Six Weeks to Abundant Energy

I’m a believer that we are all capable of living with energy and enthusiasm. It is my privilege and honor to help people learn how to live their most energized life.

As a child I liked sugar a lot. I would regularly put away three Snickers bars during a single half-hour rerun of The Brady Bunch. I snuck handfuls of cookies and ate frosting by the spoonful right out of the container.

By the time I got to college, I started working out. A lot. I would spend 2-3 hours in the gym, most days of the week. An hour of that time would be spent on a stair climber or running on a treadmill.

A year or so after college, still working out waaaaaay too much, I started eating non-fat foods only. My mornings started with an hour and a half of cardio, followed by an enormous (fat-free) muffin and a container of (fat-free) yogurt. Another hour and a half of cardio and weightlifting at the end of the day was followed by a dinner of rice puffs with fat-free milk and many tablespoons of brown sugar or sometimes an entire container of Entenmann’s fat-free brownies and my weight kept going up.

I was tired and hurt all the time from working out too much. My skin was terrible, my mood was worse, and I didn’t know what to do. The “experts” in all the women’s magazines kept telling me that fat was bad and lots of cardio was the way to a slim body, and of course all the glory that goes along with that. And i bought the lies hook, line and sinker.

Finally, in my late 20’s, I discovered a book that would change everything for me. That book is Nourishing Traditions, and it is still a go-to resource for me today. It opened my eyes to the damage eating all those highly-refined and processed foods was doing to my body. I was pouring empty calories into my stomach, and getting no nutrition from any of it. I was bathing my system in chemicals that were slowly poisoning me, rather than giving me the necessary building blocks for a truly healthy, energetic body and an enthusiastic outlook on life.

It showed me what traditional nutrient dense foods are, and how eating them on a regular basis can help anyone look and feel better. These are the foods our body evolved eating, rather than the nutrient-deficient, highly-chemicalized foods that line grocery store shelves today.

For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by the human body. It is a marvel of design and a miracle of engineering. Once I discovered that it is possible to feel great, and have lots of energy on a regular basis, and feel satiated and happy after eating rather than tired, lethargic and grumpy, I embarked on a journey to expand my understanding of how to live my best and most energized life, and more importantly, how to help others have the same experience.

I started with massage school, and soon after that began a regular yoga practice. That was followed by a many-month long yoga teacher training, the first of many I would complete over the years. As a yoga teacher and yoga studio co-owner, I led many classes and helped hundreds of people learn how to eat in a way that best supports their abundant health and energy. I have given countless workshops and worked with hundreds of individual clients for over two decades.

What I’ve learned through the years is that creating simple, effective daily habits is the path to success. You don’t need to get it all dialed in this minute. Small, regular steps add up to big, lasting changes.

• Today, I help clients create the daily habits in nutrition, mindset, movement and lifestyle that form the foundation of a lifetime of great health and energy. When we have more energy and feel good (or even great!), we are more patient, kind and creative. And I want to live in a world filled with patient, kind and creative people!