I help women who are struggling with chronic digestion issues, heal their gut so that they can be free from pain & discomfort and take back control over their daily lives.
Me and My Story
Like most women, I’m a lot of things to a lot of people. I’m a mom, a grandmother, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a student, and a health coach, with other titles thrown in as needed. I’m a down-to-earth southern girl with a bit of a country twang and I truly love the simple things in life. Whether I’m hiking, bike riding, playing tennis, or out camping on the lake, I love the great outdoors.
My passion for health began about 7 years ago. I had always considered myself to be pretty healthy even though I had bouts of UTIs, I was anemic all the time, and my stomach hurt most of the time. One day after coming home with raging belly cramps and scarfing down a roll because that was the only thing that helped it feel better, I decided I had had enough. It was time to get to the bottom of this thing called IBS. I started doing some reading about IBS and came across “gluten-free” diets. I remember that the first book I read was Elizabeth Hasselbeck’s G-Free Diet. I thought “what the heck, why not” and decided to give it a shot. Holy Moly, what a life-changing decision that was! Gone were the “I cant’ stand up straight, my belly is killing me” cramps. Gone was the “I feel like someone stuck an air hose down my throat” belly bloat. Gone were the days of curling up on the couch feeling dazed and useless from the IBS medication. The weird thing was that it only took about 2 weeks for me to notice that I felt so much better. I was a bit angry and a bit happy at the same time. Why didn’t anyone ever suggest such a simple solution to such miserable pain?
I wondered what else was hiding out there that I didn’t know about. At the time I was a “coupon queen.” I blew away my family and friends when I could buy $100 worth of groceries and pay maybe $20. My daughter always joked that at the checkout counter the store would end up owing me! Turns out, the so-called food I was buying was about as useless as eating cardboard. (Actually, I read that rats who ate cardboard, lived longer than those that ate the food in the box!) I didn’t even hesitate and chunked my coupons and gave up my “stockpile” of chemical-laden so-called foods.
When I entered my late 30’s, all hell broke loose. My get-up-and-go got-up-and-went. I cried when I realized I forgot to lay out something for dinner because I couldn’t remember squat. I couldn’t sleep for nothing, and when I did sleep I woke up drenched in sweat. My weight started to creep up no matter how much I exercised and I resorted to tears once again. I was surrounded by people who loved me but I felt lonely, depressed, and defeated. Something had clearly changed. Perimenopause had hit me early and hit me hard. I was one hot mess! I made appointments with my doctor, but he didn’t have any answers. Once again, I hit up my old friend Google. I knew that there was someone out there who had been where I was and I was determined to find her. I found many stories of how women went from doctor to doctor in hopes of healing, but walked away with lame diagnoses and prozac. I also found a local alternative doctor who truly listened to me (Hallelujah!) and I worked my way back to someone I recognized.
It was truly heart-wrenching to read the stories of so many suffering women. I realized I was very blessed to have been able to get my life back. Most of all, I realized that I had a real nack for being able to learn about the thyroid, adrenals, and hormones and then simplify it enough to talk about it to others. The more I talked about how eating crap messes with your head and your body, how it only takes a few simple tweaks to straighten out the mess, and how I made it a priority to get my 8 hours of shut-eye every night, the more passionate I became. So I got my butt in gear and hit the ground running.
I became a certified personal trainer so that I could learn what makes our body move and why and teach others to get up off their duff. I studied with Dr Sara Gottfried (author of The Hormone Cure) so that I could learn about hormone balancing and help other 30 & 40 something women break free from the nightmare of perimenopause. I became a student and graduated from the Institute of Transformational Nutrition so that I could learn about healing the body, mind, and soul and coach other women to heal theirs. I studied with Dr Tom O’Bryan, a world renowned gluten specialist, so that I could pass on the understanding of how common and how devastating food allergies are impacting so many people in different and sometimes hidden ways. Currently, I am working towards my degree as a Nutritionist so that I can help others understand that real food is the cure to what ails them (or at least gets them going in the right direction).
These are the events in my life that lit a fire in me to take action in helping others who are suffering and don’t know where else to turn. I want you to know that it is possible to be truly healthy, have loads of energy, and just be darn-tooting happy. I want you to experience the joy of knowing that you can get better, feel better, and live better and I want you to be able to tell Misery not to let the door hit it in the rear on the way out the door.
With all my best,
Kristin Bowie
