True Story: A Sweet Science Client Tells All!
Anastasia’s journey from status quo to radiant health
This post comes to Sweet Science courtesy of a longtime client of mine who also happens to be a good friend. Anastasia and I know each other from Russia and we lived in San Francisco at the same time, briefly, before she moved to Germany with her family.
Anastasia has undergone such a health transformation since I’ve known her that I had to ask her to share her story with Sweet Science readers. While she doesn’t identify as an addict, she did give up alcohol for good as a result of her personal—and her family’s—wellness revolution. Read on for one inspiring, real-life, down-to-earth story. And stay for the sweet treats at the end :)
Why—and how—to shift the family dynamic
I ate everything throughout my life. I ate meat and sugar, I drank, I smoked cigarettes socially, and my weakness has always been baked goods. But once I had kids, my thinking about food started transforming. When I had my first child, I began cooking and learning about healthier options.
Through my work with Elena, I began seeing that how we look at food is all emotionally based: how we eat, why we eat certain foods, at what times we eat... I began to see all my emotional attachments. As Elena was telling me these things, I started trying new things. I even started looking at vegetables differently!
Then, we had another baby on the way, and I began to think I needed to make a bigger shift and dig even deeper. I started including more greens in my diet and overall healthier foods, and I started exercising (yoga and pilates). My second pregnancy wound up being much healthier than my first—and I was able to fit into my regular pre-pregnancy jeans shortly after giving birth!
There was another big reason I wanted to make a major shift at this time: we found out that my niece was diagnosed with terminal cancer. The message was coming through to me loud and clear that my family and I needed to live as healthfully as possible.
We used to eat eggs, pancakes, waffles, etc. Today, my breakfast is completely green and plant-based: mostly salad and buckwheat. For my kids, it’s buckwheat with avocado, tomato, cucumber, and steamed broccoli. Broccoli is one thing that the boys have eaten all their lives, but before, they would have it with meat and white rice. Now, the rice is brown or we cook quinoa. There is no longer—like everybody in Russia cooks!—a piece of protein, a starch, and one vegetable. Now beans have taken the place of the animal protein. I can make vegan chili or curry lentils over brown rice with a huge green salad. My kids don’t always eat a big portion of the salad, but they will have some :) Occasionally, I’ll still make pancakes for breakfast, but with a whole grain flour like spelt and a plant-based milk—no eggs or dairy milk.
Three years ago, I switched my family to no dairy. I had a stressful situation at work, my dermatitis was acting up, and my husband was already allergic to dairy. So it just seemed natural. But I loved cheese!!! My husband is German, so we would travel to Europe—which is cheese heaven! Fancy cheese platters were my favorite thing to put together for the parties we would often have at our San Francisco apartment. I really loved cheese…
For a while, we substituted the missing dairy with plant-based milks, butters, and yogurts. Initially, my kids would still have a little bit of dairy cheese here and there, but these days they don’t. We don’t keep any cheese in the refrigerator anymore—not even the plant-based stuff because it can be highly processed. Sometimes I make cheese from cashews, but the main plant-based dairy products we eat are milks (hazelnut, almond, oat, or rice) and yogurt (coconut, almond, or soy). My kitchen is now dairy-free, and I love it.
I took out processed meat at the beginning of this year. My kids love sandwiches and in Germany it’s their national breakfast: buterbrod (sandwich). Always with a variety of meats. You go to the butcher shop, and there are hundreds and hundreds of them! Meat is everywhere. For my kids’ snacks at school, I now make almond butter on a croissant with a banana. My younger one likes an avocado and pickle sandwich! Or I make burritos with cucumber, beans, tomato, lettuce, and avocado.
When I removed the processed meats, the kids would sometimes say, “Oh, I’d rather have bolognese with meat…” but they still eat it made with lentils. When we go out, I don’t say no if they want to order schnitzel, but they rarely do. I don’t offer them eggs, but they sometimes ask for them, maybe once a week. After we stopped eating processed meats, my husband decided to go off meat completely for a month. This is very un-German of him! He’s eaten meat all his life. It’s going to be an interesting month :)
I have to be inventive with my family. I personally can eat very simply, but for the family, it has to have more flavor to it. They do well with curries, or my 11-year-old likes a loaded potato: topped with black beans and spinach. I will say my younger son, age 7, eats everything I make :)
How healthier eating can change our relationship to alcohol (and cigarettes)
I was never an addict, but I loved having a glass of wine. Especially when I moved to California: everyone who lives there and drinks becomes a snob about wine! You just drink wine all the time in California.
