back to basics | primary foods
I’ve written a lot about primary foods (just search the blog for that key word!), so this week, I’m going to take the conversation in a slightly different direction. As…
Food porn fast
‘Fess up: did you binge watch the first season of Tidying Up with Marie Kondo on Netflix? Because yeah, I did. And I read the book in 2015. I saw…
SOUL food | Loving
This is the final post in the SOUL food series—you can find the first one at SOUL food | Seasonal, the second at SOUL food | Organic, and the third…
SOUL food | Unique
This is the third post in the SOUL food series—you can find the first one at SOUL food | Seasonal and the second at SOUL food | Organic. Integrative Nutrition®…
SOUL food | Organic
This is the second post in the SOUL food series—you can find the first one at SOUL food | Seasonal. “Organic” has a lot of meanings—perhaps the most familiar in…
SOUL food | Seasonal
As I mentioned at the end of last year, my focus has been shifting from helping clients with their SOLE foods—the seasonal, organic, local, and ethical foods that I recommend…
SOLE food | SOUL food
At the end of 2016, I shifted my health coaching practice from focusing almost entirely on secondary foods—what we put in our mouths—to primary foods—everything else in our lives that…
SOLE food | Your nickel’s worth
This is the final post in the SOLE food series, in which we stepped away a bit from primary foods nutrition and focused again on secondary foods, the ones we…
SOLE food | Ethical
This month, we’re stepping away a bit from primary foods nutrition and focusing again on secondary foods, the ones we put in our mouths. As you find your way on…
SOLE food | Local
This month, we’re stepping away a bit from primary foods nutrition and focusing again on secondary foods, the ones we put in our mouths. As you find your way on…
SOLE food | Organic
This month, we’re stepping away a bit from primary foods nutrition and focusing again on secondary foods, the ones we put in our mouths. As you find your way on…
SOLE food | Seasonal
This month, we’re stepping away a bit from primary foods nutrition and focusing again on secondary foods, the ones we put in our mouths. As you find your way on…
spring cleaning | keep it social
Social, according to Merriam-Webster: 1: involving allies or confederates 2: marked by or passed in pleasant companionship with friends or associates 3: of or relating to human society, the interaction…
spring cleaning | content + intent
How many times a day do we ascribe a particular intent to someone else’s words or actions? Or have someone else make assumptions about the intent behind our words or…
Workshop | Kale + Kryptonite
This workshop focuses on whether our primary foods are nourishing us like kale or poisoning us like Kryptonite. We’re not talking about the foods we put in our mouths but…
baby steps to health | celebrate
Celebrate. THAT’S IT! If you’ve been following along with our Baby Steps to Health in 2022, we’ve reached the last step: you now have 12 simple activities you can make…
baby steps | crowding out
Here’s a great way to think about making the better choice most of the time: don’t make the choice! The Integrative Nutrition® principle of “crowding out” is sort of like…
find the middle path
Who knew you could connect the Buddhist practice of seeking the middle path to an HR webinar? I recently attended a webinar run by MediKeeper, and one of the resources…
intermittent fasting: yes or no?
Intermittent fasting is a hot topic these days. There was an article in the NYT recently about how scientists have concluded the first long-term study of time-restricted eating, AKA intermittent…
winter menus
It seems that winter has finally arrived in Michigan, and on my 57th birthday, we had a gorgeous, cold, snowy day with a few moments where the sun peeked through…
5 annoying answers + 1 useful one
Hey—it’s me, and I’m back from vacation! And of course, the first question I have to answer is, “What did you do on your summer vacation?” Well, I spent it…
stewarding emotional eating
Stewarding seems like an odd word to use around emotional eating: emotional eating is “bad,” and most of us try to beat, control, conquer, manage, and/or tackle it—certainly not take…
emotional eating | trust yourself completely
This week we finish off the emotional eating series with a look at another topic that is closely linked to emotional/stress eating: self-trust. How do you feel when you have…
emotional eating | how are you hungry?
