About Me

Hi all!

I am Sam. Nope, no green eggs and ham here. That book is actually banned from my house. No joke. Childhood scars run deep.

I am a Registered Holistic Nutritionist, a holder of a Bachelor’s degree in English, a mother of two young girls spaced 5.5 years apart (wish me luck in the decade of teenage years), and a trying wife to my high-school sweetheart. He works out of town for weeks at a time, making my life pretty chaotic. You’ll see that if you read my blog. Life is certainly never boring around here. I would be remiss if I did not mention the love-of-my-life, Charles, my big golden man of a dog. You’ll definitely see his smiling face around here. A lot.

We live in beautiful Kelowna, BC. We've been here for 5 years and I've honestly never felt so at home in a city as we do here. We are a very outdoorsy family, spending a lot of time hiking, fishing, camping, and exploring. Our girls are so lucky to grow up here.

My Story

I first became interested in nutrition while attending University. I had been having a lot of health problems— weird allergies, feeling ill after eating many types of food, being fatigued although I was sleeping fine and barely moving. Living on my own during this time allowed me to be in complete control of my body and what I ate without having to worry about catering to anyone else around me. It was the first time in my life when I felt a connection to what I was eating and how it affected me. I tried various elimination diets and finally after a few years of trial and error, I found the best way to eat for me was just to eat whole foods. It seems pretty obvious, right? Well, I’m sure that if you or someone you know has tried to cut out anything from your regular eating habits, you’ll know that it’s hard. So unbelievably hard. Food habits go pretty deep.

I was raised by my two deeply-loving parents who worked so bloody hard for everything in life. My dad always says, “We didn’t have much, but we made sure you had everything you needed.” And it was true. My mom was the main work force while my dad went to school for his Bachelor’s, then his Master’s, while working part-time. During our younger years, my brother and I were watched by family friends and then went to a daycare, before my dad was able to rearrange his schedule around our school to ensure that he was home in the afternoons with us. Imagine that for a moment. My dad was in school full time and working part-time, and my mom worked full-time and upgraded courses at the college when she could to further her career. And my brother and I never felt a lack of parental affection or attention. My parents were (and still are) super heroes. So no, food wasn’t a high priority in my childhood, time together was. We always had food, it was just never scrutinized. Boiled frozen or canned veg, some sort of broiled meat, and a quick packet of rice or noodles and we were good to go at dinner time. We needed fast, money-efficient food and that’s what we ate. And to be honest, that was what everyone around us was eating, too. It was just normal.

Flash forward to today and “food culture” is everywhere. Smart phones, apps, and social media blast us with more articles about nutrition (diets, trends, fads, clickbait) in a day than our parents read in an entire year. Food just wasn’t thought of years ago to the extreme that it is now. Food was just there to run your body and unless you were in an elite sport, nutrition concerns were not a part of the normal person’s life. At least that was my experience.

But things have changed now. We are more aware than ever about the effects on nutrition on our health. And yet, many of us don’t know where to start. That’s my reason for sharing all of this— I am no different than you. I did not grow up eating the way I do now. Processed and packaged foods were the majority of what I ate. I had to learn to get to where I am by stumbling clumsily along and rewiring the habits I had grown up with. I want you all to know that it did not come easy for me. We all know what healthy eating is and that we should be doing it, so why is it that so many people struggle to make lasting changes? Because fad diets don’t work, restrictions don’t work, will power does not work. Slowly built and maintained lifestyle changes work. I went through the struggle of changing my habits around. And like I said, it’s hard. And I’m still not perfect. Which isn’t the point of eating healthily anyways. Healthy eating is eating what serves you at that time. And knowing when foods are no longer serving you. I have shown you in a glimpse into my journey as an olive branch— one that says, I do understand. Because I do. Come to me as you are, come to me no matter your health knowledge, because I have been there. I want to be the guide to you that I never had to make your journey to a healthier you a lasting and permanent one.