BRINGING JOY BACK TO FOOD: MY HAPPY FOOD PROJECT!

⎨My "Happy Food Project"⎬

Years ago I felt the need to regroup and reset my intentions regarding my nutrition, and make some progress in this area of my life, too. I was ready for deeper healing.

 I have been raised in a family that was (and still is!) very mindful about healthy nutrition, and I honestly can say I've always eaten well until I got married- in fact, my marriage triggered a lot of unhealed wounds in me, and caused lots of problems in my life, including in my nutrition with an abnormal weight gain.

Even if I had already done a lot of progress over the years, and integrated new habits and new behaviors, there were still parts of my relationship with food that could definitely be improved. Especially my mindset and my attitude towards food. 

And so, my "Happy Food Project" was born. I decided I really needed to take my life into my hands and heal this area of my life once and for all.

I still had some beliefs that resurfaced from time to time, and as a result, I didn't have a relaxed attitude towards food.

Over the past several years, I have had some problems in this area of my life: my stomach had kind of "closed", because of emotional trauma and lots of stress, and I couldn't eat very much. Then I started developing very bad habits, among which eating some ultraprocessed food (that I had never eaten in my whole life!), and also because of all the somewhat tumultuous events in my life triggered by my spiritual awakening, I gradually developed a lot of stress in the realm of nutrition. I  first lost a lot of weight without doing any diet, then gained a lot of weight again, and therefore I did a lot of dieting again, without being able to stabilize my weight anymore. In the beginning I didn't see with clarity, but it eventually became more and more evident to me that I had completely lost all of my JOY regarding food and eating.

I used to love it all- cooking and eating- but at a certain point, I started eating to just survive, not finding any pleasure in food anymore. On the contrary, eating ended up being frustrating and stressful for me, almost traumatic at times. 

Years ago, during an intentional trip to the supermarket with the only purpose to see what I liked, and find something that I wanted to eat, I was shocked to acknowledge that there wasn't (almost) anything that I wanted to eat. I felt just disgusted by food.

I needed to bring the JOY, my JOY, back to food. I'm Italian, and I've always loved food and cooking. As a matter of fact, I come from a family of cooks. But I've allowed (consciously and unconsciously) the circumstances in my life to take that JOY away from me.

So I started my "Happy Food Project", guided by my heart, that suggested me a fun and relaxed way for me to fulfill my desire. To be joyful again while eating, finding what makes me feel good and energized, nourished not only in my body, but also in my Soul.

For a few years I have been cooking, experimenting, trying new things, eating old faves, finding new faves, finding new ways... and taking pictures of what I was eating along the way.

Now, in 2025, I can say this project totally worked for me! Not only did I find the JOY for food again, but I also found new ways that have immensely simplified the preparation of meals, and thus, increased my JOY and fun in the kitchen even more!

I am going to post here on my blog some of the pictures I've taken during the past years (since they're no longer online and available for anybody to see), and also continue my project because seriously... it's so much fun!!!!! On top of that, I have decided to also start again the column of my blog titled, "From my Kitchen", with some food styling photography and also recipes from my kitchen for you to try if you feel so inclined :)

I hope you'll be inspired! And if you want, you're welcome to join me!!

Monica xoxo