The start of a new direction
After graduating college with a degree in Economics, I began a successful career in business consulting. I thought this career would be my life until one day tragedy struck.
On June 27, 2009, my mother suddenly passed away. She was only 65 and no one saw it coming. In that moment, I woke up to the shortness and fragility of life. I woke up to the importance of health and prevention, and to the importance of doing what brings us joy and purpose in the short time we have.
I knew I needed a new direction. So I decided to change careers to pursue my passion for cooking and learn more about prevention and health.
I packed up, left Michigan and moved to New York City to start my education. I went to a health-based culinary school called the Natural Gourmet Institute, where I studied nutrition and became a holistic chef. I then went to the Academy of Healing Nutrition to become a certified nutrition counselor. I learned about conventional nutrition, as well as alternative forms of nutrition, including Traditional Chinese Medicine, Macrobiotics and Ayurveda.
The possibilities of nutrition fascinated me. I devoured books and read as many articles as I could. I learned how food influenced just about everything about us physically and mentally. Diet wasn’t simply about losing weight. It was about healing and optimizing our total mind-body-spirit. I was ecstatic to discover we weren’t limited by DNA but had the power to improve whatever we wanted about ourselves through nutrition and lifestyle.
With these remarkable discoveries, I felt inspired and enthusiastic to share my knowledge. But I quickly hit some giant obstacles I didn’t know how to overcome.
The problems I couldn’t solve
In the beginning, I saw the problems very clearly but didn’t have any solutions.
First of all, there was so much conflicting health information out there, which made my clients, and myself, very confused about what to do and what to eat. The more I researched, the more confused I became since every argument contradicted the next. I was also confounded by diets that were “supposed” to work according to science, such as calorie-counting or carb-cutting, but didn’t work as promised.
As a result, I didn’t know how to give clients clear diet and wellness guidance to help them feel better and get results.
Then there was the issue of follow through. I felt deeply disheartened because clients often didn’t follow through with the advice I gave. My work felt meaningless because I didn’t know how to inspire behavior change. I knew I needed to figure this out because health advice, no matter how helpful or accurate, didn’t matter if we were unwilling or unable to follow it.
I felt equally frustrated with myself when I didn’t do as I knew I should. Strong cravings and urges undermined my ability to motivate and control myself, and I didn’t know how to stop them.
I felt strongly compelled to find solutions to these two problems, which later went on to frame this method:
- How could we determine what we needed to do and eat to become the healthiest and strongest versions of ourselves?
- How could we end the struggle with cravings and regain a sense of control so we could do what we knew was right?
I searched for solutions but couldn’t find any that fully addressed these problems. So I realized I needed to create these solutions myself. I needed to create a system to fully address each of these questions with clear, practical and effective answers.
The discoveries that changed my life
I spent years searching for answers, especially searching for the errors in popular thinking that led to these popular problems. I had to question everything I thought was true about food, health and behavior.
As I started to see where our popular thinking was mistaken, solutions became clear and a very different way of approaching health and eating habits began to emerge in my mind.
I realized that answers couldn’t be found only outside of ourselves — we couldn’t just follow advice blindly. We needed some way to filter through information and advice to identify the best for each of us as individuals.
I needed to teach clients how to evaluate and self-assess so they could identify which foods and habits were uniquely right for them and feel confident in their self-knowing. This required teaching how to listen to their body, tap into to their intuition and trust in their inner guidance.
I also knew I couldn’t simply give a client a wellness plan and expect them to follow it. To create a plan that was practical and motivating, we needed to come up with it together, factoring in the client’s unique wants and needs.
To address the second question of follow through, I needed to figure out how to help clients change behavior and manage cravings so they could live by healthy habits, which was as much for them as it was for me.
Many common strategies, such as relying on willpower or following restrictive diets, only worsened self-control as they promoted behavioral swings. When our willpower would break or we couldn’t stand restriction any more, we’d lose all control.
I had to come up with self-control strategies that encouraged sustainable change, such as a focus on balance and wellbeing rather than a diet mentality. Focus also needed to be on making healthy habits enjoyable so that love would be our primary motivator rather than willpower.
I discovered that the secret to self-control wasn’t in overcoming our desire but in changing our desire so that we’d want to do what was good for us instead of bad. So over the years, I’ve come up with many strategies to help shift desire so we wouldn’t have to battle against the desires that conflicted with healthy results.
The transformation I wish to share
These discoveries have revolutionized my body, behavior and life. Now, I know exactly what to do and what to eat to support my health, enhance my energy and manage my weight. I know exactly what I need to do to feel in control around food and motivate myself to follow healthy habits.
It feels incredible to no longer have to struggle with confusion and a lack of control.
You can overcome this struggle just as I did. But as I had to do, you might have to challenge the way you think about self-knowledge and self-control.
I love this work of helping others and feel a powerful calling to share the discoveries that have transformed my life. And I can’t wait to see how they transform yours, too.
Best,
Andréa