Living Your Fresh Life

Happy Fall Y’all. Emily and I can’t believe it is already the end of October. Time really does fly by when you’re adulting. Thanksgiving and Christmas are right around the corner, and then it will be a new year for the Her Story team. Stay tuned for some exciting news coming your way in the next couple of weeks. Enough about us, let's get to why you all are here. This month’s story really is such a treat for you all. We discuss something that we’ve never had the pleasure to discuss on this blog before. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing this sweet lady for several years now, as she is a family friend of my in-laws, and she has become a dear friend to me. Truly, she exudes beauty and kindness so well, and you all will get to see this first hand while reading her words. So let's get started…

Her name is Ashley Stepkoski

Pulling up to the Stepkoski house, Emily and I soon discovered that it is the perfect representation of Ashley herself. Lovely purple mums and bright orange pumpkins lined the steps to her front door where we were greeted by a bouncing Boston Terrier and Ashley’s youngest daughter. Their house is in a quaint neighborhood, and as soon as you arrive you feel at home. As Ashley invited us inside, we were first struck by her sense of decorative skills, which are inspiring, but also the warmth and authenticity that wrapped around her home. Cinnamon, clove, nutmeg and orange danced forth from a nearby essential oil diffuser as we settled into her lovely living room ready to begin our conversation and to be inspired. We asked Ashley to tell us about herself. She answered, “I’m married to my soulmate and we’ve been married for 19 years (coming up on the big 20 y’all). We have 3 wonderful children whom we homeschool who are 14, 11 and 5 years old. Every moment has flown by. The oldest and youngest are our girls and sometimes my mind plays tricks on me with those two...One moment I’m looking at the 5 year old, the next at the 14 year old and I can’t figure out how time has flown by so quickly. People warn you about that when you have children and they are so right. I savor every moment with these loves that’s for sure! Homeschooling them is such a fulfilling joy and adventure, but I’ve had a stirring for a couple of years about something to do of my own - some sort of outlet. I’m trying to figure out what that looks like. For a while, I thought about going back to school for nutrition, because I have a passion and a purpose for it, but quite honestly doing more school on top what we already do on a daily basis doesn’t sound very enticing. So we’ll see...I’m just being patient and reminding myself that God is in the waiting. That’s pretty much me or at least a snapshot of me today.”

I asked Ashley to give us a little more insight on her passion for nutrition since she mentioned her thoughts about going back to school for it, and she had some good advice and wisdom to share about her journey with falling in love with nutrition.

Ashley stated, “For years I have had a health issue of high cholesterol. It’s a hereditary thing - everyone in my family has it. Every doctor that I’ve ever seen has wanted to put me on medication for it, but, of course, we had to wait until we were finished having children. Obviously we are to that point, so several years ago I started to take the medication, but the side effects scared me, so I stopped taking it. My husband and I began I looking for a doctor that would help me figure out why this was happening. I didn’t want the band aid for it because it just didn’t add up to me. I’m an extremely active person who is at the gym 3-4 times a week, I eat real food and am very healthy overall. I didn’t fit the profile for high cholesterol. Anyway, long story short, I recently found a local doctor to start talking about all this with and he ran extensive blood work on me. I found out that I inherited, not only high cholesterol, but Hashimoto’s disease, which is an autoimmune disease of the thyroid. Should’ve picked better parents - ha! Usually the symptoms for Hashimoto’s are hair loss, weight gain and lethargy, but I’ve had none of that and I’m actually thankful that we caught it before symptoms began giving me issues. So as I mentioned, I was already practicing healthy eating in our home, but for me, it had to get tighter and you should know that even though we have been eating healthy for years, it was not always so. Anyway, I began an Autoimmune Protocol Diet (AIP for short) in an attempt to reverse and/or heal my body. I’ve learned over the years about the power of food, but now I’m starting to use it in a different way. I truly believe that our Creator has given us powerful, healing food. When we walk through a grocery store we have to be careful because there are a lot of things that are not food at all...they’re more like ‘Frankenfood’ and we, as Americans, are so ready to consume them.. Shockingly, our stores are packed with items claiming to be food but are far from it. I taught a class recently to some high school seniors, I basically started by showing them a box with ingredient list on it and asked if they could tell me what food it was. They couldn’t figure out what it was, but it was a box of Twinkies. Then I showed them an avocado, which, of course, they were quickly able to tell me what it was. We talked about how real food doesn’t have an ingredient list and that real food is an ingredient itself. We discussed the healing power that it holds. We are trying to use food in our home as a healing tool for me, but also as a preventative tool for my kids, because these two conditions that I have are hereditary. I can’t change their genes, so I want to help empower them for life so hopefully they won't have the same issues that I have. This has all been recently discovered in the last 5 months, so this is new for us. I started the AIP in June and was extremely disciplined with it for several months. In September, my blood work was showing some improvement, which was positive news and fuel for me to keep going. My next blood work is in December and I’m hoping to see continued progress and improvement. It’s going to take some time to reverse and heal my body. I wish I could tell you that I’m all healed, but that’s not so at least not yet. I can tell you that things are improving and right now, that’s good for me.”

