What Is Soul Fuel Wellness & Who Is Behind It?

Hey everyone & Happy Tuesday! This blog post will be a little different than my norm; instead of bringing you information to digest and food for thought, I will introduce myself and give you all the opportunity to learn who I am!

Trigger Warning: Eating Disorder

My Education

First things first! My name is Sarah Nguyen, I am 22 years old and currently in school to become a Registered Dietitian. And I know the first thing that popped up into your head is "If she hasn't graduated from college yet, how is she able to do this?!" Well, not to worry or stress you all out but I am fully qualified (and Certified) to be your nutrition & health coach. Through my education courses, I have been able to successfully secure my NASM certification, how exciting! However, I am continuing my education to be able to offer a more expansive list of services to provide. So in the next 3 years or so we will all be able to see Sarah Nguyen, R.D. (a total dream of mine)!

September 28, 2024- Mr. & Mrs. Nguyen

Joys & Hobbies

Aside from my education, there is a little bit more about me I would like to share. I am happily married to my amazing husband, Garett Nguyen who has supported me through this entire journey! We have a chocolate lab named Mack who is our absolute pride & joy, and if we aren't in the woods, on the lake, or playing outside with Mack, you will find us coaching cheer & tumbling; what brought us together almost 6 years ago! Cheer is nothing new in my life, I was in competitive cheer for roughly 15 years with some experience in gymnasts, and since graduating high school I have continued to coach all-star cheer teams. I cheered in recreational programs, school teams, and competitive all-star teams & for those of you who do not know competitive cheer it is 2 minutes and 30 seconds of nonstop tumbling, jumping, and stunting. Those 2:30 is so demanding and physically taxing on your body, you have to be prepared mentally, and physically and be well nourished.

My Why

Now, that well-nourished part is something I secretly struggled with my last 3 years of cheerleading. Being in high school, playing soccer, and being saturated in the all-star cheer world there are lots of stressors, images, and standards that can weigh pretty heavy on your shoulders. I have always been tall, and muscular and held a fit figure, but it was not the figure I compared myself to. With all of that being said eating disorders and body dysmorphia had me in shackles, hindering my performance. I counted calories, didn't consume any sugars, worked out morning and night on top of my cheer & soccer practices, and met the scale every morning to see how low my weight could get. Being 5'6" with a very muscular frame my healthiest weight was anywhere between 132-138 lbs, I had energy, was well nourished, and was able to perform to the best of my ability. My least healthiest weight I was taking in about 800-900 calories a day on top of my physical activity I hit 109lbs. I will never forget the joy I had seeing that number but the pain compared to that joy was unbearable. Numbers defined me, counting calories consumed me, and I hated how I looked. My negative relationship with food was such a dark time in my life but without that low and without the grace of God I would not be here today!

Product of a healthy relationship with food & workout routine! (NOT a size 0)

My senior year, my relationship with food started to improve but then I was hit again with another trial. In October 2020 I was diagnosed with an auto-immune disease SCL-70, doctors were left scratching their heads and didn't know how to treat it. I was told to live with it and that I would be fine because eventually it will be dormant and then I will have occasional flare up. I wasn't ok with that. I wasn't ok with crippling migraines, severe ocular pain and joint pain. Tens of thousands of dollars later, hundreds of tests later, and still no answers we were left with a hospital bill and a good luck. But out of the handfuls of doctors I had seen one of my last visits to my rheumatologist suggested to me to try an anti-inflammatory diet and track what foods make me feel good & bad. So that is exactly what I did and that drove me to research about the impact food has on your body and the importance of fueling your body with the right foods. Today my auto-immune disease is no longer active, I don't struggle with as severe migraines, my joint pain has lessened and my ocular nerve pain is no longer an issue! That year I knew my "Why". Flash forward 4 years later, I am living proof that food is the best medicine for you.

One of the hundreds of medical tests I had to take for SCL-70. Testing the connection from my ocular nerve to my brain.

It wasn't until this year that I knew what I actually wanted my business to be- I obviously knew it would deal with nutrition but I didn't quite have a game plan. One night I was lying in bed just restless; what was I going to do with my life, where am I going to work, alllll the questions. I broke it down into parts:

Part 1- Nutrition is not a one size fits all journey so it needs to be something that is good for the soul and mind. *Soul

Part 2- My focus is not on counting calories & macros to fit a size 00 jean. It's about what we can eat to fuel our bodies and feel good. *Fuel

Part 3- Just because you are dieting doesn't mean you are on a wellness journey. So my priority is to make sure that Wellness is at the forefront of the mission while crushing those goals. *Wellness

So there it is Soul Fuel Wellness

Fueling our bodies one bite at a time!

This is my story.

This is my why.

This is Soul Fuel Wellness.

Photography by: Photosbyb.hutchison