Note from Beth:
Meet Karen! We have known each other for close to 20 years when homeschooling our now adult kids. I love staying connected with our similar message about food & health.
Karen’s focus is adding a variety of veggies (& fiber!) to your meals. It is not about being a meat eater or vegan (after 30+ years of being different forms of vegetarian/vegan I’m now a meat eater). It is about eating fresh, unprocessed & nutrient dense foods to boost immunity & health.
If you’d like help achieving health goals & ending yo-yo dieting contact Karen at KarenDaGravaMD@yahoo.com
I did most of my growing up in the 70’s. When I was just a little kid, I was curious about the world, and particularly drawn to my Aunt Kathy. She is my mom’s younger sister. She was only 14 when I was born so barely an adult as of my earliest memories. She was so cool with her hippie style, VW BUG, and all the best music of the time. And she was also vegetarian. She baked her own brown bread that I couldn’t get enough of. I later learned that she became a vegetarian for humanitarian reasons but I became passionate about health and nutrition and my interest in vegetarianism soared in my early teens.
That was 40 years ago but it began my journey to learn as much as I could about the science of eating well. I did become a vegetarian myself for about a year in high school, but since my mom had no interest, it was all on me. She was supportive. She took me to the local Co-op, where I’d volunteer my time for a chance to shop there but cooking for one, at age 15, against the mainstream had its challenges. I remember making Tennessee Corn Pone, from the Laurel’s Kitchen cookbook, which sounded so good. Unfortunately, I accidentally used a Tablespoon of salt where the recipe called for a teaspoon. Oops! It was terrible but my mom didn’t want to throw away all that food so she said I’d have to eat it. That experience pretty much suspended my foray into vegetarianism for a very long time.
My passion for vegetarianism may have faded but my passion for health and nutrition did not. I read all the latest books on the subject and unfortunately, for quite some time, followed the popular recommendations, which for much of the 80’s, 90’s, and beyond was to eat low fat. I was so opposed to eating fat that when my kids were growing up, I secretly worried that they weren’t getting enough fat to absorb fat-soluble vitamins. Thank goodness I learned the value of good olive oil because we at least had that! I began only buying organic produce whenever possible, even joining several co-ops over the years. I grew gardens and worked in community gardens and began only buying humanely treated animal products, preferably from local farms because I had learned it was healthier. My education on the mistreatment of animals came slowly and more recently.
While teaching in the elementary public schools of Baltimore City, we brought in a young woman from the Cooperative Extension office with whom I co-facilitated a school garden and a “Eat the Rainbow” curriculum to teach my little PreK students the value and pleasures of eating a variety of plants. We sauteed kale that we grew and made salads and delicious smoothies.
A few years ago I decided to become a Certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach. I thoroughly enjoyed learning the dietary theories and unpacking all the conflicting science around nutrition. I tried various things along the way. I had been eating a low carb (sometimes Ketogenic) diet, which seemed to be an easy way to maintain a fairly lean body. I avoided starchy vegetables but got tons of leafy greens and other lower carb veggies, AND a lot of meat and other animal products. Then, through my coursework I was introduced to the Blue Zones and the Mediterranean Way of Eating (WOE) that proved to promote vitality and longevity. I decided that this is how I wished to eat. Longevity runs in my family and I figured, if I’m going to live to 100 or more, I’m going to do it as a young, active person, rather than be confined to a nursing home, dependent on someone else to take care of me.
I bought a book called the Mediterranean Method by Steven Masley, MD, which takes the “famously healthy and life-enhancing “prescription” one step further, adding a “skinny” twist: he focuses on…a low-glycemic load.” Reintroducing all the carbs (even without much bread or pasta) caused me to gain weight. To be perfectly honest, I probably could’ve done fine but I had a few personal, and family crises causing grief, followed by the pandemic, which led to emotional overeating. Despite my passion for health and nutrition, I had developed a pretty unhealthy relationship with food.
Fast forward to this past winter. I had been doing a great deal of personal growth work and I finally chose to get control and be the healthiest me I could be. I was learning as much as I could about the Mediterranean WOE and began losing weight, slowly.
In March, a Health Coach I “met” in a Facebook group invited me to join a 21 Day Gut Reset Challenge offered by Danielle Arsenault, founder of Pachavega Living Foods Education, yoga and Certified Raw Chef instructor. I don’t even think I knew it was vegan when I signed up but one thing I knew was I was going to learn how to make things taste great! The first 21 days of April proved to be amazing! I ate copious amounts of fabulous plant-based foods and was never hungry. I learned the importance of eating sprouts and how easy it is to grow your own! The concepts Danielle taught in the challenge reinforced lots of things I learned in my Health Coaching courses such as the importance of consuming a wide variety of plants, eating at least a little fermented food, and sea vegetables (seaweed). But I also began to shed pounds! Over 21 days I lost 7 pounds (and a few more since the 21 days ended).
My suggestion for making it simple to eat the way I’ve been eating is to designate a prep day. Put a couple pots of beans on the stove, cook up a couple different grains (brown or wild rice, farro…) or pseudo-grains (quinoa, amaranth), chop, grate, or spiralize some veggies, make a couple of dressings or sauces, make a soup. Maybe even throw some of it in the freezer to simplify a busy week in the future. Then, for several days, all you have to do is throw things together! I’ve been starting every day with water (plain or with lemon juice or apple cider vinegar, or a detox tea with perhaps ginger and turmeric), then a green smoothie, usually filled with all kinds of seeds and superfoods in addition to leafy greens, other veggies, and some fruit. I might add Ceylon cinnamon, vanilla, cacoa, fresh herbs, coconut, ginger, almond butter, anything goes! I find taking the extra few minutes to make my meals look pretty is worth it in the form of self-care. We eat first with our eyes!
I’m also learning to slow down. I always taught that it’s better to eat slowly but my thinking was only that this gives the brain a chance to recognize that we’re full and signals us to stop eating. However, taking a few deep breaths before beginning a meal slows the stress responses in our bodies and gives the digestive system a chance to fully engage. Also, chewing (even our smoothies) mixes amylase from our saliva with the food and begins the process of breaking it down for digestion.
I fully believe in a predominantly plant-based diet. My motto is eat real food! Your food should BE ingredients, not HAVE ingredients! At this time I feel fantastic, but I’m not ready to commit to a 100% vegan diet just yet. However, when I do eat chicken, for example, I’ll have a whole lot of veggies and about a third of a chicken breast on the side or cut up on a salad or in a stir-fry. Make veggies the star of the show! I honestly believe that eating whole foods, mostly plants, will make me the healthiest, happiest version of myself and that the rest of my excess weight will drop off naturally. And now I wish this for the rest of the world!
