Brooke’s RESTART® Journey

Brooke is a previous RESTART® participant of Amy Gonzalez, The Holistic Dietitian. RESTART® is a 5-week nutrition workshop with a 3-week sugar detox or “real food” challenge intertwined. Susana expressed interested in sharing her story of her journey doing the program. Read our interview below!

Tell me a little bit about yourself!
My name is Brooke.  I am 30 years old and I am a Certified Birth Doula with Know Better Doula Better.  I’m married to my best friend, Tyler, and we have two kids.  An almost 3 year old little boy and an 8 month old little girl.  Growing up, I pretty much survived on Happy Meals and Hot Pockets (and that is not much of an exaggeration at all.) A few years back, I had some issues arise and discovered I had autoimmune issues.  No one could really pinpoint a thing to fix but my body was freaking out on a lot of different levels.  I had a friend tell me how she was controlling her autoimmune condition with her diet and everything she said made sense.  I gave changing my diet a try and it was amazing how well it worked.  Even though I’ve had a cleaned up diet for a while I was still drawn to RESTART because I started to realize how much sugar I was consuming and how intensely I was craving something sweet after every single meal.

What intrigued you about RESTART®?
I’ve known Amy for a while and I know that she truly lives everything that she teaches.  I know if she could make this work with caring for a crazy toddler then I could too.

What made you want to join the program?
Primarily, my desire to cut my sugar cravings/addiction.

How did your friends and family react?
My husband was supportive but not exactly excited. haha

Did you slip up?
I did, but I just gave myself grace then picked right back up with my next food choices.

What was the hardest for you?
Being limited on the fruit was the hardest because I typically start everyday with a banana. Clementines have always been a quick, easy snack for me too.  So I would fix fruit for my toddler and not be able to take a bite.  That was hard.

Did you ever feel deprived?
I missed chocolate. haha. Honestly though, especially with nursing mom modifications,  I still feel like there were a lot of different things I could eat.

What was your biggest take-away from the program?
I had no idea how blood sugar levels worked and who much of a huge impact they have on the rest of our body.  Discovering all of that was really eye opening.

What was your favorite part of the program?
It was great being able to walk through the detox and learn with other moms.  We all knew how it was extra hard with little ones but everyone offered encouragement throughout the process.

Did you notice any changes to your energy level/productivity?
I noticed that my mid afternoon slump disappeared!

What surprised you the most out of the experience?
I think I was surprised that someone like me, who already had a lot of knowledge about gut health and importance of diet, could still have so much more to learn and how it all works together for optimal well being.

What was the greatest benefit you saw from yourself?
I found a renewed sense of the importance of why we are mindful of what we put into our bodies, not only for myself but also for my children.

Would you do it again?
I would definitely do it again.  It’s hard not to struggle when most of the world isn’t mindful of what they put into their bodies at all.  The accountability and reminders would be a great reason to do it again.

It’s Amy here! I am currently taking registrations for my upcoming RESTART® sessions! I have both online and in-person opportunities available!

Check out date listings on my RESTART® page.

Hope to see you there!