About Rooted Recode
I know what it feels like to remember being stronger.
There was a time when working out felt normal to me. I knew what my body could do. I knew what it felt like to be strong, capable, and comfortable picking up weights.
At my peak, I deadlifted 190 pounds at 112 pounds. I worked out 7 days a week. I LOVED IT.
And then, somewhere along the way, that changed.
It wasn't one dramatic moment when I decided I was done with fitness. Life just got complicated.
In 2014, I started have nerve pains in my arms. I spent the next decade going to doctor after doctor, getting poked and prodded, and there were no answers. My neurologist called it fibromyalgia and started me on pain management. By this time I had been tested for MS, hereditary neuropathies, and anything else under the sun. I went to spinal doctors, neurologists, you name it, I tried it.
Then my husband started having some nerve pain in his arm from sitting all stupid-like and decided he wanted to go to chiropractor. So we went. And he was surprising thorough.. like more than any doctor I’d been to yet. So I made my own appointment. Hopes were high. Turns out, I just needed a chiropractor with a little bit of OCD to figure out that even though my neck is within normal range of curve, it wasn’t “perfect”. So one pop of my neck, and I haven’t had pain since.
I tell you this because during those years, I kept trying to work out through the pain. Somedays it wouldn’t affect the pain, others it would. So I slowly stopped working out. I also found myself in a leg boot because I pushed myself too hard through the tingles in my legs.
I went hard. And I paid for it.
Since then, I have tried to work out many times. I make it a week, maybe 2, if I’m lucky before I’m complaining I’m too sore, I’m tired, the usual.. and it’s because I’m trying to do the old work outs that I did 10 years ago. I’m trying to compare my now to where I finished.
I didn't want fitness to become my whole life.
When I started thinking seriously about getting back into shape, I kept running into the same problem.
I didn't want to just “move my body” and pretend I didn't care about results. I do care. I want to get stronger. I want more muscle. I want to feel fit again. And yes, I want to look like I work out.
But I also don't want to organize my entire life around achieving those things.
I don't want to spend hours in the gym. I don't want to weigh every bite of food indefinitely. I don't want to make myself a sad little diet dinner while everyone else eats the meal I actually wanted. And I definitely don't want to spend the rest of my life bouncing from one 30-day challenge to another because I'm afraid that slowing down means losing everything I've accomplished.
I wanted something in the middle.
Something that acknowledged that results take effort without pretending that more effort is always better.
Something that could help me push myself when I needed a push—and eventually settle into a routine I could imagine doing for years.
That's where Rooted Recode started.
So I'm building the way back myself.
Rooted Recode isn't a story I'm writing after the transformation is over.
I'm in it.
I'm completing the workouts myself. I'm following the food framework. I'm figuring out which parts work as well in real life as they did when I planned them and which parts need to change.
That's especially important to me with the 21-Day Rooted Recode. Before I ask another woman to spend three weeks following that program, I'm doing all 21 days myself.
If something is unnecessarily miserable, I want to know. If the schedule doesn't allow enough recovery, I want to know. If something is confusing, unrealistic, or just plain annoying by the second week, I want to find that out before I put a price tag on it.
I'm not interested in creating workouts that look impressive on paper.
I want to create something I would actually use.
And I'm not trying to become a fitness influencer.
You won't find a perfectly organized life behind Rooted Recode.
I have a job. I have responsibilities. Dinner still has to get made. Some days I have plenty of motivation and other days I would rather do almost anything besides pick up a dumbbell.
That's exactly the kind of life I think fitness needs to work inside.
Rooted Recode isn't about turning yourself into someone whose life revolves around working out. It's about becoming someone who works out while still having a life that revolves around everything else that matters to you.
Three strength workouts can matter.
A walk can count.
Knee push-ups are still push-ups.
Lighter dumbbells still build strength.
Rest is part of training.
And missing Tuesday doesn't mean Wednesday needs to become punishment for it.
That's the kind of fitness I want to practice, and it's the kind I'm building Rooted Recode around.
Food needed a recode too.
I couldn't build this around exercise and then pretend food didn't matter.
But I also wasn't interested in creating another meal plan full of foods people eat for three weeks because they're “being good.”
I live in a household. I want to make one dinner.
I want pasta sometimes. I want potatoes. I want sauce on things. I want to go out to eat and order what sounds good. I want food to still be one of the enjoyable parts of being alive.
So the Rooted Recode approach to food is deliberately ordinary. Real meals, recognizable ingredients, and as much nutrition as I can reasonably get from food first. I'm much more interested in what I can put on my plate—or grow in my garden—than building a routine around powders, pills, and products.
Build meals around protein. Eat vegetables and fruit. Pay attention to portions. Include carbohydrates. Use fats and sauces intentionally rather than pretending they don't exist. Enjoy meals that don't perfectly fit the plan and then go back to eating normally afterward.
There is no separate “diet food” version of your life waiting for you here.
I want to know what my food can do first.
The fitness world has a supplement for just about everything.
Protein powders. Pre-workouts. Greens powders. Electrolyte mixes. Recovery formulas. Sleep supplements. Fat burners. An endless collection of tubs, packets, and capsules promising to help us perform better, recover faster, or finally get results.
I'm much more interested in starting with what I can get from actual food.
That means learning how to build meals that provide the protein, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, and minerals my body needs rather than treating food as calories and supplements as nutrition. It means looking at what I may be able to get from yogurt, eggs, meat, beans, vegetables, fruit, nuts, seeds, herbs, and the other foods already in my kitchen before assuming I need another product.
And because growing and using herbs is already part of my life, I want Rooted Recode to explore that side of wellness too.
Not in a this herb magically melts fat kind of way. That's not what I'm interested in.
I want to understand where herbs and traditional preparations can reasonably fit alongside modern nutrition and exercise: growing them, cooking with them, making teas and infusions, understanding what they contain, looking at what the research actually says, and being equally willing to say when the evidence isn't there.
Natural doesn't automatically mean better, and a supplement isn't automatically necessary just because it's marketed to people who work out.
My preference is simpler: start with food. Use plants intelligently. Add something else when there's a good reason for it.
That's part of what rooted means to me too.
Why “Rooted Recode”?
Rooted is the part I want to keep.
A strong foundation. A body that can carry me through my actual life. Habits that don't disappear the second motivation does. A way of taking care of myself that feels stable instead of constantly swinging between all in and I really need to start again.
Recode is the part I'm changing.
The idea that working out only counts if it's hard. That missing a day means you've failed. That wanting to change your appearance means you don't love yourself. That getting results requires giving up normal food. That every fitness goal needs to become a lifestyle.
I'm interested in replacing those rules with something I can actually live with.
Get stronger. Eat real food. Move often. Then go live your life.
That's Rooted Recode.
A little about me
My name is Julie, and I'm the person behind Rooted Recode.
By day, I work in the environmental field, which means my professional world is grounded in science, evidence, and figuring out how things actually work rather than how we'd like them to work.
I'm bringing some of that same mindset here.
I'm not a registered dietitian, physician, or fitness coach and Rooted Recode isn't a substitute for individualized medical, nutrition, or fitness advice. I'm a woman rebuilding her own fitness, doing the research, testing what I create, and documenting what I learn along the way.
I love gardening and spending time with my husband and dog. We’re gamers. We’ve been playing video games together for 21 years. And now we’re looking to buy a house in Virginia.
And right now?
I'm working on becoming strong again.
If that's where you are too, you're in the right place.