Hyper focused on my performing career since my early 20’s, caring for my family also since my early 20’s, too busy to eat, consumed with getting stuff done (read: terminal multi-tasker) from the moment I opened my eyes to the moment I put my head on the pillow—so much that exhaustion was more like a religion than a biological state— never in my wildest imagination would I have believed that one day I would be at the helm of a food business. These are the naive beginnings of how I started a superfood treat company.
In addition to being a work-a-holic, I was also an exercise addict. To tell you the truth, I still am addicted to that exercise high. It’s something I have to keep in check. I grew up in the Buns of Steel era and the potential of having buns of steel is an invisible carrot that perpetually hangs in front of me. It got so bad it almost killed me. See how in this video.
Healthy In Theory
I was healthy. I read a lot of articles. Bought healthy diets books that I never really read beyond a glance. I knew what to eat, but not why, and I certainly had absolutely no time or energy to do it. I was healthy in theory.
However, I always made time for dessert. I would exercise even more just to make sure I could eat dessert.
This endless cycle of overdrive went on for decades until…my life came crashing down on me.
Too busy taking care of business to take care of myself, I found myself unable to function in my life. I’ll save the horror story for another blog post. In a nutshell, I had severe adrenal insufficiency (adrenal fatigue), extremely low thyroid (hypothyroidism), metabolic dysfunction, extremely low serotonin, and more yuck. I was depressed all the time. On the edge of tears constantly for no reason…or so I thought. Turns out, I ran out of juice. Literally. I used up my stores of hormones and my body stopped producing more. I had borrowed fuel from my future.
Bloat Central (Unhappy Gut)
I also had terrible bloating and gas every single late afternoon. I lived on GasEx. I would often have to hit the drugstore on my way out for the evening. I hated putting on clothes. The discomfort was unbearable.
My gut problems lead me to take IgG test which measures specific antibodies (immune globulins of the subclass G) which are produced by the immune system. These antibodies can lead to inflammatory processes or…bloating so much that you have to strip off your clothes and wear a tablecloth.
Can’t Eat This and This
Unlike typical food allergies that show up right away after eating a trigger food, IgG immune response symptoms appear up to three days after the consumption of a trigger food. I was in a constant state of being triggered. Learn more about this vital test here.
The results of my IgG test showed that I had to cut out: corn, sugar, gluten, dairy, and eggs, not because I was allergic to them, but because the bloating and gas was my body’s immune response to the nonstop stress I was in. I was barely operating in limited capacity just to open my eyes and get out of bed. In response, I could no longer process the foods that I used to be able to process. In order to get my health back, I had to completely eliminate them.
Food Wake Up Call
It was about then that I had a divine intervention—my food wake up call. (Cue angel trumpets) I share how it hit me in a movie theater of all places in this video.
I realized that the quote “food is medicine” often used in social media wasn’t just a bumper sticker. They were actually words to thrive by spoken by the father of medicine, Hippocrates. Sad that the profession he gave rise to has all but forgotten this. Because I felt like crap every single day and because I so desperately wanted to feel great again, his words became my map back to health and feeling like me again.
Of course being a hardwired multi-tasker, I was determined to figure out how to get more health healing benefits with every bite I took. So I started learning about micronutrients and superfoods. OMG, superfoods!
What Are Superfoods?
Though there is no legal or medical definition, superfoods are nutrient-rich powerhouse foods that pack large doses of antioxidants, polyphenols, vitamins and minerals. Eating them may reduce the risk of chronic disease and prolong life, and people who eat more of them are healthier and thinner than those who don’t. Nature has literally put ingredients in our path that heal different parts of our bodies. We just didn’t get the memo. Or if we did, it was lost a long time ago.
If you ask Alexa (Amazon’s intelligent personal assistant and my new bestie) what superfoods are, she’ll tell you it’s a marketing term that is used to describe foods with supposed health benefits. But if you Google superfoods you’ll find a wealth of knowledge about several foods that are for lack of a better word…super, what health benefits they offer, and how to fit them into your diet. I’ll go into how to determine what to believe and what not to waste your money on in future blog posts. But for now, know that there are certain foods and ingredients that can provide you a lot of health bang for your bite.
