Goodbye, Hello: New Year, New Practice

As I get older, I feel the pull of the seasons more and more strongly, and the words of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 feel more true each year: “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven….”

Winter is a time for nourishing, slow-cooked soups and stews featuring lots of root vegetables, for conserving our energy (read: naps!), and for turning inward, reflecting on the year past and gathering our resources for the year to come.

I’m grateful for an amazing 2016 focused on the production and launch of Fl!p Your K!tchen: the book has brought with it countless blessings, mostly in the form of contacts and friendships made and renewed and strengthened.

As I move into 2017, I will be refocusing my energies on my growing health coaching practice—kitchen coaching will become a part of that practice rather than being a stand-alone service I offer: a wise business coach told me, “The book is a beginning for a lot of people, but for you, it’s a goodbye rather than a hello.”

I alluded to this shift in the Afterword of Fl!p Your K!tchen, and if you haven’t bought the book (or you haven’t reached the end yet!), I append it here.

The book (and a forthcoming workbook and online course!) will continue to be available to the general public and to other health coaches as a resource for their clients, and I will be including a meal-planning workshop in my lineup of presentations for corporate wellness and other groups.

I’ll admit that stepping away from the familiarity of the kitchen and cooking is more than a little scary—after so many years with my hands in food, it feels a bit like letting go of the trapeze swing and hoping the next one shows up!

And it feels like the right time.

I look forward to serving you in 2017 and in the interim ask you to consider, what was your dream of life…before life happened?

Wishing you all peace and joy for the holidays and into 2017.

Fl!p Your K!tchen | Afterword

If you’ve worked through the book systematically, you have likely taken a few steps toward flipping your kitchen and now find it simpler to cook 21 meals a week from scratch on a regular basis whether it’s because you batch cook building blocks, create intentional leftovers to tap later in the week, or simply utilize your freezer more efficiently. You’ve probably also noticed some positive changes—some big, some small—in your health, particularly if you have left behind a life full of processed and fast foods.

Don’t worry if you’re not quite there yet: it takes time to develop habits that stick, and the key is to take such small steps that at times, progress seems almost non-existent! And yet, if we readjust our expectations and priorities, which have been somewhat skewed by the high-octane instant gratification world to which we’ve become accustomed, we can realize that even the smallest forward movement is progress.

In my practice, I spend a fair amount of time on food energetics, whole foods nutrition, and hands on cooking classes, but teaching clients to cook on a regular basis using whole foods is a very small part of what I do as an integrative nutrition health coach. I’ve had more than one client come to me saying that what’s needed is cooking classes, and when we spend some time together, it becomes obvious that what’s lacking is something completely different.

Every one of us has the potential to be a whole food: just as an integrative approach to nutrition focuses on how whole foods contain the ideal balance of nutrients, an integrative approach to health coaching asks you to consider that if the food you eat represents your macronutrients—those that give you energy—the myriad other aspects of your life are your micronutrients. Your career, relationships, physical activity, spiritual practice, sleep, and so much more must also be in balance for you to be whole and healthy, to accomplish what you are put on this beautiful planet to do, and to love yourself and others to the fullest degree possible.

I like to say that how we show up in the kitchen and at the table is highly indicative of how we show up in our lives: do we enter it at all, or do we avoid it and fill ourselves with processed fast foods (mind-numbing jobs, toxic relationships, lack of exercise, lack of spirituality, insufficient sleep)? do we enter with a sense of lack or with joy and gratitude for what we’ve been given? do we prepare it in a rush and with resentment or with love and mindfulness? do we serve it with a sense of abundance, trusting that the Universe will always provide more? and do we worry about it being gone or enjoy it with gusto?

If you’re interested in exploring those questions, I hope we can stay in touch! A simple first step is to sign up for my mailing list. Ready to commit a bit more? You can also sign up on my site to tell me YOURstory (it’s like history, but yours) at an initial consultation, during which you can decide whether health coaching is something you are interested in pursuing.

Flipping your kitchen may just be the first step to reclaiming your health and flipping your entire life!

To your best health. Namasté.