This Is My Why
I often get asked the questions "why are you so excited about living a healthy lifestyle?" and "why are you on a mission to help others look and feel their best?"
My journey to better health started over 25 years ago! At that time, our oldest son who was just 4 years old was diagnosed with leukemia. As you can imagine, Nick and I were utterly terrified. We were so frightened for my son's life and scared for him to go through the intensive cancer treatments. The treatment option that our son was given was 3 years of chemotherapy. Chemo was administered in the form of oral medications, intravenous medications, intermuscular injections, and spinal injections. Our little guy endured countless needles, spinal taps and bone marrow aspirations. Those were very frightening and dark days. At the time, our daughter was just 18 months old, and not long after that we also had another son. That was a lot of stress for us as a young married couple! We spent many weeks with our son in the hospital as he seemed to pick up every virus or bacterial infection that came his way with such low immunity.
During the time of our son's diagnosis, I felt utterly helpless and struggled to know how I could help our son and also hold myself and our family together. I decided that I needed to focus on one thing that I could actually control. That ended up being the food that I was giving to our son, and the atmosphere and attitude that we were surrounding him with. I wanted to make sure that our son had the best nutrition possible to help him to fight through the treatments. I began gradually making simple ingredient swaps to our meals and snacks to get the most nutrients out of the foods we were eating. We also surrounded our son with love, faith, hope, laughter, creativity, his favourite music, books and games. We told our son to envision the chemo, and that all the good food and organic juices were like little Pac Men going in to eat the cancer cells.
My journey to better health started over 25 years ago! At that time, our oldest son who was just 4 years old was diagnosed with leukemia. As you can imagine, Nick and I were utterly terrified. We were so frightened for my son's life and scared for him to go through the intensive cancer treatments. The treatment option that our son was given was 3 years of chemotherapy. Chemo was administered in the form of oral medications, intravenous medications, intermuscular injections, and spinal injections. Our little guy endured countless needles, spinal taps and bone marrow aspirations. Those were very frightening and dark days. At the time, our daughter was just 18 months old, and not long after that we also had another son. That was a lot of stress for us as a young married couple! We spent many weeks with our son in the hospital as he seemed to pick up every virus or bacterial infection that came his way with such low immunity.
During the time of our son's diagnosis, I felt utterly helpless and struggled to know how I could help our son and also hold myself and our family together. I decided that I needed to focus on one thing that I could actually control. That ended up being the food that I was giving to our son, and the atmosphere and attitude that we were surrounding him with. I wanted to make sure that our son had the best nutrition possible to help him to fight through the treatments. I began gradually making simple ingredient swaps to our meals and snacks to get the most nutrients out of the foods we were eating. We also surrounded our son with love, faith, hope, laughter, creativity, his favourite music, books and games. We told our son to envision the chemo, and that all the good food and organic juices were like little Pac Men going in to eat the cancer cells.
Cancer With A Happy Ending
We also had a powerful love army of extended family, friends and even strangers from around the world that supported our family with love and prayers. This gave us great hope and reassurance for our son's future.
Fast forward to today! I like to call my son’s story Cancer With A Happy Ending. Along with standard care, high-quality food, extra nutrients and much love, prayers and support, our son is a happy, healthy young man! He is now a doctor specializing in oncology. He is married to the love of his life and they just had their first baby! I am one happy grandma!
This experience ignited a passion in me. I don’t want to see another family go through the fear, pain and suffering that we went through with our son. I am on a mission to help busy individuals and families live a healthy lifestyle so they can have vibrant health, incredible energy and feel happy and fully alive! There are so many things in life we can't control, but we can always optimize our health to the best of our abilities.
Fast forward to today! I like to call my son’s story Cancer With A Happy Ending. Along with standard care, high-quality food, extra nutrients and much love, prayers and support, our son is a happy, healthy young man! He is now a doctor specializing in oncology. He is married to the love of his life and they just had their first baby! I am one happy grandma!
This experience ignited a passion in me. I don’t want to see another family go through the fear, pain and suffering that we went through with our son. I am on a mission to help busy individuals and families live a healthy lifestyle so they can have vibrant health, incredible energy and feel happy and fully alive! There are so many things in life we can't control, but we can always optimize our health to the best of our abilities.
Finding My Passion
Our experience with cancer helped both me and my son find our passions in life.
I transitioned from teaching and running my own daycare to become a certified health coach. My teaching background, BA in psychology, experience being a mom of 6 kids and coaching clients for over 10 years have given me great insight and tools to really help to motivate my clients, troubleshoot through stubborn weight loss plateaus, hormone imbalances, digestive issues and so on.
I give my clients the individualized attention they need to really feel loved and supported and to learn how to make small changes that have a great effect on overall health. I show them that healthy does not have to be hard, overwhelming or taste like cardboard? I am married to an Italian and we love our food so my approach is not about deprivation. I could never totally give up my all time favourite food which is spaghetti! I teach my clients how to live a balanced healthy life without giving up wine and chocolates!
