I've had a passion for nutrition and cooking for as long as I can remember.

I was an overweight teenager. I didn't want to be overweight. It wasn't particularly fun for me. When I was in highschool I would eat what everyone else did for lunch. A slice of pepperoni pizza or french fries splashed with vinegar. Three hours later I would be starving and didn't know why. I would go home and binge on junk. Eventually I started making a bag lunch and I thought I was being healthy. I would have some type of processed meat on (white) bread, pretzel's (made with white flour) and Snackwell's cookies for dessert (more white flour!). Looking back, it was a  disaster of a lunch filled with chemicals, simple carbs and barely any nutrients. It's no wonder I would be starving when I got home and would subsequently binge on peanut butter or whatever else was around. Then I got into exercising. A lot. I would workout twice a day in an effort to burn the calories I had eaten during the day. Then came diet pills. None of it worked.

I've also always had a sugar and chocolate addiction. Over the years I have managed to tame the sugar beast (I still love chocolate!). The beast will rear its ugly head every now and again, but I have learned to easily put it back in it's cage. Most commercial sweet treats are now much too sweet for me so typical junk food (thankfully) doesn't hold any allure. When I started working on removing sugar from my diet I realized that sugar did more than just go right to my hips... consuming it made me very irritable and also depressed. I would wake up feeling great, and someone at work would order a decadent cake for a special occasion. I would allow myself the treat and an hour later be wallowing in self-pity and hating my life. It took a while to finally get it... sugar was messing with my brain!

Over the years I've experimented with different ways of eating. Like many others I've tried all the new fad diet plans.... the low-fat craze, atkins, south beach diet, food combining, and even the high carbohydrate diet... they all worked in the beginning but would quickly fail, either because of boredom with the limited options, or because the diets themselves just didn't make sense. I started reading every nutrition book I could get my hands on and learned which eating habits worked for my body - and which ones didn't. I eventually found the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN), where I became a certified health holistic counselor. I am certified from IIN, Columbia University's Teachers College, and the American Association of Drugless Practitioners. 

I've studied over 100+ dietary theories ranging from the traditional to the scientific; the east to the west; the ancient traditions of macrobiotics; ayurveda; Chinese medicine; raw foods; superfoods; juicing; detoxing;  etc. I've also learned what IIN coins as Primary and Secondary food. Primary food being the most important food - it's your relationships, family, happiness, career, spirituality, etc. Secondary food is the physical food that nourishes your body. Both are equally important.

I'm also a graduate of the Chef's Training Program at the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts. The Natural Gourmet is an amazing school because it is nutrition and whole-foods oriented, and teaches health-supportive cooking.

I am also a certified Vinyasa yoga teacher. Yoga is a wonderful way to relax the body, reduce stress, increase flexibility, facilitate detoxification, increase lubrication of joints, ligaments, and tendons, in addition to massaging all of the internal organs.  

Nutrition information aside, the biggest thing I have learned is to respect everyone's unique bioindividuality. A vegetarian way of eating may work great for me, but for you could spell disaster. Consuming dairy products may not be good for my body, but could be great for you. My goal is not to tell you how to eat, but help you experiment with new foods, new ways of eating, and new cooking practices that work for YOU. I look forward to working with you through this exciting journey because I know firsthand how it will change your life!