A year ago, I did no alcohol for a month. I didn’t realize how hard it would be. I had wanted to take my health to the next level—more exercise and an even healthier diet (no flour, no sugar, no salt, no alcohol). I quickly realized that alcohol just didn’t make sense anymore. With everything I wanted to accomplish regarding how I ate and how I wanted to be physically, alcohol just didn’t fit into my lifestyle. I also saw the difference in how my skin looked, even early on. People started complimenting me on how fresh and vibrant I looked. I had to attribute it to no alcohol and green smoothies.
But: it was still hella hard. Mostly because there is so much social stigma around not drinking, and everywhere you go there is a drink. It was like this in California, and it’s like this in Germany. There are drinks drinks drinks everywhere you are invited! Every evening out—it doesn’t even have to be a late evening. So it was strange to go out and not drink. I never considered myself a drinker, but I always enjoyed drinking when I was in a happy mood or celebrating something. Drinking was never a problem for me; it was part of fun social interactions.
Yet that month when I decided on no alcohol, I understood that it is very hard to let go. We had beautiful weather and you feel like a glass of champagne… So I did have slip-ups. But I started drinking less and less in the months that followed. I had a glass here and there, but I started feeling like wine was just making me feel really tired, and even hungover the next morning.
This year, I started to see the whole thing more clearly. If I had two or three glasses of champagne, I wouldn’t wake up with a headache exactly, but it would feel like I had more than just those two or three glasses. I would just feel tired and lazy; like I wanted to lie down rather than stand up. I would be in this “veg” mode for half the day. I didn’t like it.
Also, I was a social smoker: I only wanted to smoke when I had a glass of wine. But I found that with non-drinking, there was no desire for smoking.
The sweet stuff: How to deal with sugar & kids
Both my kids are fine with the way we eat because vegetables have been around most of their lives. We talk about food a lot. I tell them why we’re doing what we’re doing, and they understand. The main thing they complain about is sugar, so I’ve started to tweak our desserts.
In my perfect world, we would have no animal protein and we would put a lid on sugar. I know sugar is the hardest one because it’s out there: grandparents, birthdays, school. So here’s what I’m currently doing to decrease our sugar intake and make what we do eat healthier.
I use only what I call natural sugars. If I bake a dessert, I use date syrup (and no animal products), or I will buy a dessert from a vegan place. I’m just at the beginning of my baking journey and I want to develop more recipes. But for the kids, it doesn’t really matter as long as it tastes sweet. For my son Misha’s birthday, I made a sweet potato chocolate cake and everyone was satisfied with just one piece! In addition, none of us experienced the bloated, heavy feeling that we get from eating regular cake. All four of us love baked stuff, so that means I always need to have some healthy sweets on hand. Otherwise the kids will ask for candy or processed cookies.
I made this Perfect Vegan Carrot Cake from the Forks over Knives cookbook the other day and couldn’t stop eating it. I realize that I do have an attachment to sugar which I don’t fully understand yet, but eventually I would like to work on it and let it go. The good news is that most of my sugar now comes from healthy sources like home-baked, plant-based desserts.
Advice & incentives for newcomers to holistic health
For me, I did not become interested in wellness because my health was deteriorating. I just started reading about how food affects my body and how I age. When my niece got sick, I wanted to help my brother's family to get healthier during the crisis. And when I became a mother, I wanted to be healthier, stronger. I didn’t want my kids to have to go to the hospital and feed me! I want to be a vibrant grandmother, and I also want my kids to be the healthiest people and make healthy choices naturally when they grow up. I now understand that I can only do that with food, with movement, and by growing as a person.
I don’t believe in our healthcare; it’s not going to save us. Mostly, I want my kids to be healthy, and the only way that will happen is if I am an example. I want them to be as healthy as they can be for as long as they live.
Basically, it’s going to be hard. You have to stick to it. Nothing is given to us that is not hard; everything that happens to us that’s good also has a difficult side. The important thing is to stick to it. You will slip, and that’s fine. Just get back to your routine.
Also, prepare, prepare, prepare. For me, success was all about preparation. And preparation is hard, too! When we take road trips, I prepare a cooler of foods. Before I go out to eat, I think about what kinds of meals my family and I can have that are healthy. It all takes time, but it’s all worth it.
Recipes: Anastasia’s healthy treats
Enjoy!
I’m Elena Singh, founder of the Sweet Science wellness program. I’m a certified nutrition counselor, science-based health coach, and addiction survivor. I help people in recovery heal their bodies and minds so they can learn to love sober life—not just survive it.