In the style of health coaching I practice, Integrative Nutrition®, we talk a lot about primary and secondary foods. The majority of my clients come to me because they believe…
time to detox?
Hello? Is anybody there? Or is everyone still doomscrolling, sucked into the vortex of news and social media after the past two weeks? Perhaps it’s time to detox. For the…
massive decluttering + mindful downsizing
Early in our marriage, my husband and I moved 5 times in 10 years: from Colorado to Vermont (just for a summer), from Vermont to Illinois (Chicago, for 10 years),…
crowding out
“I’m not going to give up my [diet Coke/chips/ice cream/etc.], so don’t even ask me to!” When a client’s goal is weight loss, this sentence comes up more often than…
a season of incredible plenty
It’s bound to happen in the fall, the season of plenty: an adult version of elementary school lunch plays out in the land of the CSA pickup. The boxes are…
coming soon!
“Coming soon to a theater near you!” Wonder when we’ll hear that again? One thing the pandemic has made me realize is how much I miss going to the movie…
walk this way | 7 simple suggestions
I’m sure your age probably determined what popped into your head when you saw “walk this way” as this post title; if you’re older, you probably flashed back to Monty…
got pets?
Every time I do the Kale + Kryptonite exercise in a workshop, someone points out that I’ve missed a primary food. What’s the most commonly mentioned omission? Time with pets….
physical activity
Physical activity is a major primary food—it feeds our bodies, minds, and spirits! four bases to cover in your physical activity Just as with secondary foods, physical activity requirements vary…
your ideal vacation
Both the quantity and the quality of our down time are vital primary foods—and like all SOUL food, our needs are different. make the connection Tell us in the comments…
kale + kryptonite
In the Integrative Nutrition® health coaching world, we often talk about primary and secondary foods. The simplest explanation of this concept is: Secondary foods are what we put in our…
A taste of my own medicine
This website’s blog page holds more than 300 posts: that’s a lot of writing about nutrition and health. And most of the posts boil down to a few basic Integrative…
introduction to the coaching exercises
In the “inspiration” section of the clubhouse, you’ll find some concepts and activities that I use in my coaching practice—if you have ever wondered what a health coach does, you’ll…
“Long sleeps the summer in the seed.”
I’ve known since my junior year abroad that I’m a four seasons girl. I spent that year in Taiwan, where there are two seasons: “hot and humid” and “cool and…
#eatmorekale
Spring is here—which in Michigan means the temperature still dips below 40ºF and yet the upper limits (in the 60s) are starting to show up more often than the dips….
Advance? Retreat?
If you’ve followed me for a while, you’ve probably come across my Kale + Kryptonite exercise, which is a tool I use with my clients to help them assess the…
Sweeten it, naturally
I recently conducted a survey of my virtual community to learn more about you, and one of the requests that came up most frequently in response to my question about…
What’s your value?
This month, I’m taking a look in the rearview mirror at 2018 and a peek ahead at the road ahead in 2019. I invite you to hop in and take…
My relationship with what?
This month, I’m taking a look in the rearview mirror at 2018 and a peek ahead at the road ahead in 2019. I invite you to hop in and take…
Rearview mirror | What we learn from reaching (or not) a goal
It’s definitely wintry in Ann Arbor, and our seasonal diet has shifted from the cool leafy salads and quickly grilled foods of summer to heartier root veggies and slowly simmered…
New + improved?
Full disclosure: if you love Black Friday, this post is likely to piss you off—maybe read it anyway? america, the privileged Last weekend when I was grocery shopping, I discovered…
Yes, I am.
This week, I’d like to revisit last week’s post, Full stop. Why? Because I can and because it sparked a lot of responses, not just a couple in the blog…
Early birds, night owls, and soul care containers
I’ve always looked at my ability to wake up without an alarm as a superpower: whether it’s for my usual wake-up time (ungodly early) or from a power nap or…
Are you in the (Sorta) Secret Sisterhood?
