Your fork is more powerful that your family history

If you’re anything like us — raised in a traditional Colombian family where food was always a symbol of togetherness, comfort, love, and abundance, where being a little chubby meant you were living well, and where your grandparents either passed away from or are currently living with conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, thyroid issues, or cardiovascular disease — then you are one of us.

And yes, I know it can be hard to accept that this is the reality of your family. I truly understand, because just like you, I’ve lived through these situations very closely. For a period of time, I lived with my maternal grandmother, a woman for whom food in abundance was her love language. Food was the only way she really knew how to communicate affection because expressing herself verbally was very difficult for her. She could never fully understand my way of eating, my portion sizes, or the times I chose to eat. Still, we made it work and lived together for six beautiful years. During that time, I witnessed very closely how her body struggled with everything all at once: morbid obesity, uncontrolled diabetes that slowly damaged her nervous system, her skin, her eyesight, and her feet; hormones completely out of balance that constantly interrupted her sleep and prevented true rest; symptoms of severe chronic inflammation that traditional medicine could barely explain; gastrointestinal issues, severe incontinence, and a progressive loss of mobility in her legs that left her in constant discomfort and pain. And yet today, at 92 years old, with proper professional care, balanced nutrition, and movement, she is doing better than ever.

I also witnessed very closely the final years of my paternal grandmother’s life. In the middle of the night, she would wake up to drink a little glass of milk because she felt thirsty, never imagining that the glucose spikes were what left her confused and unable to speak the next morning. She was a self-taught physical therapist, a loving woman from the countryside who deeply understood the healing power of nature. She knew medicinal herbs, bones, and muscles like the back of her hand. What she never knew was that the very thing that probably kept her alive until 94 years old was the constant movement her work required. She was an incredible woman who simply never had access to the right information to nourish herself better during old age.

And now, the reason why we are here writing this blog today: our mother. After five long weeks in the hospital at 63 years old, she experienced her first severe uncontrolled diabetic episode, which caused a very serious kidney infection that eventually entered her bloodstream and became sepsis. All of this was combined with unmanaged stress (because yes, she belongs to the generation that believes going to therapy means you’re “crazy”), lack of restorative sleep, an ultra-processed diet, obesity, and a sedentary lifestyle. This is the third time in my life that I’ve witnessed something like this happen within my family — and I never want to experience it again, nor would I ever want it to happen to you. Thankfully, today she is doing much better and slowly adapting to her new — and necessary — lifestyle. Three women from different generations, all connected by one common denominator: lack of proper information about nutrition because of cultural conditioning, chronic inflammation caused by products they genuinely believed were healthy, almost no conversations around women’s health topics like menstruation, menopause, or birth control, and above all, sedentary lifestyles disguised as “rest.” Creating this wellness community for both women and men, built around accessible and accurate information, is deeply important to us. We want men to understand these topics too — to recognize symptoms from the root cause, to learn how to nourish their hormones, and to care for their bodies with love and awareness.
I truly believe that genetics do not define us, and that our fork is far more powerful than our family history. I invite you to take a look at these numbers and begin making small daily changes (with simple tips we’ll be sharing here) so you don’t have to repeat your family’s story.

• Your genes account for about 25% of your health. The other 75% is rewritten daily through your food and lifestyle choices.

• The International Diabetes Federation reported in 2025 that 1 in 9 adults is living with diabetes. Which means the chances are pretty high that someone in your family is affected too.

• According to the World Health Organization, 1 in 3 deaths worldwide is related to cardiovascular disease, often linked to chronic inflammation, insulin resistance, high blood pressure, smoking, stress, sedentary lifestyles, poor sleep quality, obesity, and ultra-processed foods. Please pay attention to this, because we truly do not want you becoming part of those statistics.

• Just 100 years ago, the leading causes of death were infectious and viral diseases like tuberculosis and pneumonia — illnesses for which there were no cures or vaccines at the time.

So please, as a first simple tip: go for a walk (especially after your biggest meal if you can), dance, or do any activity that requires movement. It doesn’t matter if you work a 9-to-5 job like I do — make the time to do it for yourself.