Isabelle's Wellth Story

Isabelle is a dear friend of ours that we’ve known for many years. We used to host a weekly dinner party for our local community that she attended at our home. We have eaten organic plant based whole foods for the last 10 years at our home and that naturally carries over into the dinner parties we host. It was never necessarily our goal to see others change their lifestyle but rather to provide an approachable nourishing and delicious environment for people that were in our home.

In Isabelle’s story she links a lot of her journey to our relationship with her, which is very gracious, but it has honestly been so beautiful from the outside to watch Isabelle intentionally educate herself, make changes based on that education and find freedom in her health and life over the years.

Isabelle started a community over on Instagram called Vegetabelles that shares plant based foods she’s checking out in NYC.

Here’s her story:

The first time I went to Mike and Tabi’s home for a dinner party, I brought homemade cheesy bacon dip. I’ll never forget it because it was the first time I’d homemade anything in my college apartment, and I was giddy with pride in myself for following a recipe with more than three ingredients. It wasn’t until I introduced the dish to the group that I considered any sort of dietary differences. “I hope nobody is a vegan!” I said, expecting laughs. Nobody laughed, but they did smile! And they kept smiling as I ate the dip throughout the night. I’d never actually communed with vegans, but I remember consciously thinking they were surprisingly non-aggressive in their approach. Nobody made me feel ashamed for eating what I thought was a perfectly wholesome American dish. Looking back there’s so many more cringe-moments where it would’ve been easy for people to put me down for my choices - but they didn’t. Instead, they lived their lives with consistency and poured out graciousness to everyone they did life with. And I watched. Before I realized that I was learning from Mike and Tabi, they were teaching me.

Tabi and I have met for coffee every couple of months or so since we met in 2014. Knowing how passionate she is about nutrition, it’s pretty radical that we didn’t talk about diet until around the Spring of 2016. As always, she let me be the one to bring it up. We were in SweetGreen and I think I asked her about eating organic. Like everything Tabi does, she was intentional to communicate the heart behind her food choices. Basically, I learned that good food brings good health which enables you to live a good life. Pretty simple yet pretty profound to someone who grew up on hotdogs and cheez-its. I thought about how Mike, Tabi, and others I knew who ate intentionally didn’t seem constrained by what they didn’t eat but rather they carried a sort of freedom in their lives. Tabi often talks about the power of having a vision for what you’re doing. Truthfully, I’d never had any vision or intention in my food choices besides perhaps the seasons of sporadic crash dieting for all the wrong reasons. I wanted freedom. But it took time.

I’d heard snippets over the years about the healing power of food. I knew Mike and Tabi really believed that the earth’s raw resources can prevent and heal disease in our bodies. I watched “What The Health” on Netflix ( I’m sure you’ve heard of it, if you haven’t seen it it’s good stuff! ) and my mind was blown by the stories of people who were healing themselves of disease with a plant-based diet alone. Like I mentioned, I’m from a town of very little vegans. It’s also a town with a lot of disease. Both my best friend’s dad and my mom died of pancreatic cancer when we were kids. The head pastor of our megachurch back home died of a heart attack. My classmates had diabetes, my teachers had arthritis, we all had allergies. After I started reading up on foodborne illness, I imagined how much of our heartache could be traced back to the food we were raised on. Then I imagined all of the future medical issues that I could avoid if I started to nourish myself well now. The stakes were raised as I imagined my future kids and my future community. I want to live a life that blesses the people around me, and I don’t want to invite disease into that.

When I transitioned to a plant based diet, I was glad to have Mike and Tabi as examples to follow. Life is funny though, and I moved farther away weeks after my switch to plant based eating. I decided to start hosting my own weekly dinner party in my new neighborhood. Mike and Tabi never really laid out exactly what I should do to feed people well and create an atmosphere. However, I’d been watching. I knew what to do because I’d seen them do it so beautifully. Another mutual friend and I often say “what would Tabi do” (WWTD) when we’re menu planning or rearranging the living room.

I’ve got worlds to grow, but I love watching our local neighborhood gather and eat a wholesome meal in an inviting space. I love having a vision for what I’m putting in my body. I’ve seen it bless not only my health but so many other areas of my world. It took me a couple of years to get with the program that was so clearly working for my friends, but I’m grateful they were patient with me. I’ve already had exciting and enlightening conversations with friends and family who are intrigued and considering changing their food habits.

And for those that think I’m silly, I’m encouraged when I remember myself pulling the tin foil off of my cheese dip and laughing about vegans in 2014. There’s a lot to be said about spreading truth and educating people on diet, but the best way I know to teach is by example. A holistic lifestyle wasn’t something I knew I wanted until I saw what it looked like. I’m excited to continue to grow in that and expect to have many more WWTD moments along the way!

XO

Isabelle