Let’s take a look at the business side of health coaching for a minute. As a business owner, I spend a fair amount of time networking, and in networking groups—as…
Pet Lessons
Is it really possible that Spring has sprung in Michigan finally? This past winter really felt endless—more so than others for some reason. And yet, thanks to a new furbaby…
Joint pain | On diet, physical therapy, and woo
In response to my question about curve balls two weeks ago, Susan wrote, “I had pinching pain in my left hip which turned out to be early onset arthritis. At…
How do you come to the kitchen?
As I mentioned last week, explaining what I do as a health coach can be difficult: while the profession is certainly growing, it’s still an alien concept for many. I…
Where are you hiding?
Explaining what I do as a health coach can be difficult: while the profession is certainly growing, it’s still an alien concept for many. In my workshops, I often like…
A few of my favorite things | Books
Last week’s post on the podcasts I recommend generated quite a few replies, one of the more common being, “But what if I don’t listen to podcasts?” I don’t find…
Gone fishin’ … and a request for the fall!
You may or may not know that in my “other life,” I contract for an amazing nonprofit called Fair Food Network—our healthy food incentive program, Double Up Food Bucks, is…
A summer of firsts and lasts
This is turning into a summer of “lasts” at our house: one child’s last summer before college and last day of work at a job held for three years already,…
Multitasking | To hack or not to hack?
If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I’m a big fan of podcasts—I listen to a fair number of self-improvement, health, and entrepreneur/business related ones, and my…
“Getting” religion, getting spiritual
It’s April 22 (Happy Earth Day!), and if you’ve been following along on the blog, you’ll know that the past month has seen me on the West Coast, in the…
Fill Your Plate | Feed Your Life
One of the fundamental principles of Integrative Nutrition® health coaching is that we are not only nourished (or toxified) by the food we put in our mouths—our secondary foods; we are…
Baby Step #4 | Turn it off
This is the fourth of a 12-part series titled “Baby Steps.” On the first of each month, I’ll post 1 tiny step toward better health that you can take every day…
Health coaching…in a client’s words
If you’ve ever been curious about what it’s like to work with a health coach, here’s an awesome peek into a (star) client’s side of the health coaching equation! I wasn’t…
What media messages do you ingest?
As an integrative nutrition health coach, I spend a lot of time working with clients to identify their ideal nutritional choices – the ones that nourish their bodies in a way…
Physical Activity: Find Your Why
As an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, I work with my clients to understand that our Primary Foods® (career, relationships, physical activity, spiritual practice, etc.) are just as important to our…
How do you come to the table?
I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea that we show up at the table much the way we show up in the rest of our lives, and it is…
On the edge of getting it right
I have an 11-year-old son and a husband, so (if you’ll forgive a generalization) I watch a fair number of action movies. Okay, full disclosure: I kind of like them,…
The wonder of boys, girls, and bio-individuality
One of the principles of integrative nutrition is the theory of bio-individuality: each of us is unique, and therefore our needs for primary foods (career, spirituality, physical activity, relationships) and secondary foods…
Find Your Balance workshop!
