Over the past few months, I have been gathering ideas and writing them in a little notebook, waiting until the exact right time to implement them. At the end of July, I walked away from my day job — a career in state government. I decided to retire for a few reasons. Most were related to my personal health and happiness, but the biggest reason was to focus on how I can help more people through nutrition and lifestyle coaching.
I planned to take a few weeks off and then regroup, but that notebook of ideas kept calling to me. There’s a few more boxes to check off and so many more things I want to offer, but my first achievement is a redesign of my site. A remix of ideas and some clarity of focus. One of my favorite things I’ve added is the ability for visitors to book a free discovery call directly with me through my website. I’ll be adding more features like that for clients as well.
And with that, I welcome you to my new site with a fresh outlook on life. Stay tuned for more to come. Be sure to subscribe to my newsletter too for a special download just for subscribers.
For the past year, I have been studying at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in their Integrative Nutrition Health Coach Program. In December, I received my mid-certificate, that allowed me to start taking on paid clients in my health coaching business. On Tuesday, I graduated and am now a fully certified holistic health and wellness coach.
Reflecting back on the last year, it’s been quite a wild ride.
I got into this health coaching thing for a few reasons. I wanted to help people and I wanted to keep myself on track. And it’s worked in both respects. This past year has also led me to another chapter in my lifelong learning adventure. Now I am working on a Precision Nutrition Level 1 Certification in sports and exercise nutrition.
This textbook is so big, I can count studying as exercise.
This will give me a different edge on providing lifestyle and nutrition coaching for a wide variety of people and goals. Plus, the science of digestion and metabolism is absolutely fascinating — and I am a true nutrition nerd.
Thanks for following for this past year. I’m excited for what is yet to come!
I watched the documentary Minimalism yesterday in an attempt to calm my nerves and expand my horizons.
In my studies at Institute for Integrative Nutrition, we talk about primary food — the concept of nourishing all areas of your life, including career, relationships, spirituality, and physical activity. Home environment has been one element of my world that feels out of balance. Our 1974 house needs some work and now that we’ve been here for 17 years we have acquired a lot of “stuff.” It can be stifling.
I tend to get into nesting mode before surgeries (yes, I have had that many) and clean house from top to bottom, declutter, and get organized. It’s been almost a year since my gastric bypass surgery. I had set up my little recovery area in the living room where I planned to binge watch every Netflix series and a laundry list of movies.
Ironically, I am sitting in the same spot almost a year later and some of the same magazines and books are still stacked on the table. And of course more stuff has found its way to the coffee table along with more electronic devices and remote controls. Hmmm. That tells me something.
Last week on my personal blog, I revealed my recent cancer diagnosis. I am awaiting consultation at UCSF Urologic Oncology department and expect to have part of my kidney, along with the evil inhabitant, removed in the near future. It’s made me turn even more inside myself that I typically am. Thinking and thinking. I’m turning to my typical de-stressors to try to reduce the anxiety: journaling, medication, yoga, rest, sleep, and nutrient dense food choices. That’s only taking me so far.
So back to Minimalism. Watching that film made me thing about eliminating excess in my life. Yeah, obviously, less stuff. I know a massive declutter effort is brewing. But what else is excess? Drama, stress, things I feel like I have to do but are really a choice. We have one life to live on this planet, and this current threat to mine has made me more determined to find joy and focus on the things I am passionate about.
I was listening to one of my podcasts, Her Rules Radio, with Alexandra Jamieson and she walked through what she calls her Fuck-It List, which she defines as her approach to developing a personalized rule book for identifying the things you want to stop doing so you can focus on getting clear about the things you want to do. I downloaded her e-Book. This is the right time for me to take a hard look at my career, relationships with people, my spiritual practice, and to some degree physical activity and do some housekeeping. Adding this to my toolkit.
My mom died at 58, and I’ve always had that number in my head as something to beat. I took my health into my hands almost a year ago and got myself to a healthy weight and strengthened my body and my spirit. I have spent too much time Googling renal cell carcinoma survival and recurrence rates, and knowing I was diagnosed early gives me hope, but the fear of what I am reading makes living more fully the ultimate goal.
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).
