high-quality life

Courtnee is 31 years old, resides in Honolulu, Hawaii and works as a Nurse Practioner.

Editor’s Note: This interview was before Courtnee gave birth to her son, Bodhi!

What’s going in life Courtnee?

This is big news, but I’m pregnant!

Oh my gosh! Congratulations!

Thank you! I felt like this was a good moment to share it. Getting back to healthy eating and getting to know my body has been the priority for the last couple of months. And enjoying time with Elara, my only child, for now.

Does your husband join you in your healthy eating?

It’s definitely a joint effort. We have our cheat days -laughs- but it’s all about removing anything harmful like nitrates and making sure all processed foods are out. Anything I’ve kind of let back into my life.

What is the last thing that you cooked?

I cooked a gourmet breakfast for my daughter. Eggs, grilled tomatoes, and toast.

What is a food memory from when you were younger?

Every Sunday we would eat dinner with my mom’s side of the family. We would usually have some type of fish, usually raw, with rice, some other protein, and my grandma’s salad. Every since my grandma passed, we’ve tried to recreate her macaroni salad and we can’t make it taste the same.

What have those family meals meant to you as you’ve grown older?

I have a really strong sense of family values and of meals being a time to be together. I replicate that with my husband and daughter now. We always set time aside to eat a meal as a family.

How do you think your culture impacts the way that you approach food?

In Asian cultures, foods have a lot of meaning. Every new year, you eat different vegetables which have different meanings. For birthdays you eat Soba noodles which represent longevity. Black beans are eaten for fertility.

It’s something that I’ve become attached to. It’s something that I want to pass on to my children. As a kid, I was doing all of these things because my grandma told me to -laughs-

We’re used to doing what our parents tell us. Sometimes you gotta eat the weird herbs that taste like shit, not ask questions, and move on with life -laughs- Then you realize how important it is and how much we need it and that it can’t be brushed to the side.

What has it been like to discover healthy eating during pregnancy?

My first pregnancy was completely life-changing from a food perspective. I’ve always tried to be healthy. In college, I thought I was healthy because I would eat salad for lunch and dinner and then get wasted and eat Taco Bell at 2 in the morning -laughs-

Then when I got pregnant I had a foundation of eating organic, non-processed, and nutrient-rich foods. I didn’t eat fast food at all. I had major sugar cravings but I only ate organic ice cream because I didn’t want the hormones from non-organic food. I got really into supplements, started taking fish oil, turmeric, probiotics, a high-quality multivitamin, and drinking herbal teas.

Do you feel like the fact that you and your husband are in the medical field helps you be healthier?

We have an understanding of the long-term effects of bad health, but I don’t think that the medical field teaches you how to be healthy. There’s a lot of debate in the medical field about how to be healthy. They want hard data, but when there are so many factors that contribute to health, there isn’t one diet that will work for everyone.

I practice with an integrative approach. I believe Western medicine is really good at treating an infection, disease, or a broken bone. From a wellness and peak performance perspective, which is more about how to Iive a long, healthy, high-quality life, I give recommendations for things like supplements and acupuncture. Some doctors buy into these alternative practices but for others, it is almost like they feel threatened when there is an introduction of new concepts.

On the other hand, the wellness industry is a multi-billion dollar industry that is so focused on marketing. I think it has lost the foundation of being about different healing approaches. That is where I would like to take my career - to understand the truth to those practices without just trying to sell a product.

My passion in nursing has been about helping populations with health disparity and life circumstances that impact their ability to be healthy. As an RN, I’ve worked in populations where insurance companies will say “these people are costing us a lot of money”. More often than not they were people who were incarcerated, alcoholics, abusers, victims of abuse, or veterans. People can’t be healthy when they have socioeconomic factors that prevent them from engaging in positive behavior. It’s easy to say people are lazy and don’t want to work, but usually, we have patients who joined the military to escape poverty, then got out but didn’t know how to integrate back into society.

That is incredible work.

What do you want to teach your daughter about eating and cooking, and being comfortable with her body?

This is something that I think about all of the time. We try to foster a sense of independence and confidence. She’s making her own decisions and now we’re trying to channel that -laughs- I don’t want her to conform to society’s norms and rules but I do want her to be conscious of them and then make her own decisions. I want her to be an independent thinker and find things that feel good for her, and then feel confident in making those decisions in all aspects of her life.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and brevity.