ABOUT ME

my family

Hi There!

I’m Liz, creator of The Nutramom, a place where families can come find healthy versions of their favorite recipes, easy nutrition hacks and simple wellness tips to help reach their unique health goals.

My recipes are always:

  • Nutrient dense
  • Kid approved
  • Paleo”ish” (No rules here!)
  • Gluten free
  • Easy to make (I get it. We are all busy!)

My hope is that this will become a place where you can find helpful solutions that fit your busy lifestyle.

To learn a little more about my REAL food philosophy click here.

My Story:

You could say I started my wellness journey in high school. I was plagued with chronic stomach pain. My mom took me to multiple doctors, none of which could figure out what was wrong, so they told her it was stress. I missed out on a lot of sports activities, parties and social events. It was all just a part of my teenage life. But it wasn’t until I got married at 22 and moved across the country away from everything and everyone that I knew, that I hit a low point in my life. I was depressed. Anxious. Lonely. And lost. And I gathered enough courage to ask for help. That’s when I started finding answers. Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you realize your own strength and purpose. Funny how life works that way.

So after intensive therapy focused on changing my internal dialogue coupled with extensive research on health and nutrition, I finally healed myself from the inside out. My stomach aches disappeared.  My mind was clear, peaceful and happy.  My joint pain vanished. I woke up feeling happy and at peace. I could think clearly. My relationship to my husband got stronger and deeper.  But it took a long time to get there and if I told you I wasn’t still on this journey I would be lying. I don’t think the journey ever really ends. 

So what helped? 

By following an ancestral diet for many years I found that gluten was a major offender to my many health issues but it wasn’t the only one. I grew up as a formula fed baby and had many rounds of antibiotics which means the integrity of my gut was compromised. And, remember, Hippocrates said nearly 2500 years ago “All disease begins in the gut.” And he wasn’t far off. I followed a full gut healing protocol. I had to keep an eye out for preservatives, industrialized seed oils, milk, white potatoes and a few others. And it wasn’t just food that was the issue. I had to heal my childhood traumas. The perfectionist in me had to remind myself that I was “enough” and I had to protect my energy from negativity and gossip. I had to stop caring about what anyone else thought.  I journaled daily and practiced meditation focused on gratitude and forgiveness.  I built a relationship with God. I let go of resentments, guilt and fear.  I focused on what I wanted and how to get there.  I spent all of my free time researching, studying, reading books, writing documents, journaling, meditating, listening to podcasts, self-experimenting, connecting with holistic healers and fully embracing alternative forms of healthcare.

Now keep in mind, I am a Registered Nurse. So during this time I worked in hospitals, in the community and in 1:1 settings inside people’s homes. I specialized in psychiatric nursing both because I felt it was an under served population and, because of my short bout with depression, I could relate to their mental suffering. I became a coach, a mentor, a counselor and an advocate. And I was helping people. But I saw a much bigger problem.

You see, what I saw was this: So many sick people. Heart disease. Diabetes. Wounds. Chronic pain. They were not just physically sick either. They were all depressed. Anxious. Suicidal. Young and old.  All sick.  And our conventional system was just not working for them. I could literally feel their suffering and it was absolutely heartbreaking.

Did you know:

  • Chronic disease is the leading cause of death in the United States
  • 6 in 10 Americans have a chronic disease
  • 4 in 10 have multiple chronic diseases
  • 90% of all prescriptions are written for chronic diseases
  • The United States spends over $3.5 trillion dollars on healthcare each year
  • 86% of those costs are for chronic diseases
  • 1 in 5 children are obese
  • 1 in 3 adults are obese
  • Obesity increases the risk of chronic disease and alone costs the healthcare system $147 billion per year

Our conventional healthcare system is failing. And it’s not IF, it’s WHEN.  I’ve worked in it for too long and I’ve see it firsthand. We do a great job at providing trauma and acute care but we are WAY OFF when it comes to treating our chronically ill and preventing disease.  We have misaligned incentives where insurance is profiting from high healthcare spending.  Big pharma is focused only on their own profits and there “ain’t no money in the cure!” And you can forget about disease prevention because there isn’t any money in that either. Two-thirds of ALL our medical research is funded by the pharmaceutical companies.  Talk about a conflict of interest.  We have a broken payment model focused on treatment repayment and a paradigm where we suppress symptoms rather than reverse disease. Now you tell me, how can we thrive in a corrupt and broken system such as this?

