The Uncomfortable Truth About Why So Many Of Us Are Sick and How I Finally Got Better.
This Is Everything I Had to Unlearn to Heal: Part 1
Everyone tells you to just start when you’re thinking about starting a business. You’ve got the desire, the itch, the idea… but something always holds you back. I know that feeling far too well.
I was am the girl with a million ideas—truly, a new one every day. And I didn’t just dream them up. I’d build out the business plan, map the TAM (total addressable market), research competitors, buy the domain… even make prototypes.
But I never actually went through with it. Because deep down, I didn’t believe I could.
Then in 2021/2022, I started doing the real healing work—on my self-image, my worth, my value. And this time, it felt different. I didn’t rush. I sat with it. I spent more time getting honest about what I was already doing, what I actually cared about, what people were already coming to me for advice on.
And it always came back to the same thing: health and wellness.
This was the start of the Version 1 of my company that was called Spring Forward Club which I launched in 2023. The brand has evolved since then, but my passion for health…that hasn’t gone anywhere.
Because for most of my life, I was the girl with “stomach problems.” Or what doctors love to call IBS—which, let’s be real, is basically code for: “I have no fucking clue what’s wrong with you, so here’s a label that means nothing.”
Without getting too TMI: I was going to the bathroom 10+ times a day. I couldn’t eat before traveling, driving, or really doing anything that didn’t involve being close to a bathroom. Didn’t matter what I ate… yup, not going there.
Then there came a time when every time I… went… there was blood. Like, a lot of blood. That’s what led to me getting three colonoscopies before I turned 24 back when I lived in Florida—because naturally, they thought it had to be colon cancer. But every time, the results came back negative. And yet, the symptoms kept coming back.
Then when I lived in New York I vividly remember losing 12 pounds over a single weekend. That freaked me out, especially because I’ve been the same size and weight since high school. Something was seriously off.
So I started doing my own research. That’s when I first came across celiac disease and how eating gluten (which I had no idea what it was) could give you all the symptoms I was experiencing most of my life. When I finally got in with a new doctor in NYC—who, of course, suggested another colonoscopy—I pushed for an endoscopy too. She wasn’t exactly thrilled about it, but (as usual) I got my way.
Come to find out, I had celiac disease (which they diagnosed after seeing major scalloping in my small intestines) and a stomach infection that had probably been lurking for a while: H. pylori.
Quick rundown, celiac is an autoimmune disease, which basically means every time I ate gluten (which was daily, let’s be real—I’m Italian), my immune system would attack the lining of my small intestine. The villi (the little hair-like structures that absorb nutrients) would flatten. So not only was I not absorbing anything from my food, but my body would go into full panic mode every time gluten showed up. Hence the 10+ bathroom trips a day…
And then there was H. pylori which is a sneaky little bacterial infection that can live in your stomach lining for years without you even knowing. It’s super common (over half the population has it) and usually spreads through contaminated food, water, or even saliva. Most people don’t realize they have it until symptoms start stacking up—things like bloating, indigestion, nausea, or just feeling off all the time. Left untreated, it can cause ulcers, chronic inflammation, nutrient issues, and in rare cases, more serious complications.
So yeah…between that and celiac, my gut was wrecked. No wonder I was exhausted, inflamed, and constantly feeling off. It wasn’t in my head. It was literally in my stomach.
This was back in 2014—when being gluten-free wasn’t trendy or common, especially not in New York City. But when I tell you almost all of my symptoms disappeared when I cut out gluten and healed the H.Pylori, I mean it. Aside from the few times I accidentally got “glutened” and ended up in the hospital… yeah, that wasn’t fun.
This was the first time I ever actually read a food label and I don’t mean the calories, I mean the ingredients. And suddenly I found myself deep in Google, typing things like:
“Is Red 40 gluten-free?”
“Is guar gum gluten-free?”
“What even are natural flavors?”
“Is maltodextrin gluten-free?”
“Wait… trisodium phosphate?! Is that gluten-free?!”
Like… WTF is all this stuff and why is it in our food? Forget gluten for a second, why are we eating chemicals I can’t even pronounce?
