For the past five years, I’ve supported women in my private practice to see the emotional intelligence and wisdom in their weight-loss challenges. While each is unique, they all gracefully change their plates, attitudes toward food, and most importantly, their lifestyle. Professionally, I use my degrees from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition/Columbia University, the Institute for the Psychology of Eating, and my Masters in Change Management and Coaching at the University of Pennsylvania as a scientific and spiritual platform for my approach. Using my own experience and professional training, I have helped hundreds of clients learn the lessons weight-loss teaches—but in a simpler, more efficient fashion.
In addition to my private health counseling practice, I am an author, regular health contributor to the NBC 10! Show, speaker, workshop presenter and Team Philly’s health counselor. In 2009, I authored the book “The Roots of Going Green: Your Fork, Your Power” to illustrate the environmental and relational impact our industrial food supply has on our health and well-being. I have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Magazine, Daily Candy, and CrazySexyLife.
My Own House Cleaning Story
Warning: Dirty Laundry
Seven years ago, at 5 ‘4, I found myself squeezing into a generous size 10 black pant that left visible red waistband marks. In a dimly lit corporate cubicle, nothing fit.
I had done everything right: college, internships, graduated from Penn State’s Schreyer’s Honors College with a 3.89 GPA, the well-paying corporate job, the advanced training program with the top-ranked Forbes company that had me living and working around the world (hello Paris, London, Madrid, Stockholm and Prague). I even put on a happy face after surviving Cancer, chemo and radiation—all by the sage age of 14.
So how, at 25, did I find myself severely depressed when I had what I had worked so hard to achieve? Having struggled with food, weight and the “my real life begins once I lose weight” fantasy since age 8, my struggles all came down to the size 10 pants. Surely they were the root of all my problems. I had been thin before. After chemo, in high school, even a stint in college. I ate healthy. I worked out religiously. I accomplished everything else thus far in my life. So, why couldn’t I seem to stay on track long enough to bring back the glorious feeling of a size 4? After all, it was what I wanted most.
After 17 years of weight watching, being in the Zone, on South Beach, and checking in for a Master Cleanse, I was out of ideas, logic, hope. Nothing “out there” was helping. Turning emotionally inward wasn’t a skill that develops easily while following the conventional rules of success.
It began with a small gamble: a lateral job move that eliminated two hours of daily commuting and reduced work travel to enhance my quality of life. Those on “the fast track” assured me I was committing career suicide. I dropped a clothing size. I gave the formerly tight pants to Goodwill. I loved my new life. Now free from my size 10 pants and what they represented, I took more chances. This evolved into an exciting and terrifying ride: trusting myself.
Gradual soul searching led from being a corporate ladder climber to a self-employed health counselor, to meeting and marrying my soul mate, to understanding self-care. In the process I dropped several diagnoses like asthma, depression, and Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)—and 6 sizes. While losing 30 pounds feels fabulous, maybe it wasn’t about the pants after all. Losing the struggle with food, weight, and exercise feels even better. My life and body are at peace now that I have designed my life in a way that feeds me.
