Flank steak with mini wedge salad (photo courtesy of Spencer Galton)
Blackened shrimp
FUEL MY LIFE
The shopping, chopping, preparing, and portioning of mindfully nutritious food are perhaps some of the most daunting and time-consuming tasks in our daily efforts to eat and live healthfully. But what if you could get some of that time back? Time with your family and friends. Time for your passions. More time for yourself. Enter Fuel My Life. By Janice Binkert Shaina LaFond, personal chef, certified fitness nutrition specialist, and owner/founder of Fuel My Life, was inspired to create her unique business concept — a nutritionfocused, “food as fuel” meal service — through struggles she herself had experienced in trying to strike a balance between her business and private life. A career in the food and beverage industry had led to an unhealthy lifestyle, and the added responsibility of raising a family while feeling exhausted and lacking energy ultimately resulted in frustration and stress for her. But ironically, although food had been part of the problem, in the end it turned out to be the solution. As LaFond put it, “Changing my relationship with food changed everything. With Fuel My Life, we not only want to help people find more time in their day but also provide a way for them to make educated decisions about the food they are consuming and how it affects their well-being.” La Fond began working in restaurants at age 18. “Though I have no formal culinary training, I have years of kitchen experience,” she said. “I started in the front of the house, but eventually fell in love with the almost balletic, controlled chaos of the back of the house.” After years in the casual dining and craft beer arena, she found her way to upscale dining and the world of wine. “I was fascinated by the culinary and cultural impact of wine,” she said, “and I spent eight years working for a national airportbased retail restaurant/wine shop chain, which allowed me to travel to open up new shops around the country. But while I was mentally stimulated by what I did, I also suffered for it. That industry is, after all, rife with selfindulgence. Hours-long wine lunches with beautiful pairings. Tastings with winemakers with charcuterie and cheese. So much food and so much alcohol!” A native of Flint who grew up mostly in the Detroit area, LaFond met her nowhusband, Christopher, in middle school. “We were friends for a very long time before we decided to make it a lifetime thing!” she said. The couple moved to Traverse City five years ago from the Ann Arbor area. “Chris had just completed his surgical residency at St. Joseph Mercy hospital there and was offered a general
surgery position at Munson Hospital. And since this area is also renowned for its food and wine, it seemed like the perfect place for both of us to continue to pursue our passions — medicine for him and hospitality for me,” said LaFond. Unfortunately, the transition was not so perfect for LaFond. “I attempted to stay within my field by working with local wineries, but that proved to be very difficult, because I was by now the mother of two young children — our second was born the day after we arrived in Traverse City — in a new town with no family nearby and a husband who worked long, arduous hours. The stress of the whole situation began to impact my mental and physical health. And my solution to that stress was to soothe myself with rich foods and drink, which only served to exacerbate those issues.” Fortunately, after a cathartic moment when she realized that her lack of energy and enthusiasm were causing her to miss out on important and fleeting moments of her family life, LaFond sought outside professional help. Between therapy and a personal trainer, she was able to regain her health and energy, and she found new hobbies, like mountain biking and powerlifting, that made her feel strong, centered, and capable again. “I learned the importance of making time for self-care. I had the strength and ability to enjoy time with my husband, to play with my kids, and to provide an example to them of choosing to honor one’s self. It made an enormous difference in all of my relationships. Nevertheless, LaFond desperately missed the beautiful foods that seemed “off-limits” in her new lifestyle. And she wondered if and how she would be able to include them in her diet and still maintain her weight loss and healthy habits long-term. So she started to experiment, choosing a favorite dish and reworking it to offer the same flavors. but with healthy alternatives substituted for some of the more calorie-dense ingredients. As she did so, she would post these meals to her local gym/ fitness community’s Facebook group. “The feedback was amazing,” said LaFond. “So many people commented that they would love to eat such delicious food, knowing that it wouldn’t set them back in their goals. So, I gathered a focus group of sorts. I asked people how often they would want it, and how much they would be willing to pay, and what such a
12 • february 01, 2021 • Northern Express Weekly
Falafel bowl.
meal service would mean to them. Encouraged by what I heard, I talked to my husband, who fully threw his support behind me and my new endeavor.” LaFond launched Fuel My Life in August 2018. “In the very beginning, along with running my business, I was avidly pursuing peak fitness,” she said. “I didn’t allow much flexibility in my exercise or eating regimens, and the recipes I created reflected that. I’ve since come to realize that fitness isn’t just physical health. Mental health plays an enormous role. Often when people fixate too much on their diet/exercise, they tend to overcompensate and develop an unhealthy and needlessly restrictive relationship with food. This can backfire and lead to worse long-term outcomes. My focus now — and the focus of my company — is mindful consumption. All in all, I think it’s more responsible to communicate to people that they can eat beautiful, healthy food that satisfies them emotionally as well as physically, without demanding that they adhere strictly to a program. That’s how you make a true lifestyle change for the better.” Another change LaFond soon realized she needed to make was to relinquish some of the responsibility of the business to a trusted partner. “For the first six months or so, I did all the recipe development and cooking — and everything else — myself,” she said, “but once our client list grew to a certain point, I knew that I needed help.” She eventually hired chef Korrie Garcia, who had trained at the Natural Gourmet
Southwest burrito bowl.
Institute in New York, as a part-time assistant, but soon promoted her to full-time head chef, handling all food preparation and inventory management. “Korrie is as good a human being as she is a chef, and she specializes in whole, natural food preparation, including cooking for people with special diets, sensitivities, and/ or allergies,” said LaFond. “She is also a skilled pastry chef. Since she came on board, she has helped me fine-tune our dishes, created fantastic new ones, spearheaded our school lunch program (see sidebar), and made our little enterprise even better from an ecological, environmental perspective.” LaFond handles all administrative aspects of running a small business plus deliveries, ordering, ingredient sourcing, and client interaction. “Together, we brainstorm new dishes and ways to better our service. We are always becoming inspired by the food we eat, and chefs we love, and we try to bring that all into our kitchen in our own unique, health-focused way,” said LaFond. “We’re quite a team!” The menu choices offered by Fuel My Life are not only healthy but diverse, delicious, and — something that is often neglected in to-go food — attractively presented. Whether you’re an omnivore or prefer vegetarian, vegan, keto, gluten-free, lactose-free, low carb, or low-fat fare, you’re sure to find something here. Choose from refreshers like the almondcinnamon smoothie (with unsweetened almond milk, local gala apple, fresh banana, vanilla whey protein, almond butter, glutenfree oats, chia seeds and hemp hearts),
