Where it all started

Hi, I’m Courtney! I sit here and I am writing this not knowing where to start, so, I guess I will start with the basics. I am a 33-year-old working mom of a very active 11-year-old boy. About 20 years ago I was battling sickness of the not widely known disease at the time, Crohn’s. To add to it, my son was diagnosed with Eosinophilic Esophagitis. Navigating nutrition is already a huge battle in our house between the foods I have developed an absolute HATE towards, associating them with a consequence and the things that he could not have because he had an allergen that we could not pinpoint. To be honest, I never took my diet seriously because I am stubborn, and I need to figure things out on my own. After years of running and not maintaining a healthy weight, getting frustrated because I couldn’t PR my marathon time to Boston qualify, I realized that, although I was completing the races, gummy bears were not the way to nourish while the intense training, so I read everything I could, meal prepped things that I would eat instead of skipping meals at work. The biggest change that I had to make was venturing out on healthy foods that I refused to eat because of past experiences! I started introducing one of those foods that I hated until it was no longer a mind over matter situation, forcing myself through them. The first one was bananas. We all know that they have nutritional value but gosh did I hate everything about it! The texture, the flavor and the smell. It was the worst probably 2 weeks trying to stomach 1 day! I remember my husband videoing my reaction the first day because I cannot hide my facial expressions and also, I have a very week stomach. Here I am months later, eating foods that I never would have thought I would and finding things that have flavor to help with my sensitive stomach.