Juli Hill shares her family’s journey to discovering the benefits of eating clean through the paleo diet. See how this way of eating has improved their health and well-being, as well as the health of their pets. Also, check out the recipe that Juli shared in this article.
The Misconception That They Are Healthy
Juli’s family has been plagued with degenerative diseases for as long as she can remember. Losing her parents to cancer before her 36th birthday left her fearful she would encounter the same fate.
From a young age, Juli has battled minor health annoyances that most people think are ‘normal’—acne, allergies, and eczema. These eventually turned into sleep loss, anxiety, and irritation.
A trip to the doctor left Juli on anti-anxiety and acne medication, without knowing that the side effects of these prescriptions were beyond nasty.
Nonetheless, Juli thought she and her husband were healthy, considering they weren’t overweight. Additionally, neither of them had ever had a serious weight issue, and back when they were growing up. They were taught that health was about calories in vs. calories out. So if you managed what you ate, exercised enough, and kept your weight down, you could eat whatever you wanted and so they did.
Benefits of Eating Clean – How Juli’s Family And Her Pets Recovered From Diseases
It wasn’t until the vet bills started piling in from a house full of rescue pets that Juli finally learned the power of food and lifestyle as tools to preserve health. With her eyes now opened to her pets’ health, she made the leap to her health potential when she landed on a PBS special about the power of micronutrients in food to change gene expression and fend off disease.
After watching this film, Juli started to dig through her discomfort and look for the root cause of her health problems. Then she realized that her health complaints were actually a window into the mayhem going on inside her body.
The push for her health answers was even stronger after her husband was diagnosed with an autoimmune nerve disorder. This was a turning point for them.
So together, Jon and Juli overhauled their diet along with their pets’. This meant cutting out grains, dairy, sugar, industrial seed oils, and processed foods. It also meant starting a consistent exercise routine, meditation, removing toxins from their daily lives, and introducing themselves to functional medicine.
After reading hundreds of books, listening to podcasts, attending summits, and watching documentaries, Juli was overwhelmed by the need to make this ‘unconventional information’ common knowledge. So today, Juli is on a mission to spread awareness of ancestral nutrition and positive lifestyle choices. She’s also teaching how to incorporate these two into modern life to put them on the path toward a fulfilling, long, healthy life.
How Juli Empowers People As A Health Coach
As a Certified Primal Health Coach, Juli is beyond excited to empower people to uncover the secrets to their health and that of their pets. She wants to free them from the wheel of prescriptions and procedures and embrace the simplicity and power of nutrition and medicine.
Furthermore, Juli strives to teach people that your health outcome is not a genetic lottery. Instead, it is completely within your control through food and lifestyle choices.
Juli’s Paleo Menu That Will Keep You From Eating Out
Juli’s paleo menu is based on simplicity and being prepared for every meal with no excuses to eat out. She utilizes intermittent fasting with a 6-7 hour feeding window within which she consumes the bulk of her calories, usually 1-7 PM.
For the most part, her morning starts with a blended drink containing MCT and coconut oil to hold her until her first meal. Juli’s secret to saving time is to prep more than she needs for one meal so it can be used later in the week. That’s because Juli’s life is so tightly integrated with her dogs. She likes to feed them according to their ancestral needs, too.
Breakfast is usually a loaded bulletproof coffee with all the good stuff—mushrooms, maca, ashwagandha, cinnamon, vanilla, and coconut. She also has a matcha green tea latte with MCT oil and coconut milk, or occasionally paleo blueberry muffins.
At lunch, Juli has delicious dishes such as chicken with fajita vegetables, and roasted cauliflower hummus with raw vegetables. She also has hidden veggie meatballs with sautéed mushrooms, onions, and broccoli. Dinners sound as good as zucchini noodles with vegetable marinara, bunless guacamole burgers, and seafood jambalaya.
If you need a little snack to tide you over, Juli’s included simple recipes like oven-roasted cauliflower and bacon-wrapped asparagus. She also serves seafood jambalaya, and berries with coconut whipped cream.
To follow Juli through her journey of empowerment and learning, check out her Instagram @functionalforager, Facebook, and her website https://functionalforager.com.
