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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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🦋The Long Game🦋
Health that withstands
If there’s one thing this lifestyle has taught me, it’s this:
Health has to withstand my real life.
Not the curated version.
Not the “after things calm down” version.
The one with grief, caregiving, diagnosis, marriage repair, nervous system overload, and days where progress looks nothing like transformation. The one that I have to remind myself that I am living, sometimes.
A healthy lifestyle that only works when life is gentle isn’t actually sustainable.
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To me, health that withstands means consistency without it dominating my entire existence.
It means the major things stay steady—even when everything else shifts, however that shows up. Nourishment. Structure. Awareness. Care. Not because I’m rigid, but because I refuse to rebuild from zero every time life asks more of me, or my family is walking through another version of adversity.
🦋Pregnancy slowed me down.
🦋Loss slowed me down.
🦋Postpartum slowed me down.
🦋Trauma slowed me down.
And I’m grateful for those seasons now. I’m not just saying that in a “prosperity gospel” way either.
They taught me that slowing isn’t failure—it’s information, if we’re willing to attempt to understand it. They taught me how to stay present in the middle, not just rush toward the outcome, sometimes the outcome will be years later. Ask me how I know this very deeply. I can see God’s hand in every part of our story now, including the parts where I screamed at him, and sobbed because my heart was breaking for myself or my family, and questioned everything that was coming at us and where it might lead us after it was over. Parents can hold that kind of honesty, until their children can receive it. So can faith, if its roots are anchored in a secure foundation.
I’m a better wife, mother, and person than I was eighteen years ago—before I met my husband.
🦋Before we had our eight living children over the next fourteen years.
🦋Before our marriage was torn down to its foundation and we began the slow process of rebuilding it together.
🦋Before “in sickness and in health” showed us that the commitment is real.
🦋Before multiplied traumas, the weight of caregiving, and extended advocacy slowed me down enough to force some self reflection that inspired radical changes in how I showed up for me in my life.
I assure you not all of that growth came from pain. It wouldn’t have been sustainable if it had. The good has outweighed the hard, in all areas.
We’re still becoming; together.
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I no longer measure success by the scale. That metric is outdated.
🦋Sometimes personal progress looks like not bingeing, because I’m using my tools.
🦋Sometimes it looks like the everything shower I kept postponing. You know you do that too mamas.
🦋Sometimes it’s making breakfast for the next two days. Invest in your future self.
🦋Sometimes it’s simply remembering that I belong on the list of people my life is allowed to support. I forgot me on there too long, and lived the consequences.
There are no awards for disappearing inside service, motherhood, or adversity.
I’ve done that. Don’t be like me.
It didn’t make me healthier, happier, or holier.
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To the woman who is tired of starting over, I want to say this clearly:
I see you.
I am you.
Starting over isn’t the problem. I love trying new things; it’s the spice of life.
Starting over without new tools is. Get that toolbox filled.
Refining your why—and identifying what actually interrupts the patterns that bring you back to day one—that’s where we change our lives.
I tell my teens and tweens that I want them to falter. Obviously, this feels really unsafe to them in the moment. I don’t say this because I want them to struggle to the point of insecurity or injury, but because I want them to learn how to get back up while I’m still here to witness it and intervene if necessary.
I didn’t have that in the way that I do it for my children. I was taught to power through, and move on in my own willpower, not how to move through it and come out stronger and more secure. And now, as an adult, I still flinch when support shows up—like I’m waiting for it to disappear, because it has.
That gap is part of why I do this work. Walking alone almost broke me.
I may not have had the kind of support in my own lifestyle that would allow me to thrive effortlessly—but I know what it’s like to walk alone. Either because you don’t know you need help, or don’t know what to ask for help with. And I don’t want other women to give up before they recognize the pattern, or that they’re headed somewhere unsustainable.
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If my body could write me a letter, it wouldn’t be long.
It would probably be a one-liner. With a tune. Because that’s how I survive hard things—with humor, and truth braided together. My kids would tell you that, “mom makes it weird.” Not sorry.
She’d say:
Nobody’s gonna break my stride.
Nobody’s gonna slow me down.
Oh no. I gotta keep on moving.
Momentum isn’t about speed. I live in Montana, which was carved by glaciers that inched their way through the landscape, and I see what that slow progress has done.
It’s about direction, and understanding if you really want to ride this train all the way to that station, or if it’s time to get off and try something different.
And right now, I’m choosing forward—gently, consistently, with a lifestyle that can carry me, and my large family, for the long haul.
That’s the heart of this work.
Not perfection. I never will be perfect.
Not performance. I have nobody to prove anything to.
But health that withstands—so we can keep living, loving, nourishing, and staying.
Steady. Right here.
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Closing Note
If you’ve read this entire collection, I want you to hear this clearly:
🦋You are not late.
🦋You are not broken.
🦋You are not failing because your life required more of you than your dreams and life planning ever accounted for.
Health is not something you earn by getting it “right.”
It’s something you practice—again and again—inside the life you’re actually living. With all its uncertainty, and potential for adversity.
This series wasn’t written to convince you to do more. In fact, I do less now than I ever have and I am more balanced than ever.
It was written to help you stay. Rooted. Resilient. Maybe even, on the road to something that looks like Restoration.
To stay present in your body. No mater its metrics.
To stay curious instead of cruel with yourself. You are created with purpose.
To stay rooted when old patterns resurface. You are not a slave to your old ways.
To stay committed without disappearing. You deserve to be seen, and cared for.
If this work gave you language for something you couldn’t name before, let that be enough for now. Insight is a form of nourishment too.
Everything I build beyond this point exists to support the kind of health and wellness described here—steady, humane, adaptable, and real.
You don’t need to rush forward. There’s no competition here.
You don’t need to prove anything. Nobody is judging your journey, except you.
You’re allowed to keep going at a pace your life can sustain.
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Ready for Support?
If you’re looking for a way to put this into practice, Fuel Flow is where this work can continue for you.
It’s an app designed to help you build consistent nourishment, flexible structure, and sustainable rhythms—without starting over or forcing perfection. A place to practice health that withstands, inside the life you’re actually living.
You can explore the two ways to experience Fuel Flow app now and begin where you are.
No pressure. Just tools and opportunity.
Just the next steady step, if it supports the lifestyle you desire.
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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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