Former client, Katie Selvey, a 39-year-old dog mom of two, struggled with the pressure to be perfect throughout her entire life. Like so many women today, she wanted to be the perfect student, perfect employee, perfect wife, and perfect daughter. Katie shares about those struggles and how her transition to go plant-based helped her fix her relationship with food, and more importantly, her relationship with herself.
Three years after our work together, she is now an irreplaceable part of the Plant Centered Team. Katie is the best person to ask for advice on how you can implement big yet sustainable changes in your life.
Today (this interview took place in 2021), Katie lives a far from conventional life. In her van, she’s traveling the country with her two dogs. But life wasn’t always that way. In the past few years since we met and worked together, she’s gone through some pretty big changes. She’s gone through a divorce, changed careers, and moved several times.
All those things alone are around the top five most stressful things you can go through in a lifetime, let alone during a global pandemic. But Katie had an itch. She had this itch to get out and do something that was out of the ordinary. And so that’s what she did. She embraced the “van life.” She bought a transit van with a sink, a bed, and a toilet. And all those changes paid off, because, as Katie puts it, reflecting back on her year of traveling the country: “I’ve seen some really incredible things. I’m considering myself really lucky.”
Katie’s relationship with food took a similar turn. As a child, Katie dabbled in vegetarianism for several points while growing up. She went full-on vegetarian about eleven years ago. A lot of her friends were vegetarian or vegan at the time and she lived in a very vegetarian-friendly environment. But, once she moved back home, she felt like the odd one out.
Looking back on it now, Katie realized that her lifestyle was, despite being vegetarian, far from healthy. Veggies were a rare sight in her daily diet, she continued to struggle with her relationship with food, and there was that constant reminder that she wasn’t “perfect.”
Then a bit later, 6 years ago to be exact, Katie made her first transition towards veganism. She felt fantastic in her body. But then, life happened. She tried some dairy cheese at a party, switched jobs, and stopped prioritizing her health. She gained the 60 pounds back that she lost during her plant-based transition, and even gained some more.
It was not a great time in her life, as she recalls: “One day I just woke up and I was just like they say, I was sick and tired of being sick and tired and I can’t do this by myself. I think that was kind of like an eye-opening moment.” Luckily, a little while later, our paths crossed. In 2019, Katie applied to work with me.
But even though food seemed like the number one priority in Katie’s life, our time together involved so much inner work, too. We found out that she had a long history of self-esteem issues. As the firstborn in her family, she became a people pleaser. She learned to be quiet and polite and thought that her voice was not as important as other people’s. Katie discovered that her weight concern stemmed from issues related to self-worth and self-esteem. So, she had to start changing how she talked to herself and how she felt about herself. It was the most important piece of her puzzle.
She had to learn to put herself first. She had to learn to love herself again.
Those old habits that we carry with us for a long time can be really hard to break. But once that change starts to happen, it gets easier over time. For Katie, a big turning point was when she forgave herself. She forgave herself for not being perfect, for indulging in things that made her feel worse, and for not changing sooner.
Especially as women, society sets ridiculous standards about the way we are supposed to look and present ourselves, which is why so many women can relate to Katie’s journey. And that’s what makes it so powerful. Based on societal standards and comparing yourself to others, a drive for perfectionism can sneak its way into your life. Katie definitely saw that in the people around her. The people that strived to be the perfect mother or the perfect daughter.
“No one is perfect, so it’s a race that you’re always going to fail,” Katie sums up beautifully.
Katie always had a difficult relationship with food, as she recalls, that probably started around college. This is when she started to use food to cope with stress because she didn’t know any other way. Then, that coping mechanism turned into a habit. Today, Katie looks at food as way to fuel and nourish her body.
She is no longer afraid to age. As her self-worth increased, so did her will to live a long and happy life. And her drive for adventure was kicking in, something she just didn’t experience before.
Even though most days Katie wakes up feeling energized and happy, she has good and bad days, like everyone else. But even when she has a bad day, she can look back on her life and see how far she’s come. Knowing that she will never go back to her old self, feeling sluggish, irritable, and striving for perfection. She views food differently. She sees it as something that’s meant to be enjoyed and make her feel good, not something that she’s trying to control. The plant-based lifestyle just works for her and has changed her life completely for the better.
Katie knows from her own experience how hard the first step can be. A phone call to someone, researching on the internet, booking an appointment even. Getting to that point, realizing that you want to change something about your life, that you need external help, can be really hard for some. But once you’ve started, it is going to feel so powerful.
But know that it will also take some time to un-learn those habits that it took you many years to build. Setbacks are part of the process, so just try to not set your expectations too high. But don’t let that be an excuse to quit completely, either. Katie reflects on her own journey, “Failure is part of the process. But what can you learn from it? Tomorrow is a new day!”
Take it one step at a time, even those baby steps will add up over time. Behavior doesn’t define you; it is just a reflection of your habits. It doesn’t make you a bad person. Just take those changes, step out of your comfort zone a little at a time and see where the journey takes you. Not every day will be easy and that is okay. But once you overcome those hurdles, it will be so much better.
Don’t let the fear of failure stop you from taking the first step. The only regret that Katie has is that she didn’t change sooner. She recalls how grateful she is that she took that first step no matter how hard it was – it was all worth it in the end!
Katie closes our interview with, “If I can do it, you can do it!”
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**This is a personal account of one individual and does not replace the advice of medical professionals**
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