We both grew up in the beautiful Black Hills of Rapid City, SD. We met when we were in 5th grade and have loved each other ever since! Our mutual stubbornness prevented us from dating until we were 23 years old, and when we finally gave into our fate and started dating, we married just 3 months later. We decided to be married on 12/21/12, which was supposedly the “end of the world,” so we felt the need to tie the knot … just in case.
We have been inseparable ever since. We literally do everything together, including working all day from home as a team. We wouldn’t have it any other way. We feel extremely blessed to be able to love what we do and do what we love. Since being married, we have made a commitment to being healthy and to help others achieve their best selves. This means physical, mental, and spiritual health. All of those roads on our personal journey together have led us to the creation of Top Notch Nutrition.
Although you may not see it now, in the past, we have both struggled with very serious health issues, which drive our passion even more. When we first got married, Bethany had a debilitating auto-immune disease that crippled her in more ways than one. She suffered from a rare form of Guillain Barre Syndrome that caused her to have no motor or sensory function in her lower legs, preventing her from walking without assistance. This was accompanied by a multitude of other life-altering symptoms, including chronic nerve pain, poor sleep, poor diet and an unhealthy relationship with food.
As for Johnny, he had some of the worst allergies our doctor had ever seen (both environmental & food), along with SIBO, Candida overgrowth, unexplainable throat and mouth ulcers, etc. Obviously, we were an auto-immune match made in heaven. Or you might say, a giant hot mess. Along with our commitment to each other, we made the commitment to doing everything we could to improving our overall health. After spending thousands and thousands (and more thousands!) of dollars on traditional medicine and treatments, we realized we needed to take a different route. We needed to heal ourselves naturally, through our diet, supplementation and faith.
While traditional medicine called for long-term corticosteroids, pain medications, and other prescriptions for both of us (that treat one symptom but can cause several others), we decided that was not our path. We wanted to take a holistic, whole foods approach. We tried several different diets, some very extreme and unrealistic. We’ve both experienced a great amount of healing through food, but still continue on this journey towards optimal health.
We searched for products that we could stand behind, and realized we needed to come up with our own. We are so grateful for the incredible people we have been able to work with to help us bring our vision to reality with Top Notch Nutrition. After years of research, trial and error, and process of elimination, we have been able to formulate our own products that we truly believe are nothing but "Top Notch." (Pun intended) Although we are still on a journey, and have faith that God will continue to lead us in the right direction, neither of us can ever remember feeling this good. With the mental clarity, sustained energy, lack of mood swings, and zero crazy cravings, we can really focus on living our lives, rather than being shackled by diet.
The changes in diet & supplementation have proven to make incredible improvements in all areas of our lives, which have driven us to do so much more than just personally adopt this lifestyle.. we felt obligated to share it. So many people are longing to feel better. Almost 70% of people deal with chronic inflammation, auto-immune issues, fatigue, brain fog, or other unexplained symptoms. Making our health a priority has done so much for us personally, that we felt like we needed to share it with as many people as we could.
We have already helped thousands of people improve their lives through diet & supplementation, and we’re not stopping there. We want to continue to help others and make an impact where we can! We are so grateful and we hope we will get to be a small part of your journey!
God Bless,
Johnny & Bethany
