My name is Erika Simons and I’m currently the head recipe coach over at Mediterranean Refresh!

I joined the team there because it was created specifically for people like me and you who want to transform our bodies and lives.

I’m a mother and a daughter who has first-hand experience with the disastrous results of our processed, unnatural, sugar-filled lifestyles.

I wouldn’t be the woman I am today if it wasn’t for my mother. I owe her so much. I’m sure many of you can relate.

She was an incredible Chef who trained under some of the best culinary minds in California, and she taught me everything she knew about cooking. By the time I was a teenager, she had taught me how to make authentic dishes from places like Japan, Italy, Greece, and so many others.

The only trouble was, even though my Mom could create meals that people happily paid hundreds of dollars for, she struggled with her weight and more importantly, her health.

As a young girl, I watched her battle with an eating disorder.

While my family and I would eat the incredible dinners she cooked for us, she seemed only to push food around her plate with a fork, never taking a bite. That was until I turned 14 and everything changed.

Her dietary habits were unsustainable, and her body didn’t know what to make of the food she was eating.

This was the year my Mom was put into the hospital for the first time. She was never able to bring herself to eat the kinds of foods that would properly nourish her, and it took a severe toll on her health and our entire family.

So, for months at a time, we would visit her in the hospital.

Over the span of three years her health rapidly declined — until she passed away in May of 2003.

It was at this point, after the loss of my mother, that I decided to take a stand and change my life.

This is all because of the standard American diet...

I decided I would never again eat anything that could threaten my chance to love my children for as long as possible. I was tired of being tired, overweight, and headed down the same path as my mom.

So, from that point forward, healthy cooking became the key to unlocking my best possible life.