Mindful Roots Beginning

Carrie Ozog
Owner, Mindful Roots

I grew up in a small, blue collared town outside of Chicago, IL. called McHenry. As your typical midwest family, we ate like any other family did, a lot of meat, starches and processed foods, not knowing that all this food that we were consuming would eventually wreak havoc on all of us with disease, illness and addiction. In 1996, I gave birth to a beautiful daughter, weighing in at 210 pounds, and it was then I realized that I needed to step up my game on health. I needed to become a healthier, more energized version of me. I incorporated more fruits and veggies in my diet, removed most animal protein and made some dramatic lifestyle changes, I felt amazing! I lost a bunch of weight and started to began to really “live” my life. There were a few years I researched health and healing the body naturally but still had some habits that were affecting me mentally. I felt there was more out there in holistic health so in 1999, I became a massage therapist and practiced this therapeutic way of healing people for almost 21 years. During my years as a CMT, I needed more excitement with saving and healing people.

In 2008 I became a firefighter/EMT-paramedic where I practiced emergency medicine on 3 separate fire departments. After several years, I decided that the Midwest was not serving me and my health, I wanted to be a part of a community that felt the same as I did, so I moved to Colorado in 2016 and worked at the UCHealth Campus, level I trauma, as an emergency technician, dream job come true for the time being. There is where I witnessed the worst of disease and illness, helping hundreds. There is where I also learned that most of it was created by poor lifestyle decisions and the physicians did nothing to reroute their patient’s lifestyle journey but instead feed them with pharmaceuticals.

I’ve witnessed many deaths that could have easily been prevented had they have had the knowledge. I lost my big brother to a narcotic overdose. He was prescribed several pain medications from a surgery, doctors knowing the addictiveness of the drugs, and never stopped until the day of his death a few years later. It was then I woke up. I quit my profession of western medicine. I consumed myself in education revolved around alternative medicine, herbs, and what it takes to thrive. In 2017, I met a couple in Punta Cana whom also lived in the Denver area. He is a scientist, health researcher, and she was one of the co-founders of CorePower Yoga. We became the best of friends almost immediately. I spent countless hours of him teaching me about what it takes to thrive, and many sessions of yoga with her at CorePower. He, suffering from Lyme and being on a very restrictive diet, was looking for someone to prep his meals for him. I took the job. He had flown his chef from California in to train me. We spent 3 long days in the kitchen teaching me new techniques, learning about foods and how they react to the body, and then creating beautiful, nutrient dense meals that excluded nightshades. I consciously created all his meals with alkaline water, kitchenware that could not leak any toxic materials into the foods, 100% organic produce, grass fed/finished wild game and love. We had his health on right track. Through her enthusiasm of health, I also was talked into becoming a yoga teacher and received my 200 hour certification with CorePower but then traveled to Bali for a month and received my 500 hour certification with School Yoga Institute. My life was now on the right journey to freedom.

As a couple years went by, they had referred me to many people whom were also suffering with some sort of inflammatory illness. Although inflammation is a naturally occurring process of the immune system, inflammation leads to disease. Through my conscious creations and other modalities, illnesses started to vanish and these humans began to experience a beautiful life again. It was then that I told myself that if I can heal all these people through my food, maybe I should do it for the rest of the world and that’s when Mindful Roots was established. I have been educating hundreds of people with the knowledge that I have gained and turning health around with my creations. Simply by nurturing your body with nutrient dense foods, your symptomatic discomfort will disappear. Together we can and will create homeostasis.

In light,
Carrie

Mindful Roots Colorado

Eloisa McManaman
Franchisee, Mindful Roots Colorado

My name is Eloisa McManaman and I am the new franchisee for Mindful Roots for the Colorado region.

I grew up in Western Colorado thinking eating lots of meat and dairy was the only way to enjoy food. Looking back, it is difficult remembering a day when I didn’t have swelling and pain of some sort in my body even as a child. I have always been a dancer in my heart and would push my body to its absolute breaking point to be able to do the dance moves my peers were doing around me. Like most, it took me longer than it should have to figure out that the inflammation in my body, causing me to continuously injure myself, was directly related to the food I was eating. In my early twenties I tried and failed multiple times to cut out dairy from my diet, it was obvious that my body could no longer handle lactose. By 26, my joints would swell and hurt for no reason, I had to make multiple hospital trips due to asthma, I was failing as a newly licensed dance fitness instructor, and my cholesterol and blood pressure were very high. It was then, with the help of my amazing partner and now husband, that I decided to become more conscious of what I was eating and how I felt after I ate it. Because of this new awareness, without any plan to do so, we started our new plant-based journey and have never looked back.

Trying to change our way of eating while others around you refuse to budge is a difficult task to say the least, but I have made it a life goal to prove to everyone who is willing to listen that it is possible to both nourish and heal your body with food AND still enjoy every single bite. I am now in my mid thirties and have more energy than I know what to do with most days, am a very successful and bouncy fitness instructor who has the energy to encourage and connect with my students and am so excited to help whoever is willing to eat food that that is their ally instead of their enemy.

I found Mindful roots as a customer in Delta, Co. when I was very busy with my full-time job, side job at the Montrose Recreation Center, volunteering at the Magic Circle Players community theatre in Montrose and trying my best to spend quality time with my loved ones. I will be forever grateful for all the delicious nutritious and convenient meals during those busy times. When I read Carrie’s story, I was in tears because I was so inspired by her past and her journey. It set me on a path of thinking that maybe I didn’t have to be stuck in my job in healthcare forever and maybe I could one day work in a job where I could fully embrace my true self and share my passion with the world every day. It was pure fate to discover the soul connection I have with Carrie and to meet her in person just as she was trying to find a business partner to take over Mindful Roots in the Colorado area. Here I am! Bright eyed and bushy tailed ready, willing and ecstatic to continue Mindful Roots in my beautiful home State and to continue growing the legacy and blessing that Carrie started here in Colorado.