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This post reflects aspects of long-term marriage, neurodivergence, PTSD, caregiving ,trauma, faith and recovery after infidelity. Find a gentle guide on engaging with this type of post in greater detail in my content notice.
Please engage gently — for yourself and others.
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🦋Feeding Others While Protecting Yourself🦋
I didn’t realize my needs mattered alongside my family’s until I started missing meals, and paying for it somehow. It seems like that would never happen when I have struggled with disordered eating, but it did.
🦋Not in a dramatic way.
🦋Not intentionally.
🦋Just quietly—between caring for everyone else.
I would be nursing or pumping and realize I hadn’t eaten. Again. I would get to bedtime and want to eat through the fridge. I couldn’t scrape together a fast enough snack because I hadn’t been paying attention to my own body. I was so focused on keeping everyone else nourished that I treated my fuel like an afterthought. I was an afterthought.
That’s when it became clear: this wasn’t devotion, or merely being a busy mom.
It was unsustainable, and a problem that only I could solve.
Motherhood doesn’t cancel biology. It should inspire you to care more about living from a place of nutrition in all ways, not just related to food.
Caregiving doesn’t exempt you from hunger. You can’t do your job well if you aren’t taking care of yourself too.
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The systems I’ve built to reduce decision fatigue have never stayed the same. They can’t with all the seasons of multiplication and adversity we’ve been through.
I’ve rewritten them in every season, sometimes multiple times. I’ve tried to do everything myself. I’ve tried involving everyone else old enough to contribute.
Some systems worked—for a while. Some didn’t. Then we went back to the drawing board. I don’t like feeling like I’m banging my head against a wall for very long, and change can be a motivator for some people.
That’s probably the most honest part of this lifestyle.
🦋You try something, sometimes things you know won’t work.
🦋You see how long it holds, if it even does.
🦋You adjust. Sometimes in small ways, and sometimes dramatically.
🦋You try again. Then, you do it again.
What has consistently helped is letting my appliances work for me. I almost always have two crockpots running. In my dream world, I’d have four. Cooking ahead on things like beans and rice. Batch meals to deposit into my freezers for days when I need them. Letting time and heat do the heavy lifting while I tend to the rest of life, or sleep through the night.
If I had one unapologetic opinion on how to do this lifestyle, it’s this:
Every Trim Healthy Mama should own two 6-quart crockpots—no matter her family size.
That’s not excess. That’s not lazy meal prep. That’s infrastructure.
If you “don’t like the taste of crockpot food”…I’ve heard this from women before…you can absolutely cook bulk elements of your meals in them and go from there. Not everything I put in my crockpots gets served directly out of them to my people.
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I stopped explaining myself everywhere. I got tired of repeating myself.
With my husband first. He used to bring me food gifts and felt hurt if I didn’t eat them. During my personal 100 days, 100% on my plan, I had to say no—consistently—until he understood I meant it. Then I gave him other ways to show care that didn’t involve food I couldn’t or wouldn’t eat. I had to learn how to do this without any guilt. We don’t apologize for taking better care of ourselves.
With my kids, too. They love making things for me, and I want them to learn to cook and serve others with their skills. Sometimes it’s perfectly on plan. Sometimes it’s not. If I don’t eat it, that’s a me choice, and I don’t announce it. I still appreciate their effort, and we carry on.
Here’s what I’ve learned: people tend to explain, really over explain, choices they’re ashamed of.
Either because they feel deficient, like they need to justify their decisions to someone else(sometimes themselves) or because they’re afraid they’re inconveniencing someone else by choosing autonomy.
My kids’ diagnoses strengthened my spine here, the hard way. We don’t barter our health and wellness for someone else’s comfort or pride. We don’t beg to be “allowed” to stay healthy and safe. We don’t apologize for making choices that align with our goals, without explaining even—not with strangers, not with spouses, not even with children.
I’m a big girl. I can make my own food.
And I can teach my kids, husband, friends and relatives to accept my choices without explanation—or offense.
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Leadership at our table looks different now. Even my kids with food boundaries are leaning into their personal leadership skills regarding food.
This is not a short-term goal, it can’t afford to be. It’s a lifestyle.
My kids’ plan doesn’t look exactly like mine—but we’re all responsible for eating the safest and most nourishing foods we can. Shared values matter more than identical plates.
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Do I model flexibility without chaos?
From the outside, I’m not sure it always looks flexible. I’ve been accused of being “too rigid.” I’ve also been told many times, “I couldn’t do what you do” when others get a small inkling of what we are living without, and how many areas of our life gluten exposure can show up. But the truth is this: we all grow into what we can’t outrun.
For me, that’s cooking completely gluten-free for a large family.
I can only bend so far, then I have to meet myself halfway.
So I stay bendy where it counts—by keeping faster-food options ready, by knowing what’s possible on hard days, by choosing battles wisely. Anything beyond that becomes an uphill fight, and I don’t always have the capacity for it. I have learned to protect my peace a lot better than I used to.
This is what protecting yourself looks like inside a life of service.
🦋Not abandoning others.
🦋Not rigid control.
🦋But leadership that includes you at the table too.
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Stress, Trauma & the Nervous System — why nourishment has to support regulation, not just compliance.
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WELLNESS THAT WITHSTANDS
Rooted. Resilient. Restored.
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Nicole Burch is a CertifiedTrim Healthy Lifestyle Coach, author, and holistic family life mentor who helps women and families rebuild from the inside out. Through her work, she guides others toward resilience, restoration, and peace—teaching that true healing begins at home. As the owner of Life in the Treehouse, Nicole helps women and families overcome burnout, find food freedom, and create sustainable wellness that lasts. Her work weaves together the practical and the profound—showing that peace is possible even in the busiest, most complicated seasons of life.
Whether she’s helping clients balance blood sugar, restore energy, or reconnect with joy, Nicole’s mission remains the same:
to help women and families live Rooted in Rhythm—anchored in peace, balanced in body, and guided by grace.
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If you’re seeking nourishment for body and soul—gluten-free living, Trim Healthy knowledge and support, or peace amid the chaos—welcome home.
This is where resilience takes root.
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I am celebrating five years of being a Certified Trim Healthy Lifestyle Coach. I have lived an abundance of seasons within just these five years. I was a nursing mom, pregnant multiple times, survived a traumatic pregnancy loss in 2022, lived in survival mode from 2022-2025 while being an ambassador for survivors of sexual assault and facilitating the legal aspects of a criminal trail against the perpetrator for those assaults, almost died due to pulmonary embolism after my eighth child was born in 2023, and somewhere in there lost and gained 80 pounds after identifying binge-eating disorder as a new challenge. I KNOW too well that life slows down for nobody and no situation, and every meal is a new opportunity to be a begin-againer!
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Nicole Burch is a Certified Trim Healthy Mama Lifestyle Coach, independently offering services based on the THM plan. This coach is not an employee or agent of Trim Healthy Mama, LLC. Coaching services are independently managed, and THM is not responsible for results, business practices, or claims made by this coach.
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