Holistic Health Coaching
My relationship with food and my body has been a lifelong journey. In my younger years, movement came naturally—through sports, strength training, and time spent outdoors. But beneath that activity was a foundation shaped by highly processed foods and little exposure to truly nourishing, home-cooked meals. Those patterns followed me into early adulthood.
Pregnancy initially felt like the motivation I needed to make lasting changes, but without a rooted understanding of nourishment and nervous system support, those changes never quite stuck. I cycled through periods of effort and setback, gaining and losing weight through successive pregnancies, each time learning a little more—but still missing something deeper.
It wasn’t until the space between my second and third pregnancies that I began to intentionally care for my health in a more sustainable way. Movement became joyful again, food became more thoughtful, and I experienced what it felt like to live with greater energy and strength. Still, life would soon test everything I was learning.
After the birth of my third baby, grief entered my life in an unimaginable way. When my husband—the father of my children—passed away suddenly while our baby was just five months old, the weight of loss and depression reshaped my world. Health, once again, was no longer just about food or movement. It became about survival, healing, and learning how to care for my body and nervous system in the midst of profound sorrow.
This season would later become the soil from which my approach to holistic health coaching grew—one rooted in compassion, realism, and deep respect for the seasons a woman’s body and life move through.
My relationship with food eventually deepened into addiction—food and nicotine becoming my primary coping mechanisms in the wake of profound grief. The consequences were undeniable. My weight climbed rapidly, my energy vanished, and irritability became my constant companion. I was exhausted beyond words, struggling to keep pace with motherhood, needing daily naps just to survive the afternoons. I watched life from the sidelines, far removed from the present, engaged mother I longed to be.
In the winter of 2018, a small but significant shift occurred. I took a leap of faith and applied for a job at a large college equestrian center. Immersed in fresh air, physical work, and the grounding presence of horses, something within me began to heal. That environment became medicine for my mind. As my mental health slowly stabilized, my body followed. Over the course of that first year, I naturally released 30 pounds—less from force, and more from restoration.
As winter returned and the holidays approached, old patterns resurfaced and the weight crept back on. But in January of 2019—three and a half years after my husband’s passing—another turning point arrived. I was introduced to a program that, quite honestly, I did not expect to work. Still, I agreed to try it for one month. I had nothing left to lose and no illusions of success.
What followed reshaped my life.
Over the next seven months, I released an additional 80 pounds and experienced a level of physical, mental, and emotional health I had never known. For the first time, my body felt strong, capable, and alive. I became the mother I had always imagined—running alongside my children, hiking with endurance, and meeting life with clarity instead of exhaustion.
This journey gave me far more than physical wellness. It restored my capacity to fully show up—to mother, to serve, and to live with intention. It was not just a transformation of my body, but a reclamation of myself.
