Meet Mary Sheila
As a Holistic Nutrition Consultant and Educator, I help people who are suffering from the effects and complications of high blood sugar. These complications can include weight gain, especially in the belly, cardiovascular disease, fatigue, digestive issues, insomnia and brain fog. By addressing these problems through diet and lifestyle modifications, my clients learn how to take control of their blood sugar, lose that stubborn belly weight, sleep better, improve digestion, gain energy and gain their health back. If I had known the word foodie as a child, I think I would have been called one from an early age. I love food and have always loved to eat and cook, setting up a “restaurant” at home as a kid, and having a real one with my husband for a few years as an adult.
Growing up, I will always treasure our large family meals at the dinner table. My mom did not know how to cook before having kids, it was my dad who taught her as he had to learn at an early age in his life when his mom passed away. As a mom now, I marvel at the fact that my mom cooked for 10 people nearly every night.
I now understand that growing up in America in the 70’s meant that we were the guinea pigs of today’s modern day processed food culture. The birth of sugar cereals and processed foods were designed to be cheap, convenient, and irresistible, with a long shelf life. And yet with this food culture came weight gain, nutrient deficiencies, toxicity, mass marketing, and the birth of the diabetes epidemic we are now facing as a society.
I can remember starting to diet as a teenager, as many of us can relate to this being the turning point in our relationship with food. My relationship with food began to change with this new “dieting” mindset, and became one of counting calories and fat. As I have learned through my clients over the years, most of the women I have worked with have been obsessively dieting for the majority of their lives.
I had also been on countless antibiotics as a child, which I now know disrupted my micro-biome, and weakened my immune system enough so, that at the age of 19 I had to get my tonsils removed. As a result of the various infections and antibiotics, by my 20’s, low energy, candida, frequent colds and flus and gut impermeability was my new normal, as it had all crept up on me over the years.
After graduating college from Sonoma State University, I was pulled to West Sonoma County, where I did an apprenticeship on an organic farm, and I started to become more aware of the food I was eating, and started to feel the difference fresh quality organic food made for my health and vitality. I dove in to what I now call Deep Nutrition and started harvesting my own seaweed, mushrooms, and wildcrafted herbs, growing my own garden when I could and incorporated these foods into my everyday life. I also discovered fermented foods and how to make them, which have been instrumental in helping me to restore my gut health, my immune system and my digestive fire. All of these practices became an important part of my lifestyle that slowly but surely restored and continues to maintain my health today.
