From Wake-Up Calls to Small Choices: My Path Into Lifestyle Medicine

Long before I created a business, I developed a lifestyle.

If you had asked me fifteen years ago what “lifestyle medicine” meant, I would have had no idea.

I didn’t set out to follow any kind of wellness philosophy. I didn’t have a master plan to overhaul my life. I was just living the way most of us do—doing my best, assuming I was reasonably healthy, and not thinking too hard about the long-term impact of everyday habits.

Then life handed me a few wake-up calls.

The first came with my mom.

The First Wake-Up Call

When she was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, it changed the way I saw health almost overnight. Suddenly, words like blood sugar, insulin resistance, and chronic disease weren’t abstract concepts anymore—they were personal. I started reading and researching and paying attention in a way I never had before.

And I began looking honestly at my own diet.

At the time, I thought I was eating “pretty healthy.” But the more I learned, the more I realized that many of the foods I relied on—including the store-bought granola I loved—weren’t supporting my goals the way I assumed they were.

That’s what led me to start cooking differently and eventually to start making my own granola—something simpler, less processed, and more aligned with the kind of nourishment I was trying to build into my life.

My favorite pastime, trying an ingredient I've never used before.  This was egg yolk that I cured in salt, grated over homemade sourdough pasta.  

But that was only the beginning.

Strength, Balance and Resilience

About eight years ago, my mom fell down the stairs and suffered a traumatic brain injury along with broken bones in her neck. It was terrifying and heartbreaking—and it changed me in a whole new way.

Watching her recovery made me think deeply about strength, balance, and resilience. I realized that health isn’t just about lab numbers and what we eat. It’s also about having a body that can support us as we age.               

I started asking myself hard questions:  
Was I strong?  
Was I stable?  
Was I doing anything to protect my future self?

I was really exited to hit this milestone!

That’s when I committed to movement in a serious way. I began doing reformer Pilates and stuck with it for years, building strength and awareness I had never had before. Recently, I’ve shifted into weight training, focusing even more intentionally on muscle, bone health, and functional strength.

Looking back, I can see how one change naturally led to another.

Food.  
Movement.  
Awareness.  
Consistency.

Nothing like grilled veggies in the summer.

Aligning Habits with Goals

Then, about two years ago, another piece fell into place: alcohol.

I realized that I was not good at moderation so, for me, drinking at all was out of alignment with my desire for wellness. It wasn’t serving my energy, my sleep, or my goals. So I made the decision to eliminate it—and that choice ended up improving far more than I expected.

Better sleep.  
Clearer mornings.  
More steady moods.  
More presence in my own life.

Each of these shifts happened gradually. None of them were part of some grand overhaul. They were simply the result of paying attention and asking, “Is this helping me become the person I want to be?”

Discovering Lifestyle Medicine

And then, about a year ago, I discovered the term that tied it all together: Lifestyle Medicine.

Lifestyle medicine focuses on nine pillars that shape our long-term health and well-being:

- Nourishing, whole-food nutrition  
- Regular physical activity  
- Restorative sleep  
- Stress management  
- Strong social connection  
- Avoidance of risky substances  
- Healthy relationships  
- Time in nature  
- Purpose and meaning  

When I read about these pillars, I had a powerful realization: I had already been slowly moving in this direction without even knowing it.

I wasn’t following a trend. I wasn’t chasing perfection. I was simply learning—step by step—how to care for myself better.

That’s what lifestyle medicine really is.

Not a diet.  
Not a program.  
Not a quick fix.

Just a framework for building a life that supports your health instead of working against it.

My granola business grew out of that journey.  It’s simply one small expression of the larger belief that food can be simple, real, and supportive of a balanced life.

The bigger story is this: we have more influence over our well-being than we often realize.

Through the way we eat.  
The way we move.  
The way we sleep.  
The habits we choose.  

None of these choices require perfection. They just require intention.

If I’ve learned anything over the last decade, it’s that meaningful change doesn’t usually happen all at once. It happens in small, steady steps that quietly add up over time.

My path to lifestyle medicine didn’t begin with a plan. It began with paying attention—to my mom, to my own body, and to the kind of future I wanted to create.

And it continues the same way: one thoughtful choice at a time.

If you’re on your own journey, I hope you’ll remember this—start where you are. You don’t need to change everything. You just need to change the next small thing.

That’s how real, lasting health is built.

Spending time in nature, especially foraging, has become one of the most grounding pillars of my own lifestyle medicine.