Before making Warren her permanent home, Meg Harkins was traveling back and forth between Pennsylvania and California.

Over the last few years she has spent her time here in Warren, helping to transform the lives of many with what she has learned over the years. The drive to do this comes from her own health struggles with alcoholism and being 100 pounds overweight, which Harkins said caused liver failure. Her goal is to help people before they hit rock bottom since that is the place she found herself in, even in the ICU, finding herself wondering if her life was over or not.

Harkins realized that she needed to change in order to live; that the healing would occur when she took a good hard look deep down as to why she had become so unhealthy in the first place. It is a life long journey to fully heal. Her alcoholism was triggered by past trauma, Harkins said, that was a band aid that then became a dependency. Physically, Harkins said couldn’t stop drinking because she got ill if she did not drink. No one outside of her immediate family knew that she had a drinking problem.

“Domestic violence does not end simply because you leave,” Harkins said. “Quite honestly, that is when the hardest work begins. And I avoided that work like the plague. Instead, I worked an emotionally taxing job, drank, and gained weight. Every aspect of my life was unhealthy. I was miserable with myself and didn’t know how to heal.”

February 2, 2021 was a day of turning away from the bad habits that nearly took her life.

“Ground Hog Day is my ‘sober-versary,” Harkins said.

Harkins said she started to work with a health coach who would ask her if she knew how to heal – which is when Harkins found out that she didn’t have a clue. Within three months, her labs went back to normal and she declared that nutritious food had saved her life. She worked with that health coach and after 11 months, she celebrated a 100-pound weight loss.

“I absolutely dove into the healing process,” Harkins said. “A lot of soul and mind work was done, and is still being done.”

Even though she had been a registered nurse for 25 years, with a master’s degree in nursing, she pointed out that she was only required to take one class consisting of two units on nutrition.

“I knew after doing my own journey with food and nutrition, I knew I wanted to know more because I knew nothing about that, (nutrition) even working in the healthcare industry. They just don’t teach it,” Harkins said. “I was amazed at how much of a difference changing my nutrition and my habits changed my life. I decided that something good was going to come of all of this and I created Anchored Nutrition.”

Harkins shared that she felt called by God to have this business, but that she also struggled to agree because it was scary to share her story, let alone start a business as a health coach. Transparency and vulnerability is an important aspect in helping others open up and admit to needing help, she said.

“We shame ourselves before we give ourselves before getting help. You can only do what you’ve been taught,” Harkins said. “While people are stuck in survival mode, they don’t really try to learn anything new.”

Emphasizing that there is no shame in asking for help, Harkins admitted that she didn’t know that she didn’t know – she needed the knowledge of nutrition. Changes were made on how to heal her liver with specific nutrition that changed her life.

“Your food is medicine or your food is poison. It’s amazing as medicine,” Harkins said.

Harkins said she is glad to have helped others not feel alone.

“It blesses me every time somebody reaches out to me and lets me know that all of the struggles I went through weren’t for nothing,” she said.

It can be confusing trying to figure out the key to overall health. Simply put, Harkins said, “Eat more of what God made and eat less of what man made. Sticking with that will help you feel way better. Whole food first, before much boxed or packaged foods. Listen to your body. If you pay attention to it, your body tells you what it needs. We need to be more proactive on what we consume, how we react because we can’t wait and take chances. Today’s activities affect your life in 20 years. Become more aware and educated of what is in our food, and what we need to do better.”