Hi guys,

I thought I would try something a little bit different for this post.  I have been playing with the idea of sharing a little bit more info or just things about me personally and I thought these 5 things would be a good place to start. Some of these are questions that I have gotten in the past and some are just based on my personal journey that I hope can let you know me a little bit better.

1.Why I Named the Blog “Yesika’s Kitchen” 

When I decided to stay home after giving birth to my second child, I knew that I wanted to have “something” creative that I could do from home and share with the “world”. After about 3 months of staying home I found myself spending every minute I was away from my baby in my kitchen.  I was either making breakfast, lunch, or dinner, or cleaning up after each meal. I liked to cook but when I was working I didn’t really have much time to do it except on the weekends, so I found myself looking forward to the time I could spend in the kitchen creating healthy meals for my family.

After a few months I decided that I wanted to share my passion for cooking and making healthy meals with other people and I knew that would be the creative thing I had been looking for. I decided to name the blog “Yesika’s Kitchen” because that is truly where I spend most of my waking hours, the place where I feel free to create, it is the place where we all as a family gather for meals, and I think it is truly the heart of every home.

2. I used to struggle with my weight, self-esteem, and emotional eating 

So these are very personal subjects for me and things I haven’t really talked about much in the past, but will be talking about more in the future. I think so many people who see me think that I’m one of those “healthy” people that is naturally thin and likes the taste of carrots and salads, and that is why it is so easy for me to talk about healthy eating and staying skinny. But what they don’t know is the fact that I was NOT a skinny kid, I was actually overweight most of my childhood and into my teenage years, I grew up in a very materialistic and vain culture where looks and money played a big part on your value. Like every other kid in the 90’s bullying was just part of school and you had to just manage as best as you could, big part of why I was bullied was because I was “fat” and “ugly” I was literally told that so many times during my early school years. So when I was 13 I moved to the US and went straight into high school without speaking a word of English! talk about culture shock! that only made things worse and I used to eat to feel better which only caused me to gain more weight.  When I was about 14 or 15 I discovered diet pills and like a lot of my friends started taking them. It was an easy solution to my “fat” problem, or so I thought.  After a few months of taking them I stared to lose the weight to the point where I got to be a size “0”.  I was so happy with my new body that I became obsessed with staying skinny that I started eating less, and less until my mom noticed and started telling me that maybe I was anorexic.  I never really paid attention to her comments because in my mind I was fine.  I was looking “great” and I felt like food was my enemy.  Long story short I got pregnant at 18 and the love for my child made me realize that I needed to get healthy, that is when my real health journey began and started seeking answers for what “real health” was.

Note: I plan on writing an E-book in the future with my personal experiences and relationship with health, food, and diets, as well as plant-based food recipes and I want to tell my whole story because I feel that there are millions of people going through the same thing and not enough people talking about it.

3. I used to HATE cooking and being in the Kitchen

I grew up in a really big house in Mexico. We were not rich but my parents made huge efforts to give us a comfortable living and my dad was obsessed with building our house so he ended up building a 3 story house. Anyways, my grandma lived with us and she used to cook for us every day and she hated doing it.  She basically lived in the kitchen and felt that it was her obligation to feed us all but never liked it.  My mom worked really long hours and because my grandma used to cook she never really learned or liked to cook.

My feelings about cooking and food were very negative because of the memories I have of my grandmother, so when I got married I used to hate cooking.  I actually didn’t know how to cook anything and because of that we usually ate out and ate a lot of processed foods. It wasn’t until I had my first son that I decided to learn how to make a few dishes for him and I ended up discovering that I actually loved cooking.  I started to buy cookbooks and making meals at home and loved the feeling of creating dishes for my family! Fast forward 15 years and that is basically all I do all day long! 😉

4. The reason I advocate a “plant-based” diet and being kind to all living things

For me a plant based diet is a way of eating based on compassion, abundance, and health.  I have been eating this way for over 5 years and I have always chosen to focus on the whole foods part of this diet instead of on the restrictions that can come with it.  I don’t like to call myself a “vegan” just yet because there are things that I still need to work on, but it is my intention to get there one day.

Based on the story I told you before on my struggles with weight and eating disorders, I found that a plant-based diet has been the only “diet” that has been sustainable for me and makes me feel my best.  I love this way of eating because I don’t want to have to hurt a living creature just so I can have a good meal, I don’t want to cause harm to the planet just because of my taste buds, I can’t tell my kids to be kind to dogs and cats but ignore the fact that millions of cows and chickens die every day so we can have a meal. I know this is the conversation that nobody wants to talk about, but for me this is why I chose to eat this way.

I have tried every other diet out there, trust me, I tried them all and none of them worked for me, eating plant-based is not a “diet”, it is just choosing to eat living foods that are good for you and love you back.

5. The One Thing I can’t live without and I wish I could quit 

COFFEE!!!  Fun fact: It is perfectly normal for a toddler to drink coffee in Mexico.  I promise you this is true! or at least it was true for me and I started drinking “lattes” or coffee with milk when I was probably still in diapers.  It is a cultural thing and I don’t blame my parents, they just didn’t know any better, but with that note you can understand why coffee is so deeply rooted in my blood and why I just can’t give it up! 🙂

I hope you enjoyed this post and please let me know if you would like me to do more posts like this one.  I will posting another recipe soon so I hope to hear from you!

Love,

Yesika