Women struggling in midlife hire me to empower transformation of their well-being because most are fed up with feeling exhausted, overwhelmed and invisible, are unhappy with their body and have concerns about looming health issues. I help them restore their health, release unwanted weight for good and reclaim a sense of peace so they can live the rest of their lives feeling vibrant and beaming with confidence.
When I first met my client, Lisa she was exhausted ALL the time. Lisa was living in what she describes as the “sandwich generation” with responsibilities for the care of 3 seniors in various stages of ill-health as well as her own two teenage children. Working shift work, created additional stress and peri-menopausal hormonal changes exacerbated the anxiety, weight gain and feelings of unworthiness which were already a part of her regular life. When Lisa received a diagnosis of high cholesterol, it was the last straw, she knew she had to make a change. She also knew that the many fad diets and weight loss programs that she had tried in the past simply were NOT going to be the answer.
“I was overwhelmed. My life was chaotic and out of control. I knew it was time to find a way of putting the focus back on me without feeling guilty about it. It was time to find a way to lose weight for good. I wanted to look and feel better so that I could find self-love and live a long, healthy, active life with my family.”
I helped Lisa see that, instead of ANOTHER diet, what she needed for life altering results was to uncover the roots of her current default behaviours around food and replace those that were no longer serving her with new healthy nutrition and lifestyle HABITS
Ever since Lisa was a little girl, she had terrible self-esteem. Her father, a morbidly obese compulsive eater, was not a positive role model when it came to food and eating. As a teenager, after her parents divorced, Lisa remembers her mother standing in front of her, grabbing a bit of her own body fat and saying ‘look at this mess, no wonder no man wants to date me’. At the time Lisa knew that she probably weighed at least 30 pounds more than her mother. That vision was indelibly stamped in Lisa’s memory and set in stone her connection between her own body image and feelings of self-worth (or lack thereof). Emotional eating became a regular part of Lisa’s life in an attempt to stem the pain generously supplied by her own inner bully.
Once she opened up to the reasons behind some of her mindless, impulse eating, Lisa was able to breakthrough to self-love, empowering her to silence her negative and cruel self-talk. She learned about healthy nutrition and is now able make daily food choices with confidence.
In just a few months Lisa lost 18 inches and almost 20 pounds, got her cholesterol levels under control and found a mountain of confidence. She says “In Healthy Habits a lot of little things added up to a HUGE difference. I loved Chris’ caring, non-judgmental approach and the soft accountability she provided. It feels great to be able to let go of any guilt in order to take care of myself. I’m now able to forgive myself for not being perfect. I can stand up for myself and am able to say ‘no’ to extra commitments.”
We ALL know that to get healthy, fit and lean, we have to eat more healthfully and exercise more.
The question becomes – if we all want to improve our health, get fit and slim down, and we know what needs to be done to achieve those goals – why the heck can’t we do those things on a consistent basis?
Why do we always end up doing the things we said we wouldn’t or NOT doing the things we said we would? What causes us to self-sabotage?
The answer lies in how our brains works, our limiting beliefs and our habits.
95% of our behaviour is controlled at the subconscious level. We all have automatic habits, that are triggered and played out beyond our conscious control. These habits are driven by our beliefs and our self-image (our identity). Unfortunately, a lot of our beliefs, a good portion of which, we’ve carried with us since childhood, no longer serve us.
In the habit-based approach used in Healthy Habits Nutrition & Lifestyle Coaching, we bring your default relationships with food, eating and yourself from the subconscious level back into your conscious control. This empowers you to clear out existing bad habits as well as thoughts, beliefs and emotions that have held you back from success in the past.
Simultaneously, powerful new healthy nutrition and lifestyle habits are learned, practiced and adopted one habit at a time, using a simple step-by-step process.
Imagine:
. Eliminating food cravings, mindless emotional eating and other self-sabotage behaviours.
· Naturally improving your physical health, energy levels and mental well-being so you can easily continue (or get back to) doing all the fun things you have always enjoyed … or even have enough ‘get-up-an-go’ to try something new.
· Fitting back into ALL the clothes in your closet (including your favorite jeans) and feeling proud and confident in them!
· Experiencing less stress and anxiety on regular basis so you can put an end to the constant chaos
· Having full confidence in your daily food choices so you can take the guess work out of planning healthy, balanced meals.
· Enjoying marked improvements in your quality of sleep so you can put a stop to struggling through some days feeling like a drowsy zombie.
· The effect that consistently experiencing better moods will have on your relationships with yourself and others.
It’s time to make YOU and YOUR health a priority for once (instead of spending all your energy looking after your spouse, your kids or your parents) allowing you to reclaim your identity and get to a place where YOU recognize YOU again
One step, one habit at a time … you can do it ... no deprivation, calorie counting or massive willpower required!