I transitioned from teaching and running my own daycare to become a certified health coach. My teaching background, BA in psychology, experience being a mom of 6 kids and coaching clients for over 10 years have given me great insight and tools to really help to motivate my clients, troubleshoot through stubborn weight loss plateaus, hormone imbalances, digestive issues and so on.
I give my clients the individualized attention they need to really feel loved and supported and to learn how to make small changes that have a great effect on overall health. I show them that healthy does not have to be hard, overwhelming or taste like cardboard? I am married to an Italian and we love our food so my approach is not about deprivation. I could never totally give up my all time favourite food which is spaghetti! I teach my clients how to live a balanced healthy life without giving up wine and chocolates!
My Top 3 Secrets To Health
1. Know Your Why
It was very important for me to know my why. My why started with my son being ill and looking for a way to support him, and it continues to be close to home as my family is so important to me. I want to be healthy so I can be the best wife to Nick, mom to our 6 kids and grandma to our little grandson. I want to show them how to live a healthy, balanced and fun lifestyle. I want to be around as long as I can so I can have as much time as possible to be with my family and watch all of my grandchildren grow up. My why and my mission have also expanded to other busy individuals and families. I want to show them how to take the hard out of healthy and live a life free of illness, anxiety and fear and to have vibrant health, a lean body, and be confident and happy!
2. Take The Hard Out Of Healthy
A healthy lifestyle should be simple, delicious and fun! Getting healthy happens when we gradually make simple changes to our lifestyle and don't try to be perfect, because we all know that isn't sustainable! I live by the 80-20 rule. That means that around 80-90% of my choices are what I call "good choices" when it comes to food, sleep, physical activity and so on, and around 10-20% of those choices may fall under the "special treat" category. Overall, when I make a lot more good choices, my health improves, I can lose weight or maintain my ideal size, and have tons of energy to keep up to my busy family, coach all of my amazing clients from around the world and give back to my community.
3. Have A Community Of Support
It is hard to live a healthy life without a support system. When my son was battling cancer, I was so blessed to be able to lock arms with my friend and health coach, Wendy. Wendy literally became my lifeline. Whenever I had a question about ingredients, side effects from meds, needed a healthy recipe or just needed a little extra motivation to keep my spirits up, Wendy was always there for me. Even though I am now a health coach, I still have Wendy, my very own health coach on demand! I also have an entire community of support with my parents, 5 siblings, all their families, tons of friends and clients that are on this health journey with me. With this community of support, I never feel alone and I am never short on ideas for creative, simple and delicious recipes for quick weekday meals or special occasions. Healthy living is so much fun!
It was very important for me to know my why. My why started with my son being ill and looking for a way to support him, and it continues to be close to home as my family is so important to me. I want to be healthy so I can be the best wife to Nick, mom to our 6 kids and grandma to our little grandson. I want to show them how to live a healthy, balanced and fun lifestyle. I want to be around as long as I can so I can have as much time as possible to be with my family and watch all of my grandchildren grow up. My why and my mission have also expanded to other busy individuals and families. I want to show them how to take the hard out of healthy and live a life free of illness, anxiety and fear and to have vibrant health, a lean body, and be confident and happy!
2. Take The Hard Out Of Healthy
A healthy lifestyle should be simple, delicious and fun! Getting healthy happens when we gradually make simple changes to our lifestyle and don't try to be perfect, because we all know that isn't sustainable! I live by the 80-20 rule. That means that around 80-90% of my choices are what I call "good choices" when it comes to food, sleep, physical activity and so on, and around 10-20% of those choices may fall under the "special treat" category. Overall, when I make a lot more good choices, my health improves, I can lose weight or maintain my ideal size, and have tons of energy to keep up to my busy family, coach all of my amazing clients from around the world and give back to my community.
3. Have A Community Of Support
It is hard to live a healthy life without a support system. When my son was battling cancer, I was so blessed to be able to lock arms with my friend and health coach, Wendy. Wendy literally became my lifeline. Whenever I had a question about ingredients, side effects from meds, needed a healthy recipe or just needed a little extra motivation to keep my spirits up, Wendy was always there for me. Even though I am now a health coach, I still have Wendy, my very own health coach on demand! I also have an entire community of support with my parents, 5 siblings, all their families, tons of friends and clients that are on this health journey with me. With this community of support, I never feel alone and I am never short on ideas for creative, simple and delicious recipes for quick weekday meals or special occasions. Healthy living is so much fun!
My Health Journey Started With "Why?"
| I would love to learn about your why. What is your why? What makes you tick? What are you excited to live for? What do you want your future to look like? What special people do you have in your life that make you want to take better care of yourself so you can also take better care of them? Do you want to talk about your why and start your health journey? If so, book your FREE 30 minute health coaching call with me by clicking the button below, and we can get started on your journey together. |  |