What lead me to be the man I am today. My Story.
Food. Life. Love. Light. Vibration. Frequency. I am writing this to let people know that you are not alone with the feelings you have inside.
Growing up, I was always active. Playing sports. Playing outside until the streetlight came on with my parents actively looking for us at dusk :). This was a lifestyle that I thrived on during my childhood and into my teenage years.
The smell of freshly cut grass on the soccer field. Dirt on my baseball pants. Playing in the rain. Getting involved in a pick-up basketball game outside of Audubon Highschool on a summer night. The smell of the gymnasium. The bonds that were made through team sports. The rivalries that pumped you up. Friday night lights! That is what drove me. I was an elite athlete growing up as I dominated every sport and game that I played. I ran in the Penn Relays, I played soccer in Belgium, I played High School Varsity basketball as a Freshman, I set track and field records in Catholic Diocese sport leagues, I was asked to play in the Babe Ruth baseball league when I was in 3rd grade. I am not tooting my own horn, just setting the story line…
As I got older, wrong decisions were made for the sports I wanted to play versus the sports I ended up playing. High School became a disaster. Certain events came to a head that landed me in a severe depressive state. This led to my first attempt at suicide. With help from family, friends, teachers, and a little self-help, I was able to make my life better and move forward. As I made it to college, it became clearer that my pursuit of becoming a professional athlete was dwindling rather quickly as my health was declining at a rapid rate. My body was literally falling apart before my eyes. I developed compartment syndrome, my lower back was always spasming, my weight was fluctuating, my emotions were up and down, my mental health was there but still unstable, I was sweating while doing absolutely nothing, cysts and tumors became a regular growth occurrence on my face, constant acid reflux, sinus infections, always on antibiotics, severe stress, severe anxiety, panic attacks, lost my hair, an overactive bladder, and then at 24...BOOM. “I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes.
After many Doctors appointments and hearing the same information over and over and over and over again, I felt that I was leaving the office with very little information and no hope. I was told to eat less carbs, use insulin, and get familiar with different medical devices that can help me. Although the last part has been helpful, there is not much else they could have told me. This is not their fault; this is the fault of a system. The Nutritional professionals that were recommended to me did not help much either. It was kind of the same information. Eat less carbs and stay away from sugar… Great. The only thing I knew at the time was that if you do not take care of yourself, you would lose a limb and develop crazy chronic illnesses.
Looking back at it and my lifestyle choices, I should not be surprised. My life consisted of a steady consumption of high processed carbohydrates, fast foods, soda, candy, alcohol, antibiotics, poor communication with my feelings, and some physical activity after High School. My lifestyle was a reflection of what I was taught growing up in school, through society, and the “Mainstream Lifestyle”. I became what I ate, what I was taught, and I identified as my diseases and nothing else.
After being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, I tried to take control of my life. I thought I was eating better. I was consuming less soda, less fast foods, less processed carbohydrates and monitoring my blood sugar. At the same time, I was eating processed, pesticide, GMO foods that were jammed packed with who knows what. That change only lasted so long because I had ZERO relationship with food and wanted to “Live” like a “normal” person. I went back to my old ways because I had my insulin, so everything was okay. I eventually got to the same point again where I was waking up every morning and asking myself, “Do I really want to do this anymore?” I was seriously contemplating ending my life, again. I knew better but it was a serious option I was contemplating. I ended up going on antidepressants, seeing a psychologist, but that made everything worse. I just became numb to my entire environment. I felt nothing. Wanted nothing. I became manipulative to gain self-satisfaction in all the wrong ways at the expense of other people. I was self-sabotaging on purpose. I ended up drinking every night to take away the pain and kind of wishing not to wake up the next morning.
I can’t tell you the exact day, nor can I tell you what clicked in my head, but I woke up one day and said, “I am not doing this anymore”. I decided to make a change. This next part of my story changed my life forever.
I reached out to an old grade school acquaintance, Brian Kane, he is now one of my closest friends. He owns a gym, Evolution Fitness, Now located in Barrington, NJ. We met at his gym and we talked about how I wanted to open a gym for kids. This never came to be, but that meeting changed my life. I ended up becoming a member at his gym about 6 months later. His gym changed my life. It made me begin to feel again. I started to take my physical body more serious. I was seeing changes and feeling changes. It opened my eyes to a new way of exercising. I was no longer going to a boxed gym, spending 30 minutes on an elliptical, doing some curls, maybe some crunches and then leaving feeling like I accomplished something. Brian’s programs got me feeling like a human again.
This became one part of my journey as Evolution Fitness later brought on a Nutrition Therapist. This was another world that I was hanging out in the shadows. The world of Nutrition. What powerful tool that we all have access to but do not take advantage of on a daily basis.
“Let Food be Thy Medicine” became a whole new meaning. I became immediately obsessed and saw drastic improvement in my physical health, my diabetic health, mental health, emotional health, and the way I looked at the world. Everything was unmasked.
I eventually made the decision to go to the Nutritional Therapy institute to take control of my own health. I needed to know more. I needed the information to apply to my everyday life to see what I could achieve. Classes came so easy to me as if I were meant to be doing this for me.
5 years later, down 65lbs, and using 215 less units of insulin every three days, I have made my body into a metabolic machine. My stress and anxiety are under control, my mental state of mind is stable and improving drastically every day, disease is short lived or non-existent, injuries are few and far between as recovery time is accelerated, and my dream to cure myself of type 1 diabetes is in reach. I no longer self-sabotage, I treat people with respect, I deal with my feelings to get through them, and I look to better the world every day. I am a completely transformed person. Light and Love fill my soul and I want to share it with everyone!
I have finally started Honey Pot Health, my Nutrition Wellness Business. I am following through on what makes me happy and I am very appreciative for everyone who has given me the opportunity to work with them. I am very thankful for Brian Kane and Danielle Kane for giving me the opportunity to let me run Nutrition Services at their gym. I put my love and light into every one of our clients. I want nothing more than to see our clients feel better through food.
Food is everything to me. I finally understand the relationship a person has with food. The struggles. The pleasures. The social aspects. The temptations. The triggers. The traumas. The comfort. The pain. I feel all of it.
The thing that changed everything for me was this…
I take responsibility for me. I no longer make excuses. I am my truth. I consciously make my decisions knowing the potential outcomes. I no longer rely on anyone else for my health or happiness. It is all me. I will never go back to the way I used to live. Never.
Knowledge is Power. Implementing that Knowledge and seeing results will take you to a higher level of consciousness.
Light and Love,
Jim
The Honey Pot Health