My Story
Hi there, I’m Nancy, a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach & Personal Trainer
In 2018, I retired from a successful 28-year career in the pharmaceutical industry to pursue my Second Act, my passion of supporting and empowering women to prioritize their health and well-being over the daily demands of their lives, calm their inner critic, and nourish their mind and body from the inside out so they can live a happy and healthier lifestyle.
I’ve had a passion for health and wellness for most of my life. However, as I reflect back on my life’s journey, my earlier years revolved around my obsession with diet and exercise. I was obsessed with counting calories, jogging-off a bad meal and the number on the scale. I allowed my weight, the number on the scale, to define my overall well-being. Every morning, I would step on the scale, awake my inner critic, and let it dictate how I felt; happy and confident or mad and frustrated with myself.
I truly believed striving for that ideal number on the scale defined how good I felt and looked on the outside, but little did I realize the damage I was causing to my inside. My yo-yo dieting, emotional eating habits, and the stress and exhaustion I inflicted on myself to climb the corporate ladder was wreaking havoc on my health. I was constantly suffering from chronic sinus infections, digestive issues, hypothyroidism, and hormonal imbalances.
My Epiphany
I’ll never forget one of my doctors telling me that I looked great on the outside, but I was a mess on the inside. This was around the time that I was worried I might have diabetes. It turned out that I had candida overgrowth, a fungal infection in my digestive tract that was attributable to my poor eating habits. And my overuse of antibiotics killed off the healthy bacteria in my gut. In order to heal, I had to cut out sugar from my diet. I thought it wouldn’t be a big deal because I preferred savory and salty foods over sweet treats; then I started reading labels and was shocked to learn that sugar was an ingredient in most of the foods I ate, especially high refined carbohydrates from processed foods.
Armed with this newfound knowledge, I finally made the connection that the root cause of most of my health issues was linked to my diet and lifestyle choices. I no longer had to settle feeling 70% “good” on most days. I ditched the scale, my diet mentality. I went on a journey to heal and prioritize my well-being from the inside out with nutritious foods, a healthy mindset and habits that were sustainable for my lifestyle.
Working in the pharmaceutical industry, I had developed a strong desire to help improve the lives of individuals struggling with chronic diseases associated with the way they live, especially with diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. You want to know a secret? The first prescription to treat these diseases is diet and exercise. Unfortunately, physicians generally do not have the time and/or the training on nutrition to educate their patients on how to lose the weight and move their body properly.
This sparked my pursuit to obtain training in health and wellness. In addition to my Bachelor of Science degree, I am a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach and have certifications as an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, with a specialization in Emotional Eating and Hormonal Health from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition; a Health and Life Coach and Mastery Transformational Coach from the Health Coach Institute; a Mastery Nutrition and Wellness Coach from Nutritious Life; and a Personal Trainer from the National Academy of Sports Medicine.