Aspiring Italian Uomo Universale. Bit of a bon vivant. Curious about food, fun and fixing health.
If you watch a puppy do incredible things for a treat, you’ve witnessed my whole life. My life is a series of unnecessary efforts just for a taste of food.
After graduating from the University of Florida’s Journalism College, I landed my dream job. I was paid to convince journalists that New Orleans offers the best restaurants and bars in the country. The job didn’t require much convincing, but it did require eating and drinking around the clock.
I liked the long hours and weekend work. My health, on the other hand, did not.
At my first annual physical, I weighed 260 pounds. My doctor tried to prescribe medica-tion for high blood pressure. I didn’t want a lifetime dependent on pills, so my doctor told me to lose weight.
Such a simple suggestion.
I dove into research, and I immediately found all the conflicting information was over-whelming. Is this Atkins dude serious? Eating only burgers, bacon and cheese is the best way to lose weight? (Spoiler alert: It’s not.)
I hoped living around healthy people would reveal their skinny secrets. I moved to San Diego to help a new company market a line of nutrition bars. On a business trip to Cleveland, I was introduced to Dr. Todd J. Pesek, M.D., Heinen’s Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Pesek gifted me his book, “Eat Yourself Super.” Growing up meat was at the center of every plate. I wasn’t jazzed about eating all plants, but I was running out of options. I read the book on my flight home – and everything changed.
By changing my habits and embracing nature’s foods, I lost more than 50 pounds, normalized my blood pressure and feel better in my 30s than I did in my 20s. In 2014, I left a fast-growing technology startup to help Dr. Todd Pesek launch a plant-based wellness company: Nutritional Roots.
Certified in Plant Medicine, Nutrition & Permaculture
Nutritional Roots: Plant-Based Wellness
Nutritional Roots completes your diet with clinically proven supplements made from in-novative, easy-to-absorb ingredients. Our products combine Dr. Pesek’s lifelong passion for herbal medicine with his clinical success in treating thousands of patients in Cleveland. After years focused on refining our products, we are elevating the industry’s standard of quality and affordability with the rollout of our new solutions.
I know firsthand the power of plant-based eating and supplementation. I’m proud of the growth and evolution of Nutritional Roots, and I can’t wait to share these incredible new products – available at your local Heinen’s, Chamberlin’s, Earth Origins Market, Akins, Amazon or NutritionalRoots.com 🙂 – with as many people as possible!
My years focused on Nutritional Roots evolved into a passion for wholesome food, botan-icals and sustainability.
Plant-First Diet®: Nutrition & Fitness
When you lose more than 50 pounds, people start asking you for your secrets. I founded the Plant-First Diet® to help others manage their weight and nutrition. The Plant-First Diet® is designed around 5 simples principles to make it easy to incorporate whole food plants into your diet and live an active lifestyle – without sacrificing the foods and things you love.
WELLTH MGMT: My Self-Help Podcast
Investing is important, but there is more to enjoying retirement than financial discipline. Financial planners are forgetting a key piece of advice: You can’t enjoy your wealth with-out your health.
I’m here to help.
On WELLTH MGMT, I explore how to live your best life every damn day and improve your life in many ways. We cover topics such as nutrition, fitness, supplements, longevity, sustainability, cannabis, wine and personal development.
If you want to chat about making vitamins or supplements, marketing/branding, sustain-ability/permaculture or food/nutrition – or just need a workout/drinking buddy – I’d love to grab a coffee, lunch or drinks.
What the hell is aN Italian Uomo Universale?
Renaissance man, also called Universal Man, Italian Uomo Universale, an ideal that developed in Renaissance Italy from the notion expressed by one of its most-accomplished representatives, Leon Battista Alberti (1404–72), that “a man can do all things if he will.” – Britannica
What the hell is a bon vivant?
I heard the term on a TV show, and I immediately googled it. It’s french for “one who lives well,” according to Wikipedia. And I certainly love to live well.