Welcome to The Healthy Southerner, a home for regular people trying to figure out nutrition and wellness. I’m Traci, The Healthy Southerner, but I wasn’t always- I was a food-addict and fad-diet fiend. Then, I went to nutrition school to find some answers.

We’ll talk about me later. Right now I want to talk about you, and how I can help you.

What is The Healthy Southerner?

The Healthy Southerner focuses on total wellness, not just food and exercise. I write about keeping our bodies, minds, and spirits healthy. Here’s what I write about each week:

• Recipes: I’ll write recipes that will fit into a multitude of eating plans. The one thing I always stick to is real ingredients. You won’t find processed food, but you will find an occasional cake or cookie as well as a few cocktail recipes. There is room in a healthy life for an occasional sweet or tipple. Recipes are tagged and organized under the recipe tab. 
  • The Dirty Pages– I tell my kids that when I’m gone, they’ll know the good recipes by the dirty pages. Now you will too.
  • Love, Mom– These recipes are easy to make and easy on the budget, and they generally don’t take long to make. My oldest is away at school and cooks for himself regularly. These are the recipes that are manageable for him. If you don’t love to cook, are looking for something budget-friendly, or for something quick, these are for you.
• Reviews: Feeding your mind and heart good stories is imperative to good health. Here you’ll find reading lists and book reviews. Reviews are tagged and organized here, under Book Recommendations.
• Wellness: I’ll share what I know and what I’m learning about health and wellness. New research about diseases, weight loss, stress, anxiety, mental and emotional health, chronic disease, and aging. You’ll find them under the Wellness tab.
• Soul Food: These are ponderings and thoughts from my heart about getting healthy and reclaiming my heart.

Want Exclusive Content?

I’m inviting you to become a Healthy Southerner. It’s free, and my way of giving you more recipes, books, links, and ponderings.  Each week I publish a weekly newsletter that includes a book, a link, a recipe, and a word or few. You can sign up in the box on the right. You’ll only get more content to help you be a healthy southerner. Nothing annoying or unexpected, just one e-mail a week full of information just for you. And I’ll never share your information.

A Little Bit About Me

Five years ago my body fell into disrepair as bodies are wont to do when fed a steady diet of grilled cheese and Diet Coke. I had not begun to see the irony yet.

I’d been in this body for over forty years when things started to go south, and things were dire before I took notice. My metabolism all but quit, my skin was dry and dull, my muscle tone was gone, and I was in the middle of a terrible Ulcerative Colitis flare. It ended with strong drugs that didn’t really help, a few blood transfusions, and a resolve to get to the root of the problem.

Those were just the physical symptoms; on the inside, my soul was cold, my emotions were wild, and I was so angry there were blisters on my heart. I fought depression for years. Actually, I mostly ignored it and soldiered on until it escalated into anxiety attacks, two of which ended with an ER trip.

I just missed feeling like I used to feel- whatever that was. Young maybe? Healthy? I didn’t really know- but I knew there had to be more. 

I started studying nutrition and health. I went to school. I learned about how food and lifestyle are our most effective prescriptions for healing our bodies. 

Years of frustration and trying every diet, skin cream, anti-depressant, and exercise program led me to a revelation.

Hospitality.

I Teach Hospitable Wellness

Hospitality is what we’re known for down here; it’s in our blood to pull out cheese straws and lemonade at the first sign of a visitor, yet many of the women I knew didn’t apply those principles to themselves. I know I certainly wasn’t- not only was I not hospitable to myself, I was hostile.

I’d been in a terrible marriage years before, gone through a brutal divorce and never really grieved, I battled a severe autoimmune disease, and the only emotions I felt were despair and self-loathing. There was nothing about my life that was hospitable; nothing I was doing was encouraged growth, life, or even comfort.

And still, I thought I’d find the secret in a diet book.

Two years later, I’m a long way down the road to being hospitable to myself and to the people I love. I’ve found that health and even weight loss are dependent on how we treat ourselves and what we think about ourselves.

Listen, it’s taken two solid years of counseling, a nutrition degree, hundreds of hours of journaling, and more prayer than you can imagine to get to this point.

I’d like to tell you the shortcuts. I want to teach you to be hospitable to yourself. Start here. I’ll define a healthy southerner. You can read my whole health story. And you can read more about my training.

Also, join me on social media!  We’ll have lots of fun.  If you look to your right, you will see buttons to connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.