Cut to 2021—I got off birth control after being on it for nearly 16 years, and once again, my body went bananas.
I was losing my hair, breaking out like crazy, having insane cramp pain, bloating every time I ate (like, full-on looking pregnant), and constant gas. Thankfully, this is when I found functional medicine because sadly, every Western doctor I saw either dismissed me or flat-out shamed me for getting off birth control when I “wasn’t trying to get pregnant.”
They looked at me like I had five heads and offered zero solutions. One even told me (and this was my last straw): “Just go back on birth control. And if you don’t want to, sorry... you’ll just have to deal with the pain.”
Like… seriously?
Functional medicine (or holistic medicine) completely changed the game for me. If you’re not familiar, it’s all about getting to the root cause—not just slapping a Band-Aid on the symptom. It looks at your entire body as one interconnected system and helps you heal in the most natural, supportive way possible.
This was also when I got introduced to non-toxic living and started learning about all the chemicals and toxins hiding in our everyday lives that quietly mess with our hormones, gut, and overall health.
Now keep in mind…Before the celiac diagnosis I was the girl who lived off Twinkie-style foods. Like, full-blown ultra-processed food queen. I microwaved my black plastic TV dinners, used purple ketchup, drank Ginger Ale for a tummy ache, thought grilled nuggets from Chick-fil-A meant I was “eating healthy,” and didn’t think twice about what I was putting in or on my body.
Then I met the functional doctor I now swear by (seriously, all my friends go to her now—shoutout to Katie for the original rec).
To paint the picture, your first visit is an hour-long conversation. No rushing, no eye-rolls. Just her actually listening and asking the most detailed questions. She went through every single symptom I’d ever had, my full health history, family history, lifestyle, even emotional stressors—she asked everything.
Then came the testing this was about 10 vials of blood, plus a stool test and a urine test. She checked all my nutrient and antioxidant levels, hormones, autoimmune markers, gut health—you name it. She wanted to see how everything lined up, not just in isolation but across systems.
Turns out, I was deficient in almost everything, my hormones were out of whack, and I had SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth), which we confirmed with a breath test after it showed up in my stool results.
This was the real start of my healing journey. I began learning things I had never been told before—about my body, my health, and what it actually means to feel good from the inside out.
Which is wild when you think about it…Eating real, whole foods is now considered “healthy”…when really, that should just be considered normal. But I digress.
And in true me fashion, I went all in. I needed to know everything. I read every book I could get my hands on, listened to every podcast, followed every functional medicine expert, and Chinese medicine account I could find, and eventually got certified as a health coach.
Because once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Once you experiment on your own body and feel the difference, you can’t go back. The bloat goes away, the brain fog lifts, your energy goes through the roof, the cravings stop controlling you—and suddenly, you realize…this is how you were always meant to feel.
Also, fun fact: did you know your taste buds regenerate every 7 to 14 days? So if you're someone who says, “But I need sugar,” just know—your body (and your taste) can change. It just needs the chance.
Because at the end of the day, we only get one body in this lifetime. So why wouldn’t you treat it like the most important thing you own?
When you realize that the way you treat your body is either hurting or healing you—that every harmful choice is only disrespecting yourself—something clicks. The way you care for your body becomes a direct reflection of how much you value yourself.
Physically, I started making real changes. And I’ll share exactly what I did to heal my gut, reverse my symptoms, and build habits that genuinely improved my whole life—not just my health.
But I was also doing the emotional and energetic work at the same time and honestly, that’s what made everything stick. If you are curious about this, read this one because today is all about the physical actions!
Your Mind is Making You Sick
We live in a world with more science, research, and information than ever before.
Functional medicine gets to the root of the physical issue…But if you want to truly heal, you have to go deeper. You’ve got to clear the emotional and energetic roots, too. You have to work on the mind!
Think of western medicine is like cutting a weed at ground level—it might look better for a bit, but it always grows back. Functional medicine digs up the root. But emotional, energetic, nervous system, and belief healing is what actually pulls the weed out of the ground for good.
That’s the work I do now because true healing isn’t either/or. It’s both. You need 100% physical action and 100% energetic alignment.
