My Story

My path to becoming a health coach started in my twenties, although I didn’t know it at the time. I learned that modifying my diet had a significant effect on my physical health. Eating salad twice a day helped resolve some digestive issues I had suffered from as a teen. Later I discovered that reducing sugar consumption reduced the number of yeast infections that plagued me. I became dedicated to home cooking and concerned about the health of our planet and the availability of clean, organic, sustainable foods.

After my two wonderful children were born, I didn’t lose all the weight I had gained. Then I started to put on more weight with career-related stress. I worked more and more hours and continued to gain weight. At one point I was seventy pounds heavier than the perfect weight I had enjoyed in my early twenties. We ate little meat, mostly grains and legumes, and a lot of pasta. I was addicted to sugar, caffeine, anger, and shopping. I went through periods of going to the gym and trying to burn off all those calories. I must have believed that I was unworthy of happiness because of my early childhood experiences and sabotaged my first marriage accordingly. I became severely depressed which landed me in therapy, the recipient of the first of many thirty-day supplies of antidepressants. Over a ten-year period, I tried several different antidepressants but always ended up feeling that they stopped working.

I felt that my physical health started to fall apart in my late 40s, although I had cured painful, stress-related acid indigestion after adding a daily Buddhist practice to my life. When I was clearly having signs of being in menopause, I saw a male gynecologist who told me that it was not possible and that I was too young. He didn’t bother to request the FSH blood test that would have given us confirmation. I trusted my intuition and found a community clinic where the nurse practitioner immediately ordered the FSH test. After receiving the test results, he gave me a knowing smile and validation: “Your hormones are SCREAMING menopause.” Thankfully I’m on the other side of menopause now but then, I thought I was going to die with sleepless nights, night sweats, hot flashes, and mood swings. Then I began to feel buried in brain fog. I was still eating a mostly vegetarian diet, heavy on grains, legumes, and fruit, with liberal doses of sugar.

At that point, I was feeling unfulfilled in my career, overworked and underappreciated. I was married for the second time but not feeling fulfilled there either. I was just starting to identify my unresolved issues from childhood, even though I had previously done quite a bit of therapy. I had been on and off antidepressants and mood enhancers for the better part of twenty years and I had been mostly vegetarian for over thirty years. In addition to having menopause really get my attention, I was beginning to have some issues with my physical health. The right side of my body literally was screaming at me to make changes (plantar fasciitis in my right foot, persistent injuries of the hip, shoulder, and pinky finger, all on the right side) and I was at least twenty-five pounds overweight. Then my gallbladder showed up as being full of gallstones. I thought I had been eating a healthy, low-fat diet since my twenties, and I had been conscientious about staying in shape, but something was not right.

I engaged a life coach who helped me identify the need to leave both the marriage and the job. She inspired me to take the Feminine Power course under the auspices of Evolving Wisdom, at the time taught by Claire Zammit and Catherine Woodward Thomas. During this course, I awakened to the deeper truth that my intuition would see me through the changes that would be coming down the pike; I didn’t have to have it all figured out ahead of time. I just needed to begin somewhere.

I left my job. My spouse and I parted ways. As I was looking for a way to combine my passion for nutrition, wellness, personal transformation, and spirituality and my love of teaching, I bumped into an ad for the Institute of Integrative Nutrition (IIN). After I enrolled in the course to become a health coach and began experiencing the IIN way of respecting one’s bio-individuality and started defining my own bio-individuality, my health started to improve. I did a thirty-day elimination diet (eliminated dairy, eggs, all grains, potatoes and other nightshades, nuts and seeds, mushrooms, added sugar, alcohol, and caffeine). I also began to add more olive oil and coconut oil. Having eliminated so many sources of protein, I saw the need to put aside my vegetarian mindset for the month. After all, I knew the way I had been eating was not leaving me with a sense of vitality. After a month of eating just chicken, pork, beef, fish, sweet potatoes, green leafy veggies, onions, garlic, and other veggies, I began adding things back into my diet one by one. None of the usual suspects (eggs, nuts, dairy, grains including wheat) caused me any problems upon re-entry. I noticed that I had stopped craving sugar and felt more focused and awake.

Meanwhile, in the area of what IIN calls primary food (spirituality, joy, relationships, social life, career, physical activity, health, finances, and home environment), I incorporated daily meditation to love myself unconditionally. I did yoga and qigong, walked, hiked, and did some weight training for my arms. I looked forward to going and meeting new people. I had eliminated negativity from my relationships.

In the area of secondary food, I learned to trust what my body was telling me, which was that a mostly plant-based diet, with some dairy and nuts, with grass-fed/ pastured animal protein once a day is what works for me. I began to add back into my diet some whole grains and legumes but not nearly as many as when I was vegetarian. That month of eating the elimination diet along with the liberal increase in healthy fats and oils reset my metabolism and brain chemistry. I no longer needed those sugar highs for my dopamine hits. I can truly say I do not crave sugar anymore. Since the elimination diet nine years ago, I have been able to ignore all processed foods and desserts. If I eat yogurt at all, it is plain. As a general rule, I also do not eat potatoes, except sweet potatoes.

My weight loss during the nine months following the elimination diet totaled twenty-five pounds. I felt so much better than before. My plantar fasciitis stopped bothering me and all my joint injuries healed. I’m enjoying less stress-related muscle pain. I continue to feel more focused and in love with life. My outlook is much more positive and my mood is consistently good. I do not have those depressive episodes anymore. I get up every day with a feeling of gratitude and a song in my heart. The combination of nourishing primary and as well as secondary food has been life-altering for me.

Beginning a new career as a massage therapist, health coach, and yoga instructor is so exciting. I love seeing the relaxed face of a client who is really benefitting from the massage and helping others establish a yoga practice that will ultimately help their mind, body, and soul. I am most enthusiastic about spreading the news that primary food is more important than what you actually put in your body and that the calories-in/ calories-out model is not the answer to sustainable weight loss. You can lose weight and feel better without starving yourself, feeling hungry, or killing yourself with a rigorous exercise schedule. In addition, I believe we have a mission to eliminate food deserts, improve the foods children eat at school, and work for democracy in our food system.

“A democratic food system – a food system that cares about the needs of the consumers, the needs of the workers, and the health of the land – could only happen in a democracy. …by working toward a democratic food system, we can help make our way back toward a real democracy.”

– Mark Bittman