Off the Plate health

Adobe Spark (5)

This has been a trying week for me but I’m forging ahead with my studies at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. In this week’s module, I’ve thought a lot about the primary food of joy: the things that bring me joy, and how I can bring more joy into my life.

This level of introspection is challenging, but it’s really the key to understanding how to transform your life into one that attracts positivity, health, and happiness.

I was born in 1967, making me 50, and the same age as the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. With the celebration of its release, I’ve been listening to a lot of their later albums on my commute. There is nothing like music you love to transport you to a different time and place, recalling memories so vivid it’s like they just happened.

Growing up in the 70s, my mom stayed home with me and my brothers. She was such an amazing mother. She taught me how to read well before nursery school, and she started my love of music with piano lessons at the age of 4. Music was always part of my life with my mom, whether it was singing along to Sesame Street or to the music in the car on road trips. The other day, Yellow Submarine came on the radio (Siriux XM has a great Beatles Channel right now), and of course I am singing along in the car and it completely brought me back to a moment driving with my mom to Northampton, MA, the little arty college town where we would have girls’ day out when I was in high school. We sang in the car at the top of our lungs — the good old Buick Estate Wagon. Such a vivid memory, and a happy one.

I have some challenges ahead of me, but I’ve been trying to summon joy to my life where I can to help me process the shock of a cancer diagnosis. Music brings me joy, calms my overactive worrying tendencies, slows the heart rate, revisits happier times, and gives me strength. I feel less alone knowing I have these memories to power me through this, and my mother was one of the best role models in my life. Now SHE was brave. I will channel her influence in my own journey, and share my experience with my clients in the future.

I found this great quote: “Joy is a decision, a really brave one, about how you are going to respond to life.” (Wess Stafford) I will keep this in my heart in the weeks to come.

And meanwhile, back to The Beatles (Abbey Road, to be exact).

Journey_blogpost

Welcome to Off the Plate, a health and wellness blog that will accompany my future practice as an integrative nutrition health coach. I recently started studying at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. I am in the midst of my own personal journey to optimal health and wellness, and along the way, I realized that I can share my experience with others to help them achieve their goals.

In July 2016, I underwent gastric bypass surgery and my life was forever changed. I am now an obesity survivor — an obesity ass-kicker. This journey has been a long one, having been obese since I was in my teens (and literally on one diet or another since I was 11). When I decided to have bariatric surgery, I researched the lifestyle changes, I read books and blogs, and committed to making this change permanent.

Stress, anxiety, lack of sleep, and a variety of endocrine and metabolic complexities prevented me from losing weight, no matter how much I exercised, and despite following nutritional guidance from my doctors. Although the surgery radically changed my digestion and absorption of nutrients, it didn’t change my brain. I had to make those changes myself:

Adopting a more positive outlook on life
Identifying stress triggers and learning how to manage them
Incorporating a daily gratitude practice
Changing my self talk with daily affirmations
Practicing meditation and yoga
Journaling
Establishing routine exercise goals
Building daily rituals to reinforce these lifestyle changes

In my quest to learn more about how food — a whole foods approach to nutrition — can impact weight loss and metabolism, I found this health coach training program and it was immediately apparent to me that I had found my purpose.

My goal is to inspire and support others on their health and wellness journeys to identify and achieve their goals, providing support for nutrition, but also providing support for the nourishment off the plate: nourishment for the body, mind, and spirit.

You’ve all heard the expression, “having too much on my plate.” How many times have you let the wrong priorities guide your life, depriving you of a healthy self-care practice? It’s time to get some things off the plate so you can start feeding the areas of your life that are the most satisfying. I can help you find your own approach to creating that balance in your life.

While I won’t officially be seeing clients for the first six months of this program, I am offering free guidance during this time to a limited group who in turn will help me refine my coaching skills, participate in health history sessions or provide feedback on pilot programs I would like to offer. If you are interested in this introductory coaching proposal, contact me at marilyn.clark@offtheplatehealthcoach.com.

Tag: health

More joy, please.

Welcome, and My “Why”