But for today let’s talk about some of the physical lifestyle changes that I made because this is where everything started to shift. A step one if you will.
First things first: if you can get a functional doctor, do it. Don’t wait until your health hits rock bottom. Don’t wait for a diagnosis to finally take your body seriously. Do it now.
We’re living in a world where 100% of babies are born with microplastics in their bodies….they literally can’t find a clean control group to study anymore….which is absolutely INSANE.
This is why you have to look at the whole picture.
Your gut isn’t just about digestion—it’s your second brain. It produces over 90% of your serotonin, influences your mood, immune system, focus, and energy. If your gut is off, everything is off.
And most people are walking around with symptoms they think are “normal” because they’ve never known anything different. You don’t need to wait for things to get worse. You can start making changes before your body screams for help.
The Lifestyle Changes I Made
First, I started with the big stuff—the everyday exposures that quietly build up over time. Everyone’s wondering why we’re the sickest we’ve ever been… this is why. It’s not random. It’s not bad luck. It’s the toxic overload we’re living in, day in and day out, without even realizing it.
I changed out my laundry detergent, soaps, dishwasher detergent, and all my cleaning products. I ditched the toxic ones filled with artificial fragrance, endocrine disruptors, and known carcinogens and replaced them with cleaner alternatives.
I got rid of Teflon (nonstick pans are coated in forever chemicals). I switched to stainless steel and cast iron. I started cutting back on plastic—swapping plastic water bottles for a high-quality filter, limiting the foods I buy in plastic, and switching to glass Tupperware for storage. These changes might sound small, but they reduce your exposure to hormone-disrupting chemicals every single day.
Then I moved on to oral health—because yes, your mouth is the start of your gut. I started tongue scraping every morning to clear out the overnight bacteria buildup (which impacts breath, digestion, and even cravings). I added oil pulling with organic coconut oil, which helps detox the mouth and reduce inflammation. I switched to fluoride-free toothpaste after learning fluoride is a neurotoxin that’s been banned or heavily restricted in many countries. Threw out mouthwash (it’s a scam like dryer sheets)….most of it is alcohol-based, kills the good bacteria, and totally disrupts your oral microbiome. And I started flossing with non-toxic floss because yep, most floss is coated in PFAs (aka “forever chemicals,” the same ones used in Teflon).
Then I moved on to personal care products—makeup, skincare, perfume, haircare, body wash, shampoo, lotion, sunscreen. Because here’s the thing: our skin is our largest organ. You can sit in a magnesium bath and absorb it…or spray magnesium on your feet and feel the effects. So if your skin absorbs the good stuff that easily, guess what? It’s absorbing the toxic stuff just as fast.
And the average woman uses over 12 personal care products a day, which can expose her to over 160 different chemicals—every single day. We’re literally dousing ourselves in hormone disruptors, carcinogens, and synthetic fragrances and calling it self-care.
And the influencers pushing it? Yeah… they’re not helping. It’s glamorized poison.
Next up: food. I started reading ingredient labels and tossed anything I wouldn’t cook with myself. Because let’s be real—it’s insane that a bag of Lay’s potato chips has a paragraph of ingredients when it should just be potatoes, salt, and oil. I found things like titanium dioxide (aka paint thinner) in everyday foods. Like… would you go to Lowe’s, buy paint thinner, and mix it into your breakfast? No? Exactly….
I cut out coffee that wasn’t third-party tested for mold. Hate to break it to you, but coffee has the highest mold levels of any food or drink we consume. So unless it’s tested? You’re likely sipping on mold. Yes, even your beloved Dunkin’ and Starbucks.
I removed anything high in glyphosate—aka Roundup—which is literally weed killer. Again, would you walk into Home Depot, spray down your toast with weed killer, and eat it? No? Then why are we okay with it in our food?
Glyphosate is banned in dozens of countries but still heavily used in the U.S. It’s sprayed on wheat, oats, soy, corn, legumes even the feed given to animals. So if your meat isn’t 100% grass-fed, it’s likely loaded with it, too. It’s in Goldfish. Cheerios. Kids’ snacks. Everywhere. Incase you didn’t know….