And it dawned in on me…superfood treats! Multi-tasker must be my blood type.
Superfood Treats
I started finding recipes I loved that were full of all the things I could no longer eat and found ways to make them so I could enjoy them while I was reclaiming my health. And since I wanted to get my vibrancy back faster, I started to explore adding superfoods to them. My hubby says I “supe” everything we put in our mouths. Cute, right?!
After several months of recipe and ingredient research and testing, not only did I become an annoying ingredient geek, I had developed a large collection of superfood dessert recipes—each one specifically designed to support a specific function of my body that needed to heal.
I started sharing my healing desserts with family, friends. I started taking my “suped” Peanut Butter Cookies and Espresso Fudge Brownies to parties to see how other people would react. And because I wanted to make sure that they enjoyed them for the taste, not only because they were actually good for them, I didn’t tell them that they were beyond healthy.
At the parties, people would track me down and tell me how much they loved my treats. They would literally eat the crumbs off the plates! This happened at every party I took them to.
Being a former standup comic, I lived for applause. An odd thing started to happen. I started hearing applause in my head, every time someone said that they enjoyed my desserts, only it was a 100 times more fulfilling than anything I felt from the stage. I felt their joy, PLUS I know what’s happening in their body as a result of the ingredients.
Where Can I Buy Them?
People started asking me where they could buy my superfood treats. They wanted to serve them at their own parties and have these sinfully nutritious desserts at their beck and call. People starting calling me after getting my number from the parties and wanted me to make them my brownies for their own parties and special occasions, then they started ordering them just because they just wanted to enjoy them all the time—because they tasted so good and they were enjoying the health benefits too!
I put a lot of research and testing into my raw superfood brownies. I didn’t want them to taste like so many of the treats I was forced to eat when I was on a restricted diet. I hated eating dry, bland, desserts and feeling like I had to eat them because they were supposed to be good for you.
It was my mission to craft a dessert that was moist, chewy, fudgy, and burst into flavor the moment you put it in your mouth. I wanted people to be blown away by the flavor and discover that the raw superfood brownies were 100% health sustainable support as an after fact. And that’s what I did!
You would never know these brownies are brimming with so many nutrients that support your brain and adrenal functions, in addition to providing your body vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. They are safe for people who are on restricted diets, paleo diets, even diabetics can enjoy them without compromising their health. They are not too sweet but satisfy you when you want something sweet. I hear from people all the time who are not sweet tooths like me, telling me how much they love these brownies.—even people who don’t really enjoy chocolate (I know unheard of) love these brownies.
After perfecting a health supporting masterpiece raw gluten-free sugar-free Espresso Fudge Brownie, I expanded to gluten-free sugar-free Blondies, and I’m getting the same reason. People love them! Applause applause!!
Up until now, the only people who could buy them were the people who found out about them at a party and picked them up me locally in Los Angeles. Now, that I’ve moved (see why here) it’s my mission to figure out how to make them available to folks who love dessert but value their health even more. That’s what I’m working on now. Stay tuned!!
And that is my naive beginnings of how Lifelicious superfood treat company was started.
How to Eat Dessert and Feel Great Too
I’ve learned so much on my health reclamation journey. I learned that it’s okay to enjoy dessert, and even have a sweet tooth, but in order to reclaim and maintain your health, you’ve got to make better choices when you indulge yourself.
If you’ve had a similar experience or food wakeup call I’d love to hear what you discovered. I know someone else reading this could benefit from it.
If you’re in the midst of all the yuck I was in or you just want to make better health choices, I share these hard won tips:
Don’t just be wowed by chocolate and sprinkles. Develop the muscle of reading and understanding nutrition labels. It’s not just small print. It’s vital information you need to know that directly affects the quality of your life—in the short and long term.
Demand quality, non-GMO, whole food ingredients. Limit gluten as much as possible, eliminate refined and highly processed sugar, and if you are a multi-tasker like me and you want to feel great in your body again, make sure there’s a superfood in your treat. If you are a multi-tasker like me, make sure there’s a superfood in your treat. Click To Tweet
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