How does someone become a passionate, dedicated – and totally healthy! – foodie such as myself?
Well, I don’t know about anybody else, but I can tell you how I did:
It all probably started with a genetic predisposition – my mom was both knowledgeable about, and totally enthusiastic about, great food. So I got direct infusions of it from the way she was eating, long before as well as during her pregnancy with me! After I was born, I continued to have this blessing of being surrounded by amazing food, lovingly prepared and shared with family members. Like I always say, growing up in my family food was never a meal – it was an event!
My family’s approach to being on summer vacation in Martha’s Vineyard was the opposite of most people’s.
While everyone else would be indulging in a seeming unrelenting orgy of easy, fast food (BBQ, unhealthy snacks, fried and fatty foods, sugary sodas and desserts), we ate like kings and queens. Delicious frittatas for breakfast, roast beef sammies for lunch, chicken cacciatore for dinner and hot fudge sundaes for dessert were the norm. Actually, it was embarrassing for me at the time because it was so “different” compared to my friends at that age.
And yet… it seemed like I made so many friends there every summer, without even having to try…. Friends who would often join my family for lunches and dinners…hmmmmmm! I guess when given the opportunity, most people would rather eat the good stuff instead of the junk!
I also grew to understand that food is literally our fuel. Breakfast in particular was mandatory – you never left home without it! Again, it consisted of nutritious “brain food” instead of junk, and I can tell you, it really got the furnace burning. It would set me up for a full day of school, play, and endless running around. Who knew breakfast could do all that? I did, thanks to the education I got at home and the habits that were instilled in me there.
Did I ever appreciate that as an adult! When my co-workers were dragging in to work every morning, and hitting the wall with a big drop in energy at 3 every afternoon, I had the juice to keep humming along without a hitch – – all day, every day!
So, thanks to my good fortune to be born into a family of foodies, I always understood implicitly that food is what we all need to maintain balance and energy in our life. Food has the power to make us happy, healthy and whole.
I’ve always enjoyed and celebrated food…but I also saw that food could have a dark side.
I never used to tell this story about myself, but it’s such an important moment in my life that I feel I need to share it with people whose ear (or, in this case, eye!) I have the good fortune to catch, however briefly. I always hope my telling it will make a difference in someone’s life. If I even touch one person and help them avoid what happened to me, then it’s more than worth it.
When I was in college at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC studying textile design, a group of textile students – women of all sizes and shapes, decided to try out for the fashion model workshop. We had many friends in the fashion design program, and it seemed like it would be fun! Some of us were accepted, much to our delight, and we quickly realized that most of the other women in the workshop were extremely slender – that was the age when the “ideal” female model form was to be a virtual stick figure. We thought, “Wow! We need to do some serious dieting!” – sadly, including me. So I starved myself down to 110 pounds.
When I got to that weight, I was so brain-washed that I thought, “Damn, I look gooood!” But the truth was I was miserable, exhausted, my skin was breaking out, and I really missed the thing that made me the most happy in life: eating high quality whole foods.
What still shocks me is realizing that I might have kept on that path of semi-starvation, had it not been for my father. One day he took me aside and looked at me with a very serious expression, and said, “if anything ever happens to you, I couldn’t live another day.” I knew what he was talking about, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. Whoa, that brought me back to reality but quick!
I had taken on someone else’s belief that the only way to look “good” and fit in was through diet and deprivation, to do what everyone else was doing. I had stopped listening to my internal wisdom, that voice inside me that said, “This is wrong.”
That experience was life-altering for me.
I had traded what I knew was right – eating well – for a chance to look like a bunch of very unhealthy-looking women. What I also know now is just how lucky I am to have dodged what could have been a very serious eating disorder.
So I got my priorities straightened out, and got back to basics – fortunately, I knew what those were! They are the same principles I now teach my clients:
- I started eating well and re-discovering the connection between great food and health
- I tapped into my intuition, and for the first time in a long time could “hear” my body telling me what it needs
- I added a dash of mindfulness and intention, which helped greatly in ending the cycle of restriction and deprivation
- I experienced that by giving myself permission to have certain so-called “bad” foods, I actually ate much less of them
- I re-created the habit of eating well and using food as a positive in my life
Once I had restored my own health,
my eyes were now opened in a new way.
I now saw how some of my friends and loved ones were living with patterns of ongoing self-abuse, following fad diets and deprivation in order to look “healthy” as it was misleadingly defined by the popular culture.
I was dismayed to discover how many of them:
- had boundary issues that showed up in their relationship with food
- suffered from deprivation that led to binge eating, emotional eating and leading a life of lies about their diets
- were living on the diet-go-round, obsessing about calories and feeling guilty every time they “cheated”
- used fanatical exercise routines as a “big pink eraser” to “undo” the food choices that caused all the guilt
- felt chronic remorse for “failing” at staying on the diets they thought were supposed to be helping
After that awakening, I became driven to spread the word about how important it is . That’s when I became absolutely inspired to help as many women as I can to understand that you can look great, feel great, enjoy all the foods you love and still lose weight. In fact, I made it my life’s mission.
I want all women to KNOW that it’s possible to be a “foodie” –
a person who adores food, and loves to eat –
and at the same time to be truly healthy and not obsessed about their weight.
The key is to better understand the basics of different foods and your body’s needs, and to be mindful of the foods you choose to eat as well as your relationship with them.
So WHY listen to me when it comes to learning about nutrition,
and creating a healthy relationship to food – for life?
My professional career has included more than two decades as a personal trainer, starting with founding my first company, “One Healthy You.” In addition to exercise, I focused increasingly on the nutritional aspect of health. I taught my clients that regardless of the particular fitness goal they wanted to achieve, they had to put the same emphasis on what they ate…and that success in their fitness program was directly determined by choosing the foods that energize their body and mind.
With 21 years in the health and wellness arena, I’m always quenching my thirst for knowledge by learning from the top thought leaders in my field, such as Dr.John Douillard, Dr. Joel Furhman, Dr.Mark Hyman and Dr. Andrew Weil. I am certified by the Institute for Integrative Nutrition partnered with Columbia University and Board Certified by the American Association of Drugless Practitioners (AADP), The Center for Mind Body Medicine, and The Center for Mindful Eating, The Institute of the Psychology of Eating. In addition I’m always gobbling up other innovative, whole-food and mindfulness training programs as I discover them. I bring all of the combined knowledge from these amazing, often revolutionary training experiences to my clients, in whatever mix works best for them and their lifestyle.
I am now truly living my passion, coaching women in the practice of living a vibrant and healthy lifestyle, eating foods that nourish them from the inside out. Good Nutrition and health are the necessary foundation for every woman living passionately and fulfilled in every way.
And along the way I’ve come to believe that there’s an inner foodie in all of us…you can discover yours too!
My goal is to help YOU find the freedom in food…
feel fabulous in the skin you’re in, leaner and sexier in a life you love.