next few months)

Going forward, I’ll be sharing what I’m learning as I read about it and experiment preventative health measures in my own life. I want to break down complex ideas in a simple, relatable way. From what I read and learn, I’ll be writing about:

• How to improve metabolic health naturally

• My favorite insights from doctors and researchers I trust

• Personal stories (mine and others’) of healing and thriving

• Tools and practices that are making a real difference in my own life

Healthy living isn’t about perfection. It’s about understanding our bodies, listening to them, and treating health like the precious gift it is.

Thanks for reading. I’m so glad you’re here.