Ashley explained to us how it felt when she got diagnosed with this new disease. We know life can throw curveballs at us, and sometimes it’s really hard to digest the hard things. Ashley explained that it was a lot of information to consume at once, but she is a person that wants to challenge herself to try to conquer any obstacles thrown at her. She had a very difficult time adjusting her diet, because something as simple as pepper is off limits for her right now. She explained that it’s much easier at home but it makes it hard to go out with her family, as she can’t eat a lot of what was cooked at restaurants. She is slowly reintroducing foods so things are getting a little bit easier, but it was still an adjustment. Ashley has truly worked towards a new healthier lifestyle. We asked her to give some practical advice on how we could all make some lifestyle changes towards healthier eating. The main thing she mentioned was shopping the perimeter of your grocery store, keeping to your meats, produce, and dairy. “Just eat what God made,” she said. She mentioned that the aisles usually have all the processed food. We know this all sounds good in theory, but how to you maintain this with a houseful of kids or a busy lifestyle? Ashley highly suggest batch cooking or meal prep. She even showed us her fridge and how everything has been prepared beforehand so her or her kids could grab things to make or heat up. “You almost have to think like someone who has severe allergies. They can’t just grab a snack out of a box and head out the door. They always have to be prepared. It’s the key here.” She explained that her kids even have certain snacks that they know are consistently available to them. Living a healthier lifestyle can be extremely hard as other things seem more convenient, but at the end of the day if you can invest one day a week to prepare healthier foods, it will honestly make you feel much better about your food choice.

After discussing Ashley’s nutritional journey, we shifted topics and asked Ashley what has been one of the hardest things she’s been through as well as what has been one of the best things that has happened to her. She answered, “I would say one of the hardest things I went through was my parents divorce when I was two years old. Over the years, that resulted in many different heartaches, struggles, and bad choices, but the Lord was faithful through it all. I have wonderful relationships with both of my parents and I love them dearly, I just missed the fact that things didn’t look the way I wanted it to look like when I was growing up. I truly believe the experience did empower me to be a better wife, mother, sister and friend. I have a tenderness for the broken. The best thing that has happened to me is that my Savior called my name and I responded. He created my husband just for me and so much of what I missed out on as a child has been restored by the man I married. As husband to me and daddy to our children, he’s a pretty incredible guy. He’s my soulmate and has kept me laughing for over 20 years. I am an extremely blessed women.”

As we always do, we ended with asking Ashley to define beauty and if she found herself beautiful. She stated, “I would say that I define beauty as confidence and strength perfectly paired with humility and gentleness. And well, since I define it that way, that’s obviously what I strive to be. Let’s be real, some, probably most days I completely blow it, but there are some days when I think I just might move in that direction.”

It was a pleasure sitting down to talk with Ashley. She truly exudes warmth and kindness. It was a lot of fun to explore a new topic that we haven't really talked about with our women. If you have any questions or looking for more information on the confusing topic of nutrition? Ashley recommends this book to get you started: “Food, What the Heck Should I Eat?” by Mark Hyman, MD. We hope Ashley's story helps inspire you on your own journey.

As always, a special thanks to my best pal Emily. She captures all these sweet, genuine moments on camera for all of you to see the rawness of our interviews. I couldn't do any of this without her. She truly is the best pal anyone could ask for.

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