Coming soon 👀

the backstory on what led me to this moment.

This is More Salt. A weekly newsletter (except maybe at first once baby arrives, but I know you all will give me some grace there…) where I’ll dive into food, health, chronic illness, wellness, biohacking, fitness, pregnancy, babies, family and marriage.

“From chronically ill to happy, healthy mother to be. Sharing everything I’ve learned along the way through wholesome recipes, fitness and lifestyle protocols, and biohacking tricks to inspire you to live your happiest and healthiest life.”

My entire life I have been told that I needed to be on a high salt diet, and while I don’t cook with a “high salt” mentality, I definitely add more salt to everything I eat. However, salt is also an essential mineral and part of our nutritional needs. “More Salt” felt like the perfect title as I marry food and health in this newsletter.

I began my online cooking journey in 2022 and found instant success in my “bored” style of cooking and started going by the name/phrase “Le Bored Chef”. If you are a newer follower and didn’t follow me back then, I essentially would just dead pan stare at the camera and cook. While this is EXTREMELY common now, at the time it was super weird. So weird in fact that Instagram posted me to their official page when I was only about 2 months into posting. I do occasionally incorporate that style here and there, but it just stopped feeling authentic once I got pregnant the first time around.

But what got me into cooking in the first place? Well as you might know already, I have an extensive health history and was at a crucial turning point during high school. I was on medical home-bound (sort of like homeschool), so sick, probably depressed, and on 10-20 pills a day. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. One day my brother said “why don’t you pay attention to what you eat and how it makes you feel?” So from there on out I became obsessed. At the time veganism and “plant based” was all the rage, so that’s what I mostly leaned into. However, my emphasis was always on cutting out processed foods and only eating homemade or whole foods. I knew that what I put on my body was just as important as what I put in my body, so I began making homemade soap with my mom, using baking soda as shampoo and toothpaste, apple cider vinegar as conditioner, and growing a garden. I started moving my body (what I would claim to be the “cure” to POTs, but I’m not a doctor so take all of this with a grain of salt) which at first meant laying down using resistance bands, then doing core laying, then yoga poses, then recumbent biking, then walking, then strength training, then running. Every decision added up until suddenly I was 22 and off all medication aside from birth control, which I got off of at 26. At this point in my life, 29 and pregnant, I believe I am the healthiest I have ever been. Yes, I definitely was more active and felt better pre pregnancy… but I genuinely feel that my baby has healed the final health issues I could never overcome on my own - like the necessity for IV fluids.

However, let’s get back on track here. Healing myself through food was what made me neurotic about it, but that isn’t where my love truly began. I started cooking and baking with my sister at a very young age and just never stopped. My mother always made homemade meals so cooking was just engrained in me. It is what I did as my hobby and my stress relief.

When I was 27 I was working in real estate and feeling outrageously burnt out. I knew that it wasn’t good for my mental or physical health and couldn’t imagine doing it for the rest of my life. So, with the support of my husband Daniel, I took the leap, sold my car, quit my job, and started posting videos. My only justification was blind confidence, I just knew in my gut I would make this passion of mine work somehow. My entire goal at the start was to share healthy meals and wellness information, but then “Le Bored Chef” took off and I ultimately feed the algorithm what it wanted. While “Le Bored Chef” was fun, I’ve been feeling so fulfilled sharing more of who I actually am - which means sharing about pregnancy, health, natural living, sustainability, fitness, and recovering from chronic illness. Those topics drive every decision I make and I am truly honored and filled with joy to see so many of you resonating with it and wanting to learn more.

And that’s what brings us here. I did have a subscription based recipe website, but since I’m moving more into the topics above it didn’t feel right to have that behind a paywall anymore. However, I will be sharing exclusive recipes on here as well. I’m so excited to dive into topics that YOU care about and grow this community together.

Thank you for all of your support.

xo, Tessa