Over 3.5 billion pounds of glyphosate have been applied in the U.S. since 1974, making it the most heavily used pesticide in American agriculture.
A 2023 national study found that over 80% of Americans aged 6 and older had detectable levels of glyphosate in their bodies.
Glyphosate has been classified as a “probable human carcinogen” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), with links to non-Hodgkin lymphoma and potential DNA damage.
I started buying organic fruits and vegetables and soaking them in a baking soda bath to remove residues.
I only buy pasture-raised, organic eggs and chicken. I cut out pork entirely. I only eat sushi from places I really trust.
I eat 100% grass-fed beef and wild-caught seafood.
And I cut out seed oils—like canola, soybean, and sunflower oil. These are highly inflammatory, mess with your metabolism, throw off your hormones, disrupt your gut, and are directly linked to higher risk of heart disease, insulin resistance, and mood disorders.
And the worst part? They’re in everything. Anything fried outside the house? You can bet it’s cooked in canola oil. Why? Because olive oil or avocado oil is way too expensive for most restaurants to use at scale.
Even when you think you’re eating healthy, seed oils are sneaking in. Salad dressings, hummus, sauces, protein bars, “health” chips—it’s all loaded with them. You even have to watch out for the olive oil you buy at the store because a lot of the cheap stuff? It’s actually just canola oil dressed up as olive oil. (Yes, really. It’s a full-blown mafia-level scandal. Look it up.) I wrote a blog post about this on my old blog (linked here).
And if that’s not wild enough—let’s talk about where canola oil even came from. It was originally made from rapeseed oil, which was so toxic it was used as a machine lubricant in WWII. The original form was too high in erucic acid to be safe for human consumption, so they genetically modified it and rebranded it as “Canola” (short for Canadian Oil, Low Acid). So yeah…what was once fueling war machines is now sitting in your pantry. Make it make sense.
And just when I thought I couldn’t be shocked anymore—I found out baby formula has seed oils in it. Like… what are we doing?!
Once you start looking, you’ll see it’s everywhere. And once you understand what it’s doing to your body? You’ll never look at your grocery cart—or your “healthy” snacks—the same way again.
The point of this isn’t to scare you, it’s to wake you up. Wake you up to what’s really happening. To the reality that most people never question because it’s been normalized.
We have to stop waiting around for the government to save us. Yes, they’re finally starting to ban food dyes—cool, great—but let’s be real… that’s barely touching the surface. That’s like sweeping one corner of a house that’s burning down.
Meanwhile, we’re being sold toxic products, toxic food, and toxic lifestyles and told it’s just “modern living.”
Here’s the truth: we have power. Massive power. When we collectively stop buying the products that are hurting us—when we stop feeding the systems that profit off our illness—we disrupt their bottom line. And for these companies, that’s the only language they understand.
This doesn’t mean you need to panic or throw everything in your house into the trash. You don’t need to live in fear. You just need to start. One swap at a time. One choice at a time.
That’s what I did. It took me nearly two years to detox everything—cleaning products, makeup, food, cookware, toothpaste, you name it. I didn’t do it all at once. I let the changes compound. Every step gave my body more room to breathe.
Because our bodies are designed to heal. Our liver literally regenerates itself. Our cells renew. Our systems are built to detox, to recover, to fight for us.
But right now, they’re overwhelmed. Buried under layers of plastics, pesticides, endocrine disruptors, heavy metals, mold, seed oils, processed chemicals, and chronic stress. It’s not that our bodies are broken. It’s that they’re too full to function properly.
So when you lighten the load—even just a little—you give your body the chance to do what it was always meant to do. To clear. To heal. To thrive.
This isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being conscious. The more you know, the more you can take aligned action. And when you do that consistently…you take your power back. You stop outsourcing your health. You stop waiting for permission. And you become the kind of person who doesn’t just survive in this world—you thrive in spite of it.
Stay tuned for Part 2, where I’ll link all the swaps I use so you can make these changes without the overwhelm.
And then in Part 3, I’ll share simple healthy habits you can start adding into your daily life to feel better.
With love & gratitude,
Stephanie
Own it x Shift it x Become it