Hi there, nice to meet you!
I’m Stacy and Eat All the Colors is my corner of the internet!
My website reflects a healthier style of eating and living specifically focused on preventing and reversing disease – a lifestyle supported by a diet full of fresh, natural, unprocessed, colorful and hydrating foods.
You may not have ever considered eating this way. I didn't either - until I started having digestion issues, I wasn't consistently sleeping well, I had gained some weight, and was just not feeling as well as I had in the past.
I wanted to eat healthier and my research convinced me that improving my diet was the place to start.
A bit about me
Raised in Omaha, Nebraska, I am still proud to be a Cornhusker at heart. Over the years, I was also lucky enough to live in other amazing cities, namely Minneapolis, MN, San Francisco, CA, Los Gatos, CA, and Naples, FL. After all that, I found a home in Southern California, and that’s where I research, write and cook from today.
How I started eating healthier
When my dad died suddenly of a heart attack when I was 11 years old, I wanted to take steps to prevent dying from heart disease myself.
I started researching. Around the same time, Kenneth H. Cooper, MD, MPH, a leading pioneer of preventive medicine, released his groundbreaking and best-selling book, Aerobics. What began as a mission to quantify the amount of exercise needed for health sparked a worldwide fitness revolution.
Reading the book kicked off my journey to figure out how to prevent or at least minimize my risk of chronic diseases and optimize my overall health by building new habits around exercise and diet -- at first. Back then, people weren't talking about the “pathways of aging” as described by Dr Michael Greger in his enlightening books like How Not to Die and How Not to Age. Other lifestyle variables such as managing stress, getting good quality sleep, and having a supportive social network also hadn't yet hit the scene. Those came later in my journey.
I became a dedicated runner, swimmer and cyclist. The focus on diet started in college, when I was having dinner with a cross-country running teammate who was a fellow Chemistry major. He lent me his pear "because you don’t have anything green on your plate,” he said. Then, he told me that, “If you eat all the colorful foods, you’ll benefiti from the different vitamins, minerals and micronutrients you need to stay healthy.” I didn’t think too hard about it at the time, but it sounded logical to me. My focus on eating all the colors had begun.
The journey to eat healthier was definitely a journey
Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t start out eating the way I do now. Along the way, I tried a lot of different schemes before finding the one that works best for me. For a while, I tried eating just meat, fat and vegetables - a doctor's recommendation - but felt sluggish and gained so much weight that I split my pants one day when I was out with friends. To lose that weight and get back to balance, I used a digital app to calculate the macros (protein, fats and carbs) I needed and adjusted them until I lost the weight. But, over time I got tired of weighing and counting every mouthful. I tried other approaches too. But, somehow, I just never felt at peace with an approach that satisfied me, gave me energy, and didn’t cause digestion problems or other issues. Until I got back to the basics of eating all the colors.
The recipes and stories on my blog reflect what I’ve learned about how to eat healthier to prevent, arrest, and reverse the leading causes of death and disability. Hint: Diet has a big part to play.
No one way of eating is right for everyone, but I encourage you to try a few new, colorful and delicious recipes on your search for a plan that makes you feel your best.
Stacy