Why I Became A Health Coach
People ask me, “What made you take training to become a health coach?” I was a very athletic vegetarian from my 20s-50s, even during the child-rearing years of raising three sons with my husband, Rich. Running, yoga, and Jazzercise were my activities of choice. Pretty much everyday I worked out, often before going to school to teach my middle school students or right after school. In my 50’s I was placed on Hormone Therapy, which did not go well for me so I was told by my doctor to go back to eating meat.
I decided maybe she was right: eating meat maybe was the answer to ‘what’ I wasn’t quite sure, but, I went forward with that plan for nine years thinking I was doing my body good. Then I had a lipid panel done. My cholesterol as a vegetarian had always fluctuated in the 120-150 range. When I saw my new meat-eating lipid panel, I almost fainted. Numbers don’t lie. My new doc told me that a cholesterol of 320 meant I was a walking heart attack waiting to happen.
I was told that a “pill” could, without a doubt, take care of this new problem, but it would also come with side effects. This was NOT what I was looking for; I knew there was a more natural way to handle this problem, and I was going to find it. I set out on my quest, a quest that I took on excitedly!
In fact, it is the reason I enrolled in the Institute of Integrative Nutrition (IIN) and Cornell’s Plant-based Certification Program: to learn more about the bottom line of high cholesterol.
As I dug into the literature and listened to lectures on all facets of healthcare, I learned there have been many gold-standard studies, repeated randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies, that have shown that diet trumps all aspects of health related efforts, including the contribution of genetics and exercise.
What is that diet? It is a whole-foods plant-based diet. In other words: good, solid plant food from nature that is served whole or as close to it as possible with as little processing as possible. Most foods are on a continuum from whole to ultra-processed, and I learned that the more we can create our way of eating toward the Whole Foods end, the better for our gut and metabolic health!
I was so enthused to find my road away from the “disease-care” system and onto my path of vibrant energy, not only for me but for the planet as well. It was wonderful as I found new flavors I didn’t know existed. My palette has changed. I no longer turn my nose up at beets, escarole, or potatoes thinking they are too high in calories, too bitter, or too bland. I ventured out into the world of learning new cooking techniques by taking the Forks Over Knives Rouxbe Cooking Course and the Rouxbe Essential Desserts course…all for the purpose of proving to myself that a whole foods plant-based diet might set me in the right direction toward greater health and longevity. My enthusiasm, frankly, has never waned. Rich and I agree that we eat like kings: we love our food and it loves us. We keep the rewards of our efforts everyday.
Have I arrived? Let’s just say that since the time of my lipid panel of over a decade ago, I continue on an incredible journey of eating for the improvement of how I feel from the inside out. I just received my lipid panel results, the once-a-year marker that gives us a clue of the interior of our arteries. My results? Well, I’m still far from what I was in my 20s, 30s, and 40s as a vegetarian, but I’ll take my more than 100-point drop any day of the week! I’m at a 204 reading from the previous 320. My doctor tells me that getting to 320 didn’t happen overnight. It took the full nine years of eating an animal-based diet, and if I continue as I am now, eating whole foods that are plant-based, surely future readings will continue to drop. Given that, I will look forward to another year passing just to see the result of my efforts again on my lipid panel.
Now if lessening my cholesterol count were my only delight in going plant-based, it might not be so compelling in spite of the shocking drop. It is not. The other amazing result happened not in a year’s time, but in only three weeks time after going totally whole foods plant-based. It was the fact that the arthritis that was causing pain here and there throughout my body started to disappear. Now? I have NO arthritis anywhere in my body, no aches, no pain of any kind.
What I thought had to have been a fluke has turned into my daily reality. I never would have thought it possible.
How could something so simple make such a huge difference? Within the course of the following months and continuing to today, because I feel so great, I work out walking 45 minutes a day and lifting weights 6 days out of seven, switching between upper and lower body. My main challenge is not overdoing! I get yoga in on my day off or when some stretching feels like it's what my body is calling for. I listen to my body, talk to it, and ask it what it needs. Then I listen to its answer. That's it! Simple? Yes. Easy? Some days more than others; but overall, I feel better now consistently than I have ever in my life.
So here I am talking with you: excited, grateful, and convinced that we can make a difference in the hidden arterial markers of our health and the commensurate chronic diseases that follow. I believe we owe it to ourselves to begin the process of suspending our present beliefs and giving our body a chance to clean itself up so when it speaks to us, we get the true message of what it is trying to tell us.
I’m not saying everyone in the world should eat a plant-based diet for I know such a belief is fraught with the folly of wishful thinking, not to mention silly advice! What I do say is that dietary protein within the range of 10-20 percent of our total caloric intake is associated with a broad array of health problems like high blood cholesterol levels, higher risks of atherosclerosis, cancer, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s disease, arthritis and kidney stones, especially when most of the protein is from animal sources. Should we never eat animals? I think that's a personal question that I want people to answer for themselves. The key is to consider all the ramifications of our habits, our will, and our desire for quality of life.Each of us is responsible for self, and a partner on the path who is nonjudgmental and knowledgable can make all the difference in the world keeping us accountable for what we say we want to experience. We decide what we want and why we want it, set up our plan for getting there, then create baby-step experiments considering all of our challenges and we watch for the results.
As for me, since there is longevity in my family, I want to be healthy, vibrant, full of energy, and raring to go well into my senior years. That’s how I feel now, and that’s how I know, according to the multiple studies and my own experience alleviating my own symptoms of chronic disease, that I can feel well into my 90s and beyond if I continue to treat my body well by eating by listening to what my body is calling for. I plan to continue to create my own full health plan, changing it as needed and will help you as your companion and mentor to create your full health plan! Why not? Right? Can you think of a reason why not?
Won’t you join me in this effort? Please contact me at by filling by filling out a Contact Form and starting on your own wondrous journey. Let’s put our heads together to see what adjustments you could make to create a healthier lifestyle for you. It won’t happen overnight, but you can begin to reap the benefits of lifestyle changes quite quickly with the energy you have, the digestive health you experience, a lessening of cravings for sugar and processed foods, a lessening of arthritic pain and a change of palate causing you to crave foods that feed your body, energize your spirit, and clear your thinking toward good brain and body health. It can all be yours. I await your call.