Conventional medicine is doctor-centered. The average appointment time is only 20 minutes. How can a doctor really gather all your medical history, your current medical situation and then come up with a plan to lead you toward health in a 20 minute visit??? They can’t. It doesn’t work. The system is taxed. Doctor’s are burning out. Conventional medicine is “sick-care”. Disease management. Medication focused. They sure are quick to write you a prescription and send you out the door without an ounce of thought toward finding or preventing the root cause of disease. Conventional medicine allows us to stay sick and die slowly. And the price is not cheap.

But we are just a victim to our genetics, right?

Wrong. I am here to tell you that the power is within YOU and not THEM. You are your biggest advocate. Do your research. Take the power out of their hands and put it back into your own. Only 16% of the risk for chronic disease is genetic. Read that again. Daily behavior is the SINGLE BIGGEST CONTRIBUTOR to chronic disease. But we aren’t taught this. I certainly wasn’t in nursing school. I was taught an old paradigm and a long list of archaic information about nutrition including counting macros, exercising 60 minutes a day and eating low fat foods. Stuff that has been disproven with ample research long ago.

There was nothing taught about the connection between the body, mind and spirit. There was nothing emphasizing a REAL FOOD, holistic, all-encompassing approach to health and disease prevention. Nothing regarding stress management, avoiding toxins, drinking clean water, detoxing, building a support system, resiliency, self-care, mindset, internal dialogue shifts, healing traumas or understanding how to listen to your body and mind. Not a mention of spirituality and how we are all connected.  If we want something we only need to put it out in the universe, give gratitude and believe in it.  Don’t believe me?  Try it. 

You see, I had to learn all that myself. And it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

So, if you are not sick, you are so lucky. Cherish your health and treat your body and your spirit well. But if you are sick, it’s not too late! I encourage you to find a local functional medicine doctor (here) to help lead you back to health and undercover the root cause of your illness while you simultaneously discover for yourself what holistic approach works for you and your lifestyle.

And what I worry about most are my children.  Penelope is 7 years old and Theodore is 3 and they are my whole world.  I worry about the future in which they will grow up and I know I am not alone in this feeling (lookin’ at you kid).  I am sure you have some of these same thoughts or you wouldn’t be here. From processed fast food, sugar laden foods strategically placed in grocery stores, hidden cancerous ingredients in food labels, glyphosate sprayed crops and highly inflammatory school lunches… we just can’t get away from it! But we can heal ourselves and educate our children. We are their greatest example and they learn from what we DO, not what we SAY.  We can’t always control their environment but we can show them how to empower themselves to make good choices. And we need this so much for our future. We can no longer depend on our healthcare system. It cannot sustain us down the path we are headed. We need to take care of ourselves and take care of each other.

And there you have it.  The whole damn truth.  The WHY behind my purpose and why I started this website.  Health starts with us. What we eat and what we do on a daily basis MATTERS. I hope so much that this can be a virtual meeting ground that helps give you tools to shortcut some of the challenges we all face to make our lives happy, healthy and a whole lot easier. Or at the very least, make some awesome healthy recipes that your family will actually eat.

Thank you so much for being a part of this. Never hesitate to reach out to me (you can do so here.) I want so much for us all to become healthy and happy together. 

XOXO, Liz

The Nutramom

Disclaimer: This is not a substitute for medical advice. Go see your doctor.

Resources + References:

Buttorff C, Ruder T, Bauman M. Multiple Chronic Conditions in the United States pdf icon[PDF – 392 KB]external icon. Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corp.; 2017.

Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Chronic Disease Data. https://cdc.gov/chronicdisease/data/index.htm

Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services. National Health Expenditure Data for 2016—Highlights pdf icon[PDF – 74 KB

Kresser, Chris. Unconventional Medicine: Join the Revolution to Reinvent Healthcare, Reverse Chronic Disease, and Create a Practice You Love https://unconventionalmedicinebook.com/