Professionally, I am a: Coach with an ivy-league skill set from my Masters program at the University of Pennsylvania.
Board-certified holistic health counselor through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN) and Columbia University’s Teachers College.
Regular health contributor to the NBC 10! Show and have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Daily Candy and Philadelphia Women’s Journal.
Speaker and group health coach for people in business and organizations regionally and nationally.
Personally, I am a case study in the new face of health-care.
For 26 years, I was randomly shuffled between doctors, surgeries, medications and diagnosis for seemingly unconnected issues: asthma, being an overweight kid, depression, acne, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and - as if being a teenager wasn’t hard enough - a cancer diagnosis at 13. While all of this was challenging, it didn’t consume me as much as always wanting to be 10, 20 sometimes 30 pounds thinner.
One would think that after having survived chemo and radiation, everyday would be a new day full of appreciation and Zen. For me, life became the opposite. I was full of fear and looking for answers to cancer and in essence, my survival. “We don’t know” was the company line from the mainstream medical establishment, the media and cancer support groups. Without answers, I focused on what I understood to be as being healthy, which to a 14-year-old girl, is code for being skinny.
This distraction worked until it didn’t. I would yo-yo at my goal weight and regardless of the scale, I was still depressed, having bouts with asthma and acne and struggling with IBS. I became gridlocked into helplessness and believed I had to settle in life: settle for a broken down body, never feeling whole and tons of bad luck. I had internalized that life was unkind, unsafe and painful.
But, I’ve always been that annoying kid who never stops asking “why” - and a control freak. I wanted to be in charge of my life. So, I started seeking out other answers. I knew nutrition was important and being unfulfilled in my corporate job, I enrolled in a college course to become a Registered Dietician. I was appalled at the corporate interests in my textbook. Then things started to click: if food is political, is medicine? (Scene direction: Flood gates open!)
My research accelerated and I found myself enrolling at IIN to become a health counselor. I wanted to learn dietary theories from the East, West, the latest medical information and the politics of food. More than anything, I wanted out of my tormented relationship with food. Slowly but surely, I pieced together how all my health problems were connected. During this process, I also discovered it wasn’t really a size 4 I was after in life.
I finally understood what health food really was (hint: not the government food pyramid or bogus dieting products), how gluten was wreaking havoc on my body, and the importance of cultivating a spiritual practice that helps me make sense of this seemingly chaotic world.
It was a four-year healing journey prepared for by the first 26 years of my life and at 31, leaves me in the best mental, physical and spiritual shape of my life. I lost those pesky 25 pounds and no longer struggle with food, IBS and depression. Most empowering, I no longer obsess over my weight or expect doctors to figure me out.
I believe true healing occurs when we help others those going through the same challenges we conquer. So with the desire to help those who wanted something different than the traditional medical model, I made the decision to leave my cushy corporate cube, and strike out to start my own health coaching practice focused on delivering health-care that heals, not just cures.
True health involves the positive presence of wellness in body, mind, and spirit and is not based upon the old idea that health is simply the absence of disease. It isn't. It is much more than that. Wellness provides for a spirited engagement with life.
My clients come to me when they are ready to take charge of their health. They are exhausted from their latest diet attempt, wanting to get to the root of their weight-loss challenges and accompanying depression. Intuitively they know there is a better way. I’m thrilled to help them discover their own answers for which foods, movement, sources of joy and meaning work best for them on their wellness journey.
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