My Training
I receive my health coach training from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in New York City, where I am training in more than one hundred dietary theories and studying a variety of practical lifestyle coaching methods. Drawing on this knowledge, I will help you create a completely personalized “roadmap to health” that suits your unique body, lifestyle, preferences, and goals. This training combined with my 20 years in the culinary industry uniquely qualifies me to offer a full range of Culinary Wellness and Health Coaching programs for my clients. With services ranging from a simple pantry purge and private cooking instruction, to a 6-month health coaching plan, every program is as unique as the client and is customized to meet specific needs and goals.
My Personal Journey to A Well-Nourished Life
Imagine you are a bakery owner, cake designer, mother and wife. You are at the top of your game, a cast member on Food Network Challenge, working on multiple book and TV projects, featured frequently in the press. You are essentially living your life beyond your wildest dreams. Imagine then that you become quite ill, quite suddenly. Your once limber, strong, and capable body is wracked with pain, your joints stiff and rigid. Imagine feeling that everything you had worked so hard for is slipping away, that your life as you know it, is over. Imagine the frustration, anger, and hopelessness. Imagine being told your illness is incurable, and that the "good news" is you're less likely to become crippled, or die, than persons diagnosed 20 years ago.
Imagine you are me.
On November 19, 2010 my body began to fail me. As I stood in the High Noon Entertainment TV studios in Denver, preparing to film my fourth Food Network Challenge of the year, I knew something was not right. As I worked through "mise en place" preparations my hands didn't want to work, they were stiff, tight and tingly. I shrugged it off and allowed the adrenaline of competition to push me through. But the pain stayed with me. I didn't give it much thought until the next week, when instead of getting better, the stiffness and pain got worse. And because I was acustomed to working through sore hands and feet, an occupational hazard for pastry chefs, I didn't consider the possibility that something was seriously wrong until a month later, the week before Christmas, when I nearly lost my mind from the pain. Pain that sent me to the doctor begging for pain meds so that I could enjoy Christmas day with my family.
Fast forward 5 months. It's spring 2011, I'm still in physical and emotional hell, and I've finally gotten all my diagnostic tests back. The Dr. confirms my diagnosis as Rheumatoid Arthritis. At the age of 42. RA is not an "old person's disease" as many would believe, it's an autoimmune disease. My immune system was attacking my own body. The doctor laid out my treatment options and wrote me several scripts. I brought up the subject of diet. She looked me in the eye and told me that "diet has nothing to do with it". I walked out of her office and began to cry. And that's when I knew. I knew right then and there that western medicine alone would not offer a viable solution for fixing my immune system, it would only mask my symptoms, it would not address the cause. I would have to find another way. If my immune system was broken, I figured, why not just fix the damn thing?
Six weeks later I was free from the pain, swelling and stiffness without taking ANY medications. Not only that, but I felt better than I had in 20 years! I had tons of energy, my mind was clear, those cruddy chronic "issues" we all deal with were gone, and for the first time in my life I wasn't even having to take antihistamines. My immune system was happy, at last! After seven and a half straight months of absolute hell, I WAS WELL.
So how did I do it? I changed my diet, started doing regular acupuncture and saunas, taking Chinese herbs and supplements, and juicing daily. I made personal and professional changes to keep my life in better balance. I closed my bakery and cake studio to relieve the stress that comes with running a retail business- full time employees, massive overhead, inflexible work hours, all-nighters. I carved out more time for friends. I enjoyed my kids more. I worried less. I remembered to slow down and take time for myself.
I've always had a healthy approach to food but this experience brought me to a whole new level of understanding about food as medicine. Food, the "right" food, is nourishing, it's healing, it's life-changing. My health crisis and subsequent triumph inspired me to make a change in my career, to focus on helping others discover the power they hold over their own health. A Well-Nourished Life is my "Lemonade" out of lemons, it's my silver lining, and it's my mission. It's not just my business, it's my life.