Happy To Meet You

Hello again…as promised, I’m going to tell you what I do, how I do it and why I do it. So here ya go! For today you’ll learn about why this work is so important to me.

The beginning

In 2009, while was living large and loving life (quoting radio personality Big Joe Henry) I received news that brought me to my knees. Well…I was living large but not really loving life. My lifestyle was unhealthy. I was obese, drinking and eating too much and sleeping too little. My numbers (cholesterol, blood pressure, fasting glucose, A1C) were all either borderline or at the point of possibly needing medical intervention.

I went for my annual mammogram, which I did with startling regularity, given the state of the rest of my self-care. And of course, you can guess what came next. There was a suspicious something showing up on the mammo. The surgeon gave me the option of ‘wait and see’ for six months or have a biopsy done immediately to determine what was what. I opted to deal with I had in front of me right away…and it’s a good thing I did. The diagnosis was breast cancer. But not just any breast cancer. It was an aggressive form which, thank God, was caught early. The surgeon told me I saved my own life by not waiting. It was a little daunting to know that my life was in my own hands.

Following the surgery, I underwent a year of rather unpleasant treatment. Because I wanted to avoid ever having to endure that nightmare again, I decided to change everything about my unhealthy lifestyle. After all…my life is now in my own hands and I take that very seriously.

Nutrition

Changing my eating habits wasn’t too tough because nothing tasted good and I had no appetite. Once I was ale to enjoy food again, I had already detoxed from sugar, which is always the biggest hurdle for my clients. Eliminating processed food and especially sugar was the most important step for me to take in my journey to health.

Exercise

Exercising proved to be a little more challenging. I was in pretty bad shape so I needed to start slowly which I did. A year later got to the point that I was able to walk in the 3 day 60 mile Susan G. Komen walk for breast cancer. I raised over $10,000 for the cause. Five years later I hiked to the bottom and back to the top f the Grand Canyon. See the photographic evidence in this post.

What happened next

Changing my diet and other lifestyle choices completely CHANGED MY LIFE. I felt better than I did in my 20s. My energy was through the roof, all my stiff joints, aches and pains and the age/weight/bad eating habits related complaints were gone. and by the way…I lost 135 pounds! That’s the equivalent size of a healthy adult woman my height.

A passion emerges

I had learned so much about what I was doing for myself that I wanted to share my knowledge with other people who needed the help. I went to school to become a certified health coach and continued to become a certified nutrition coach. This is the work I feel I was put here to do.

But that’s not all

Every good story has to have  a twist, right? This one is no exception. In 2017, I was sitting in a meeting at the hospital when a strange sensation occurred in my chest. It was strange enough to get me to ask for help and I ended up in the ER having a heart attack brought on by a spontaneous coronary artery dissection. Fortunately I was in the right place at the right time and I received the care I needed and I’m as good as new.

But here’s the cool part of that twist. My arteries were clear! I had no plaque, no gooey gunk building up in them…nothing. I had a calcium score of zero, which means I didn’t even have stabilized plaque in my arteries. The changes I had made in 2009, and maintained, did their job!

Where are we now?

After my heart attack, my cardiologist asked me to become a WomenHeart Champion. She sent me to the Mayo Clinic for training and now I am a WomenHeart Champion Community Educator. In my practice, I have also chosen to work with women who are living with or are at risk for developing heart disease or other chronic illness that can be managed through nutrition and lifestyle changes to prevent or possibly even reverse such conditions.

In the next several posts we’ll talk about how my program works. I  hope you come back again.

To schedule a ‘no strings attached’ free consultation with me please click here. We’ll discuss your specific health challenges and come up with some next steps for you to follow. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.