Women In Low Carb Series: Tracey McBeath

At ROSETTE’S, we believe the low carb lifestyle is about more than food. It is about discovering better health, greater energy, and the confidence to take control of your wellbeing. Through our Women in Low Carb series, we are honored to highlight inspiring women who are sharing their journeys and helping others find their own path.

In this feature, Tracey McBeath shares her personal story of discovering low carb and how it became the starting point for deeper healing, growth, and helping others thrive.

*The views expressed are personal experiences and not intended as medical advice.

It's safe to say that finding low carb has totally changed my life. I came into this understanding when I turned 40 over 12 years ago. I was told I had fatty liver and was pre-diabetic. It was the greatest gift I was ever given, as it forced me into questioning all I thought I knew about health.

I can’t remember the first person who sparked my curiosity about diet and health. I think it was through understanding the damage sugar could do initially. But I didn’t initially understand that all carbohydrates ultimately break down into glucose in the blood. As a qualified personal trainer at the time, I initially didn’t want to believe this to be true. After all, the brain and body need glucose! But I kept searching and eventually landed on people like Mark Sisson and Prof Tim Noakes who helped me to see that I was holding on to a belief that wasn’t true, and was harming my health.  From that point, I haven’t stopped seeking and learning. My concept of health has grown well beyond diet to total whole-body healing, which I had to do for myself, as I was addicted to sugar, alcohol, and co-dependent. I had a lot of healing to do, and low carb was the gift I needed to start.

Today I have moved away from labels around nutrition, even low carb/keto/carnivore. I see it as a barrier to people changing because we often innocently stop ourselves from exploring something just because we don’t like the sound of the label. Our body needs nutrients, and nutrients that our brain recognises. When we see food in that way, it is all about real food, lots of animal protein, healthy fats, and some in season fruits. I don’t eat any veggies at all and haven’t since I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s 6 years ago. After experimenting with different approaches, I found I personally feel best without them. So, I eat a lot of eggs, meat, butter, cheese, and a few more things that make me feel my best. I am now nearly 53 and currently getting closer to menopause, so I have had to adjust things slightly. But I think that’s what we all have to do, and our body has amazing wisdom within if we are tuned into it.

The challenges are many, and the reason why 10 years ago I began coaching in this space. Firstly, for many there is the challenge of simply just knowing there is an alternative to what we are told. That fat isn’t inherently fattening, meat isn’t inherently harmful, and many commonly promoted ‘health foods’ may not work for everyone 

After we land on the knowledge, you would think it’s all easy after that. But that is far from true. We are up against a lot of both inbuilt and societal pressure not to change. Our mind hates it and puts up many internal barriers for us to navigate over. Then of course there are drug dealers on every corner, sugar and alcohol is a part of every minute of our lives. We use it to celebrate, commiserate, and just because we deserve it. It’s so ingrained in our collective subconscious, that if we don’t address those deeper patterns, change is very difficult. 

Then there is the truth we must face to see that thriving goes well beyond what we eat, and finding the truth out around nutrition is often the invitation we need to go deeper. To address things like the choices we make in how we show up to our lives, our triggers, our nervous system regulation, and essentially who we are.

This is the real reason I found this way of eating. It was my invitation back home to myself to make within me home.

All of this helps us to stay true to ourselves in the face of inevitable challenges. The cake pushers, the drink pushers, the ease of Uber Eats. We learn through repeated experience that the easy path, which might look like giving in to what others want of us, or just ordering a crappy take away meal, doesn’t give us what it promises. Humans are creatures seeking the path of least resistance. Which initially is always going to look like a path we’ve taken before. But if we allow ourselves to be teachable; to learn from our experiences, we will see that what we really need to seek is the right path. The path that is alignment with ourselves. This is largely what I see as the ‘work’. Because depending on the stories and conditioning we have developed over our lifetime, there may be many to discard around the truth that it is even ok to choose ourselves. 

My entire professional life for the past 10 years has been seeking, learning, and growing. I’ve moved from 1 on 1 coaching, to group coaching, to mentoring other coaches, to now creating a new platform called The Thriving Place. This place is home for me. It is a safe and non-judgemental place people (both practitioners and everyone) can land to explore, be curious, grow, and find their own path to thriving. There isn't any one size fits all approaches to health and healing, no matter what others might say. Following another person’s path essentially just keeps us in the dark on our own. Finding our own can be challenging, and it takes time, hence why I have created a platform where people can stay for the longer term. To seek thriving well beyond diet and enter the many other doors of healing.

My advice for anyone who might be curious is to show up and explore. Understand that the mind won’t want to let you change, you must be the one to push for it yourself. Listen to different people, try different things, and start to slow yourself down in your own life to seek clarity. Healing isn’t a fast-paced journey that is about doing more. It is slowing down and returning to a place where we need to do less. 

In my work over the years, I’ve seen there are two distinct themes that help us to heal. 

First, we need to move towards that which frightens us. Seek understanding, which is the antidote to fear. Understand yourself, your body, your desires, your values. We innocently spend much of our lives running away from all that frightens us. But there are no answers there. The answers are found in moving towards. 

And the second is that we need to stop seeking validation externally. We need to change the direction of where we look for a sense of who we are. We will never be fulfilled and happy if our eyes are focused outside of ourselves. We need to move our anchor of truth from something not real – which is others’ expectations, opinions, validations, criticisms - to within ourselves, to your core values. To what is real, solid, and grounding.

You can find Tracey within The Thriving Place:
https://www.skool.com/the-thriving-place

On Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/tracey.mcbeath.79

On Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/tracey.mcbeath/

On LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thehealthandhealingcoach/

Bio:

The founder and creator of The Thriving Place! Tracey is an experienced health and life coach from Melbourne Australia. She is also an author, public speaker, and mum of 5 kids aged from 11 to 24 years. At 40 she was pushed by fear to change her lifestyle after a fatty liver, prediabetes, and Hashimoto’s diagnosis. This fear became the best gift she was ever given (although it didn't look like a gift at the time!). Tracey has recovered from sugar and processed food dependency, alcohol dependency, and co-dependency to heal her inner world and now lives from a place of peace within. At 52, she is now full of energy and loves her thriving life. In June 2023 she spoke at TEDx Katoomba on Becoming the Navigator of Your Own Life. In March her book, The Gifts Within, will be published!