HI, I’M MADI!

Healing is hard, I get it, I’ve been there. I’ve spent valuable time and money hopping around from doctor to doctor looking for answers. I know what it’s like to feel dismissed and unheard.

I also know what it’s like to wonder if I’m doing the right thing, all while burning my body out even more. Between the world of detoxes, calorie restrictions, elimination diets, extreme exercise, it’s hard to find that middle ground that actually serves your body and your health. That’s where I come in to help you break the cycle and find true, root-cause answers.

What does it mean to be Freely Fed?

To be FREELY FED is to give yourself full permission to eat and treat your body with respect. You are able to listen in to what both your body and mind need and decide how to eat from there. It may look different day to day, but you can trust what your body is telling you and what it needs.

We constantly eat based on what outside sources tell us (often in an extreme manor). ‘Only eat this exact number of calories’, ‘you can only eat during this time frame’, ‘just cut out these food groups’, ‘limit and avoid this’, the list goes on and on.

Letting go of the good or bad mentality around food, eliminating anxiety around eating, honoring your hunger, realizing its okay to enjoy your food and find what satisfaction truly is, and determining what foods actually serve or don’t serve you at different times IS ALL HARD. It’s scary to go into eating without strict rules, but it is where you can flourish and truly be your best and healthiest self. Physically, mentally, emotionally, all of it.

These all sound so far-fetched and almost not even allowed based on today’s diet-culture, but I’m here to help guide you through how to do it while healing your body and eating what truly nourishes YOU.

My Journey

At the age of 22 I had every symptom of pre-menopause. I had warning many signs prior (low stress tolerance, high anxiety, brain fog, and irregular periods), but never fully acted upon them. It wasn’t until I was having hot flashes every night, completely energy crash by 2PM, waking up feeling like I got hit by a bus, high anxiety at bedtime, absolutely no appetite, you name it, did it hit me that it was time to do something! Not to mention, this was at the same time was engaging in extreme exercise and having binge eating episodes.

I took my concerns to my OB-GYN, had labs ordered, and was told everything was “normal” and it must have just been ‘a fluke’. At the time, I had not learned enough about hormones, nor how to advocate for myself, so I just shrugged it off and hoped that was the end of it.

Fast forward 2 years later, in the midst of my Dietetic Internship, my hair started falling out by the chunks, I had horrible constipation and bloating, constant acid reflux, and many other symptoms came back. I felt beyond defeated. I decided it was time to take charge of my health and hire someone who could actually do something for me. I started working with a Naturopath and she ran some labs with a full-thyroid panel and there it was, Hashimoto’s.

I felt all the emotions hearing this, relief that I had an answer to my issues, a bit of shame being a soon-to-be RD thinking I had not taken care of myself enough to avoid this, and anger from being dismissed many years prior that could have maybe prevented this.

I had known functional labs and nutrition was an interest of mine, but this really drove it home. However, functional nutrition can come with its extremes around food and restrictive diets. My Intuitive Eating background got a little confused with where do we go now. I decided the two worlds can collide and started to figure out how to make both work. This is how I created my philosophy and approach to nutrition.

You CAN let the two worlds collide, and I am here to support you and help you reach optimal health while honoring your body and healing your relationship with food and your body!

the grapefruit

The grapefruit is long known as an energizer and happy mood inducer. Its refreshing scent has been said to reduce feelings of stress, anxiety, and depression. This is what Freely Fed is here to do! Nutrition advice is everywhere with many differing opinions, and we are told left and right what to do or not do, but still with no clear path.

From the outside, the grapefruit looks like one, single object. However, when you open it up there are many different pieces that make up its entirety. To us, each slice represents the different aspects of health. Nutrition is of course my favorite, but it is not the ONLY aspect. We must take into account physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, financial, social, environmental, and so many more areas of health! To neglect these other areas and only focus on nutrition would not allow me to do my job best. Nutrition affects every other aspect, just as each area also affects our nutrition.

Credentials

  • M.S. Human Nutrition, Winthrop University (2019)

  • Dietetic Internship, Life University (2020)

  • B.S. Exercise Science, Florida Southern College (2017)

  • Ongoing trainings in Functional Nutrition and Women’s Health