"I started my clean eating journey almost thirteen years ago. Although my "before" picture shows me smiling and some may not consider me "overweight", I was bloated, exhausted, depressed, anxious - and I hated my body. (BTW, this is not my baby in the picture, it's my nephew). Despite my best efforts to follow a system or diet, I always ended up reverting back to old comfortable habits and self-sabotaging my results. I realized I was never going to be fixed by a diet, because my issues were deeper than the food I was using to cope, check-out and be in control.

You can read my credentials below. I had the knowledge and training necessary to know what to do to get results, but my obsession with achieving the perfect body and finding a short-cut kept me in bondage to the scale, calorie counting, laxative abuse, eating disorders, excessive exercise and the next fad diet. I lived in a selfish haze - consumed with how I looked, what I was going to eat (or not eat) and when I was going to fit in my next workout. I have realized since that unresolved grief around the loss of my young mom to breast cancer when I was 23 as well as many rejection experiences throughout my life were the underlying reasons for my shattered self-worth, misplaced identity and fear. Somewhere along the way, I made a subconscious decision that something was wrong with me, so I needed to be a different version of myself - a perfect version. Getting close to people and allowing them to see the "real mess I was" meant they would reject me and ultimately leave me. 

Living in this hell, I had very little time or energy to focus on what God had purposed for my life. Slowly I began to feel more and more hopeless and joyless. I eventually found my personal rock bottom - binging and purging daily, abusing laxatives daily, excessively exercising, obsessively counting calories, living on coffee and diet soda all day, depending on an antidepressant and living alone with my 2 cats. I had insomnia, my hair was falling out, I pooped once a week, my skin was unhealthy and even though I had people around me every day at work and friends to hang out with on the weekends - I was utterly alone. I was a mess.

When I hit bottom, I looked up. I surrendered. I couldn't do it in my own strength and I couldn't do it the way the world told me to do it. I listened to my heart and the wisdom that already lived inside of me. I stopped dieting. I applied the education I had been gifted with and started eating to love and nourish myself rather than to achieve some external number. I drank a lot of clean water, gave up the diet sodas and released some other unhealthy habits and thought patterns.

It's impossible for me to not share that my journey was led and fueled by my relationships with my friend, Lord and healer - Jesus. Although this challenge is not a Christian challenge (although I do have one of these too) - it is an opportunity for you to look beyond to food to WHY you use food the way you do. I have enjoyed some deep healing of emotional wounds from my past that I had consistently numbed with unhealthy food, toxic relationships and alcohol habits. In these areas of weakness, I found renewed strength. I made a decision to no longer partner with the fear of being out of control and relinquished control to the Lord. It wasn't easy, it wasn't tear free, it wasn't perfect either - but it has been worth every single second. I am transformed and you can be too.

I live today as a free woman. Although I am 25 pounds thinner and have never physically looked or felt better in my life - more importantly I don't live obsessed or fearful or lost. I live with purpose and hope. Over four years ago, God gave me the greatest blessing - my daughter, Berlyn, who will only know a mom who is as healthy on the inside as she is on the outside. Praise God for the version of me that He had always intended has been revealed! How many mom's reading this want to be the best version of themselves? I believe it is more than possible - it is inevitable if you just take the first step of faith - and then the next and so forth. 

As CEO and creator of The Healthy Edge, my purpose is to set women free, just like I was set free. Overcoming the battle and breaking the strongholds surrounding your weight, energy and health issues frees up the energy to live out your purpose and love people more. That's exactly why I began The Healthy Edge movement - to empower women to be confident leaders in their own health and their family's health so they can live the abundant life God uniquely created for them to have and enjoy.

These 10 days are just the beginning. I encourage you to lay aside your anxieties, fears and excuses and step into faith that you are reading this for a reason. This is not by chance that you are exactly where you are in life and you are reading my story this very day. Take the first step (and signup) and I will show you and I will guide you on the journey!

CEO of The Healthy Edge