FIND YOUR BALANCE, or How round is your circle? Do you have trouble finding time to do everything you want to do in your life or even in your day? Do…
“The pitcher cried for water to carry…”
The work of the world is common as mud. Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust. But the thing worth doing well done has a shape that satisfies, clean…
appallingly average
The results are in, and I’m appallingly average. I’ve been applying for long-term care insurance, and the process involves a physical, including the usual blood and urine samples in addition…
an ounce of prevention
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. As Covid flares across the country again, I’ve been thinking a lot about what the pandemic made possible…. And all…
remedy up: a few suggestions for flu season
Whenever someone at the office complained about a tickle in their throat or a runny nose, my best friend would say, “Remedy up!” I am 100% certain that I’m going…
question authority—gently
Where do you fall on the authority of doctors? There’s a whole spectrum of opinions on this, from MD = “just below God on the authority spectrum” to MD =…
back to basics | macronutrients cocktail
What do I mean by “macronutrients cocktail?” I’m not talking about the ratio of gin to vermouth or cream and sugar to coffee. March is National Nutrition Month, and so…
back to basics | nutrition 101
It’s National Nutrition Month! What do you mean you don’t celebrate it? Our first quarter Back to Basics theme continues with a deeper dive into secondary foods nutrition—the value of…
back to basics | small, simple, sustainable
Small, simple steps. There’s a reason my health coaching practice prominently features the word “Simply.” Many of us feel that re/claiming our best health is complicated. That it takes LOTS…
back to basics | a positive mindset
There are numerous studies about the effects of a positive mindset on our physical health. Start with the positive mindset’s effect on heart health or just Google “positive mindset effect…
back to basics | bio-individuality
Quarter 1’s Back to Basics theme continues with an exploration of the principles of Integrative Nutrition®, starting with the concept of bio-individuality. To be clear, I don’t think anyone at…
back to basics | portion moderation
Earlier this month, we kicked off the “Back to Basics” series. This week, we’re taking on my third food rule: portion moderation. If you recall, my “food rules” are as…
baby steps | DGLs + PFCs
Hey hey—it’s already March?!? Before we dig into DGLS and PFCs, how are you doing with our Baby Steps to Health challenge? If you’re just tuning in, you can find…
baby steps | hydrate or die
Yes, hydrate: this is step one in our Baby Steps to Health series for 2022. It may sound overly simple—bear with me. My daughter and I have a saying, “Hydrate…
a healthy lifestyle in 2022
[W]e’ve lost ground in other [health] areas, and a lot of them are a function of the fact that we don’t have a very healthy lifestyle in our nation. Particularly…
the opposite of presenteeism
If the problem of presenteeism existed before the pandemic, I can’t imagine things have gotten better. Before the pandemic even hit the western hemisphere, Forbes reported: Employers who have struggled…
eat your dark green leafies
When the cat’s away, the mice … eat dark green leafies? This past week, I experienced a sort of preview of coming attractions: being an empty nester. With my daughter…
bathing suit season: to diet or not to diet?
It really is spring in Michigan (maybe? finally?) How do I know? Well, when I look out the window, I can’t actually tell what season it is—not just because it…
emotional eating | emotion + self-compassion
We began this series on emotional eating two weeks ago by taking a look at whether our hunger is physical or emotional. Last week, we took a look at what…
3 simple tips for better gut health
You may have noticed a huge uptick in the mentions of gut health in recent years, and unless you are a nutrition/health/well-being geek like me, you may have just breezed…
treating menopause symptoms—holistically!
In this blog post, I’m glad to welcome a guest co-blogger—my friend Dr. Jeff O’Boyle! This post is a collaboration in which we want to educate our clients/patients and the…
Someday is not a day of the week
I spent part of this holiday weekend watching “old” movies: A Fish Called Wanda with my son, who appreciates 1) anything with the word “fish” in it, 2) Monty Python,…
Vitamin P(ee)
One of the principles of Integrative Nutrition® is the idea of bioindividuality: what is healthy for one person may be toxic to another, whether we’re talking about secondary foods (what…
Everybody poops…
When I was studying to become a health coach, one of my favorite lectures was titled, “Does Your Poop Float?” I wish I could remember the lecturer’s name, but it…
#healthcoachvacation
When I was growing up, it seemed as though my vacations never lined up with those of my parents, who taught at a small liberal arts college. There may have…
My own personal summer
Sooo much wisdom (and a fair bit of humor!) in last week’s conversation on the blog in response to my question about what (if any) curve ball/s your body suddenly…
I know I should be….
I spend a lot of time talking to people about their health goals and their primary and secondary food choices. And one of their most frequent comments is, “I know…
Introducing: Supper + Support
Do you need to develop a new cooking and eating style? • Have you decided (or have you been told) that you need to change your cooking + eating style…
FAQ
Here’s a list of the questions I’m asked most frequently. Bring on the FAQ! (BTW, I’m normally not the answer lady, I’m the question lady.) what is a health coach?…
My take on going gluten-free
Full disclosure: I am not gluten-free, but I have given it up for extended periods of time – the advice below is not meant to replace proper diagnosis and treatment…
