Chapter 3: The Idea

Still humming from unlocking my purpose, I now sat down to figure out what problem to solve.  How could I combine my passion (helping kids), my skill (food marketing), and a problem that needed to be solve?

I was formally diagnosed with an autoimmune disease 5 years ago.  It was a "now what?" moment for me.  I didn't want to use a lot of different medications and I thought I could manage it through my diet.  I have legitimately tried every single diet and read every single health/diet book available.  I started with Gluten-Free, tried Intermittent Fasting and experimented with Keto, Paleo, Whole 30, Vegetarian, and Vegan, to name a few popular ones.  All had varying degrees of positive results but I kept exploring. 

While I was thinking about my "idea".  I was contacted to participate in an University of Illinois study for Autoimmune skin diseases that used the SAD to AIP in 6 weeks program.  AIP (Autoimmune Protocol) was intimidating to me.  AIP is a more strict version of Whole30 focused on eliminating inflammatory foods (no grain, no dairy, no nuts, no seeds, no soy, no legumes, no nightshades, no eggs, no additives & artificial sugar). 

AIP was the cleanest diet I have ever heard of and it eliminated foods that cause inflammation to help improve gut health.

I was invested in improving my health and I signed up for the program.  Around week 3, I noticed my energy was strong and steady and my skin started to clear up.  After that it kept getting better.  I was able to identify trigger foods (gluten, soy, vegetable oil, grain, and refined sugar) and create a sustainable approach to diet to manage my autoimmune disease. 

The key principles that resonated across most of the different food/diet philosophies were: eat better fresh, whole food and eat less junk.  That made a lot of sense to me but it wasn't always sustainable - I didn't have the time or energy to cook every single meal!  The hardest meal was breakfast as it became very repetitive.  I LOVE cereal and I could not have it even though my daughter was eating it all the time (well half of it would wind up on the floor).  

Lightbulb, I should take the world's cleanest diet (AIP) and use it to clean up junk food, starting with breakfast!  There was still something missing, I need to live my purpose.  I then made the decision to give 20% of my profit to fight pediatric cancer.  Every single business person said "you're crazy, that's too much!"  That's how I knew it was the right move!