Meet Brittany

My health journey has been filled with trial and error and is certainly still a work in

progress. I am nowhere near perfect and actually do not believe it is possible to be

100% clean or “toxic free”. I have an ongoing wish list of items I want to try or

change, but never put too much pressure on myself to make this all happen at

once. I do what I can and try to keep a well balanced approach for myself

and my family. 

 

 I have always been conscious of my weight, but never cared enough to diet. Life

is way too short to not eat good food and have fun! Both of my parents love to

cook and meals have always been a love language in our family. That being said,

our meals usually included a canned or frozen side dish, some type of delicious

rolls or pasta all to be paired with a meat usually cooked on the grill. My college

roommate opened my eyes to eating vegetables. She loved to roast veggies in the

oven for dinner and threw together a spinach salad with tuna or chicken for lunch.

Lucky for me she was always willing to share!  In my 20’s, working out and running

was how I “kept myself healthy”. If I ate too much, drank too much, or all of the

above, I would just run longer distances and spend more time in the gym. I kept

this up for many years, but never seemed to get the results I wanted. 

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My search for a cleaner lifestyle began when I was diagnosed with Trigeminal Neuralgia. This felt like it came out of nowhere. I was in my 20's, newly married, and had just become a mom. All of a sudden I found myself with debilitating facial pains. These pains were impacting every aspect of my life. The pain felt like an electrical shock any time I moved my face meaning it was difficult to talk and eat making me very depressed. I was put on medication that made me feel terrible and was told I would not be able to have more children. The only cure was to undergo brain surgery in hopes this would fix me. In 2015, with a one year old at home, I went in for surgery. It was a brutal 6 week recovery, but eventually I was feeling better and the pains seemed to be gone. Unfortunately, 2 years later, the pains were back. This time I had 2 children and was not interested in another round of surgery. I started doing my own research and learned about the connection of food as medicine and how to reduce inflammation with diet and lifestyle. Right around the same time, I started taking interest in a friend’s company, Branch Basics that had really begun to generate a buzz. I followed their lead and started with removing toxic cleaning products and fragrances one step at a time. I still remember the day I threw away my “fancy” collection of perfumes that I had on display in my bathroom for years. I thought about donating them, but I could not bring myself to give them to anyone else knowing how harmful these can be. With every change we made in our home and in our diets, we started to feel better and more energized. My husband and I started exploring new foods and found that real, nourishing food was delicious. There is something so comforting to me about having a refrigerator full of colorful, fresh foods. With these changes, I was able to avoid that second surgery and have successfully been free of my painful symptoms on my own with no medication! 

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I am in awe of how our bodies can naturally heal themselves and how good you can actually feel. Now I am hooked and never want to go back!