In this beautiful city, on this wet, rainy day, I am grateful. I am grateful for the dance of the city lights on the ripples in the water and the dull pulse of the traffic as it calms for the night. I am grateful for the way the rain washes away the grittiness of the city and leaves a fresh, pure smell in air. I am grateful for the time I’ve had today to think, discuss, laugh and love – I am grateful for this life. Yet I know in other moments, it can be so easy to forget how fleeting and temporary this all is. This reminder has already led me to realizations about how I want to live my life – that I want to do what I love, which is to write – but recently it has also inspired me to think about how I want to feel while living it. It seems to me that (however obvious) we should spend our limited time in this life feeling well and living well. And as I have recently discovered there is so much more to good health than I thought.

Growing up, I thought I knew how to take care of myself by eating well. As it turns out, I didn’t. After I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease several years ago, I began to learn more about food and I became more invested in carefully choosing what I put in my body. Although at first I approached it by eating food that was naturally gluten-free, over time the trendiness of ‘going gluten free’ created more options in the market place and allowed me to consume all my favourite dishes using alternative flours and ingredients. And yet, I still didn’t feel better. I began to question what was really in these foods, the production systems that produced these foods and food-like items, and what it really meant to ‘eat healthy’. However, these questions only led to more uncertainties. As a result, I was only treating my health with half-cut measures, such as cutting out dairy intermittently or with my ambiguous plans to ‘get more active’. As it is for many people, attempts at improving one’s health can often be based on conflicting information about what it really does mean to eat well. These attempts are often further thwarted by the nutrient-deficient convenience foods designed to be accommodating for our busy lives or from binging on junk food as a reward for a week of eating well. This was my path until finally, last year, I went searching for a better road to health, and what I discovered changed everything.

In this past year, I discovered this incredible, amazing, astonishing world of nutrition. I discovered that nutrition has the power to not only change our bodies, but also our lives. The truth is the pursuit of good health isn’t something that should be put off for the future, but is instead something that we should be fully invested in today. In my experience, as I have acquired more knowledge about nutrition, I have become more empowered to define my own health and the type of life that I want to live. I have learnt that the choices we make in regards to what we use to fuel our bodies can have a significant impact on how we feel and live. I don’t pretend to have all the answers, and I can’t say that every food choice I make is perfect, but I am trying my best. In the end, it may take a little more effort and energy to eat for health, but the rewards may truly be invaluable.

This search for health has led me through numerous websites and blogs, documentaries about health and the problems with our food system, to classes on nutrition and kinesiology, and to articles, books and beyond. From this information I began to discover the type of fuel and nourishment that our bodies need to perform and feel their best. I used what I learnt about nutrition, along with the principles of the Paleo Diet, to dramatically change my diet. Despite the huge adjustment, I rarely feel deprived or unsatiated, but instead have discovered there is a huge variety of interesting and delicious meals that I can make. As an overview, the most important and fundamental changes to my lifestyle have been:

• NO gluten, dairy, processed foods or food-like items, refined sugar or processed vegetable oils (e.g. canola oil), soy or genetically-modified foods
• Plenty of whole foods: organic meat, vegetables and fruit
• Limited grains (I currently eat only 2 servings of grains per week and may substitute all together with non-grain flours in the future, such as almond and coconut flour)
• I have discovered there is also an abundance of amazing, healthy foods to add to your diet. There are foods that work as powerful detoxifiers such as chia seeds and cilantro; fermented foods for healthy gut bacteria such as Kombucha, sauerkraut, and probiotics, as well as bone broth for healthy gut lining; and numerous other nutrient-dense foods that aid in developing good health such as turmeric, spirulina and seaweed.

These changes are not reflective of a fad diet or temporary modifications, but a fundamental change to the way I eat and live my life. Over this past year, I have discovered my passion for nutrition and for its amazing potential to affect our well-being. I ardently practice eating for health as I believe it creates a strong foundation on which I can pursue all the other things that I love in life.  Learning about nutrition has been akin to pulling back the veil – I have discovered how interconnected what we eat is to how we feel. As a result, nutrition has become an integral part of my life.

As the rain begins to taper off at my window, and a bright green, spinach smoothie sits at my desk, I remain grateful for this moment and hope that I can share a little of my love and passion for it with others.