My Own Bumpy Journey To Health

I know how hard it can be to get healthy, because I made pretty much every mistake in the book.

In college I was quite the chef. I would take white tortillas, cover them with shredded cheese and pepperoni, roll them up, microwave them, and voila — Matt’s Specialty Pizza Quesadilla!

For dessert? I actually ate entire bags of plain marshmallows on a regular basis.

Eventually I traded my super unhealthy standard american eating for equally unhealthy vegetarian fare.

And I was convinced that I was quite the healthy vegetarian, with my msg-filled meat substitutes and stir fried canola oil.

Egads!

I quickly abandoned vegetarianism during a year abroad in Ecuador and instead ate whatever was available — mostly fried empanadas, beer, white rice, rolls, and exotic fruit.

ClimbingMountains

Not even climbing this volcano could make up for my terrible diet

I felt so terrible that I even took up running (the one thing I hate more than any other thing) in an attempt to get my health back on track.

Even though I was physically active, doing yoga, jogging somewhat regularly, and even doing some mountain climbing, it wasn’t enough to equalize my terrible diet.

I put on weight, became tired and sluggish, and returned stateside to a sedentary computer job, where things only got worse.

Even though I was relatively young, I saw where my health was headed if I stayed the course and decided that it was time to make a radical change.

So what did I do?

UnhealthyMatt

Me, before I made the decision to make health a priority

Because I was naive, I went in full throttle. I did a tiny bit of research and went from being a sometimes vegetarian, mostly standard American eater to 100% raw foodist overnight.

This worked great for about three days before I sat down for dinner and ate an entire Marionberry pie!

The infamous pie incident was just one of many trials and travails (more stories to come), and I’ve since adopted a much more moderate approach.

But the moment after eating 360 delectable degrees of marionberry pie, I ended up doing exactly the right thing.

Instead of just going back to my previous unhealthy ways, I made a critical decision. I decided I wasn’t going to give up. I dusted myself off, got back on the wagon and stayed the course.

And I’m so glad I did. After just a couple weeks I felt incredible. Like a whole new person.

I lost those few pounds of excess weight in no time at all. All my aches, pains, acne, and allergies lessened considerably or disappeared altogether. My skin started to glow.

I slept like a rock. I woke up full of energy, and it lasted throughout the day. I felt so good I was scared that I had pulled a Rip Van Winkle and just taken a 40 year nap.

My girlfriend Regan and I with a photogenic dog that just happened to be available.

My girlfriend Regan and I with a photogenic dog that just happened to be available.

And I just felt good in my body. I was confident, knowing that I was feeling and looking my best.

But it wasn’t all unicorns and rainbows. Even though I felt amazing, the baggage of changing my diet and lifestyle was barely worth it.

Not only did I have to learn a whole new way of cooking healthy foods, I had to learn how to cook, period — something I had never really done before outside of the most basic recipes.

I remember how totally overwhelmed I felt in the first week when I walked into the natural foods grocer, armed with my shopping list full of ingredients I had never heard of before.

I spent hours wandering the aisles searching for new to me items like kale, coconut oil, and sea vegetables.

It took me so much time to shop, prep, and prepare foods that I actually couldn’t work more than a part time job!

And when I saw how much I spent on groceries that first month, I wanted to crawl into the corner and cry. I had spent a small fortune on what I now know to be largely irrelevant items.

But by far the worst was what it did to my social life.

Turns out beer wasn’t a part of my new diet. I felt weird going out with my friends and just ordering water, so eventually I stopped going.

Even meeting up for lunch became too much, because I didn’t know how to adapt restaurant meals to make them work for me.

And I absolutely hated the barrage of questions and jabs from my macho friends. “How’s that rabbit food?” “How do you get your protein?”

Of course, how would they understand when I hadn’t yet learned how to explain myself or answer their questions?

Looking back at all these experiences I just have to laugh, because I made everything SO difficult on myself. I made every mistake imaginable.

There are much, much, MUCH easier ways to ease yourself into a healthy lifestyle without the crazy making struggle, cost, inconvenience and social isolation.

But now I’m so glad that I took the hard road, for one important reason:

Through my own struggle, I became intimately familiar with the challenges that every single person faces when they decide to get healthy.

And doing everything wrong initially started me on a quest to figure out how to do things right.

I spent the next two years doing research, reading books, experimenting with different healthy foods, and learning how to create consistently delicious healthy meals that didn’t require much time or money.

I finally figured out how to give myself wholesome, nourishing foods in a balanced, sustainable, and most importantly, joyful way.

I figured out how to talk to people about what I was doing without alienating them, and picked up some tricks for traveling, navigating holidays, and going out to eat.

Though my healthy lifestyle had become so ingrained that it was mostly automatic at this point, I still wanted to learn more.

I knew how important making this change had been for me and my personal well-being. My quality of life was so improved, that I knew there was no going back.

But I was left with a question. Was this a personal fluke or something that could help others as well?

So I made the difficult decision to pack up my life and move to Arizona in order to take a job at a leading holistic healing center, specializing in plant-based nutrition.

Over the course of the next several years I learned an incredible amount.

My knowledge of nutrition deepened and I learned to navigate all the conflicting health information — especially which foods are truly healthy and which only moonlight as health foods.

I learned which health practices get the biggest results and which are largely a waste of time.

I became intimately familiar with the health myths, misconceptions, and the issues that tend to prevent people from getting results.

And I saw that my own experience of improving my quality of life by adopting a healthy lifestyle wasn’t just random luck.

I witnessed hundreds of people losing weight effortlessly and reversing chronic conditions. Their energy improved, their mood swings vanished, they just felt happier and healthier.

I saw remarkable improvements in blood pressure and cholesterol.

I even saw dozens of individuals with type 2 diabetes return home with normal blood sugar and free of medications after just three weeks.

SproutClass

Teaching a class on sprouting in Arizona

And all this just by making a few simple lifestyle changes.

But most importantly I was able to speak with hundreds of people who were ready to take charge of their health.

This was especially fascinating because the same issues kept showing up.

Everyone struggled with finding the right information, navigating difficult social situations, and making healthy living work within the context of their busy lives.

And that’s when I realized that just having the information wasn’t enough.

My own personal success depended on overcoming negative self-talk and making it through all those hard moments when I wanted to give up.

I had to learn a new process for shopping, prepping, and cooking home run meals on a regular basis that didn’t cost a fortune or take hours to prepare.

I had to learn how to talk to people about what I was doing and navigate potlucks, holidays, restaurants, and going out with friends — all without sabotaging the newfound health that I had worked so hard to obtain.

If I had to navigate all these challenges, why would anyone else’s process be any different?

Now that I saw this missing piece, I started exploring the psychology behind behavior change, ways to get organized, and all the fun, interesting, and slightly strange solutions to these difficult challenges.

I began teaching a class at the center called Lifestyle Support, focused on how to make healthy habits stick — even in the midst of our hectic modern lives.

I began to distill all that experience into what gives you the biggest results for the least effort, and put what I learned into a gentle step-by-step system that anyone can follow.

And it is my absolute joy and privilege to share what I have learned with you.

If you are interested in learning more, please sign up for my email newsletter below.

I look forward to continuing the conversation.

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