I Want A World Where...
we all feel empowered, strong, healthy and excited for the next transition life brings.
Where all women are in alignment, trust and peace with how to care, nurture, and feed their mind, body and soul- no matter where they are in their life’s journey.
And I believe
You deserve to feel strong, vital, and in killer shape no matter whether you’ve had kids and no matter what age you are.
And I believe enjoying consistent energy, emotional stability, being well-nourished and at peace with your body… regardless of what is going on in the world, your career, your personal life is your birth right.
Our transitioning bodies should not fill us with fear and dread.
And I believe, that although we’re all collectively tired of being left out of scientific research and medical education..
… we can rise above the system that so often dismisses and misdiagnoses our very real symptoms…
and take back control, and feel nourished and empowered by our choices.
We demand so much from ourselves, and so much is expected of us.
Building and sustaining successful careers, working long hours, having and raising kids, maintaining and nurturing successful relationships… let alone the pressure of how we look, our size, our weight.
Nobody teaches us how to approach our health, our shifting hormones either from pregnancies or perimenopause [or both: women ages 30-39 now make up the largest age group giving birth at a time that many women see the starting signs of perimenopause.]
And it especially doesn’t teach us how to do that within the regular life obligations like a job that needs us to bring our A-game, juggling family needs, endless adulting responsibilities…
This is why I do the work that I do.
Quick Facts About Me
01 | Growing Up
I’m a British gal, born and raised, but I’ve been living in the USA for the past 25 years.
02 | Business Background
My college degree is in Law, I started my career as a lawyer at 24 years old. I went on to run my own Law Practice with my hubby, which within that time I had our first 3 babies.
My Healthy Lifestyle Transformation and Midlife Vitality Blueprint programs came directly out of my intimate and up close personal experience of my own hormone and body recomp journey through 7 births and perimenopause while working full time- and healing decades of binge eating, disordered eating, and poor body image.
Media commentator for women's health challenges around pregnancy and birth while navigating careers, as well as peri and menopause education and support.
Based on using techniques that focus on a mind-body holistic approach, behavioral psychology and neuroscience, balancing the body’s biochemistry, mind sets, nutritional adjustments and the science of habit stacking.
03 | Family
I have 7 children born over three decades! 3 born in my 20s; 3 born in my 30s and my last baby in my 40s! Interesting fact: I have a morbid fear of hospitals and so all my children, except the first (not for lack of trying after three days!) were born at home alongside my hubby and my midwife. Other than having them, and marrying my hubby (wow it’s 29 years in!), it was the best decision I ever made.
04 | Hardship Made Me Stronger
When I was pregnant with our 5th baby the 2008 global recession hit and we went from being worth $3.2 million to losing nearly everything plunging us into heart-wrenching adversity, abject poverty and the cycle of not having enough food.
The silver lining? We embraced a holistic lifestyle, learning to cook from scratch, make our own cleaning products, and become deeply vigilant about our health because we had no health insurance.
05| I Hated Exercise-True Fact!
I hated, and I mean hated exercise. I only began ‘formal’ scheduled exercise after my first baby because a] my hubby was such a great role model; b] my dad had four heart attacks- I promised I would never do that to my only children; c] my binging was out of control during my first pregnancy- I put on some pounds!
It took a long time of trial and error but I now love it, and miss it when I can’t get a workout in! That’s why it lights me up to pass on my wisdom to other time pressed ladies on how to get there in my courses and my YouTube channel www.youtube.com/@HealthyLifestyleTransformation
05 | Overcoming Health Challenges
I overcame decades of binge eating and sugar dependency- got really healthy only to be blindsided and hit rock bottom when I suffered several keys of undiagnosed symptoms of perimenopause metabolic syndrome resulting in a complete inflammation breakdown and adrenal fatigue.
Of my seven kids, 3 of my children were born in my 30s and my last baby born when I was 42 so I truly got up and close with hormonal fluctuations!
I doubted my symptoms, and did what so many of us do: suffered silently, pushed through, and pretended it was all normal. My turning point came when I got so sick that I was bedridden and my hubby and kids staged an intervention.
This triggered me into obsessively delving into both the science and holistic wisdom to connect the dots of my symptoms, heal and create an evidence informed strategy to keep me happy, grounded and vibrant.
My goal was not to endure my hormonal transition but to thrive in and beyond it. This is what motivated me to share my knowledge- especially on YouTube where I’m known for shedding a tear or two because I really feel for my womankind. It literally breaks my heart that so many of us are suffering needlessly… especially as many of our challenges, struggles and symptoms are so easily remediable for free.
06 | Working + Raising Babies
I have worked through every single one of pregnancies and beyond, it’s just how life’s journey transpired for me.
07 | Favorite Quote
‘You are not required to dive onto subway tracks or become a public hero. Your assignment is the piece of the world you touch. All acts of compassion bring the world closer to bliss’-- by Alan Cohen.
This is a reminder to us all the smallest acts of thoughtfulness, kindness and compassion make a difference and an impact.
My Story:
My own disordered relationship with food started as a child and progressed into my teenage years further ignited by body insecurities, which evolved into more restrictive and damaging eating behaviors leaving me trapped in a secretive cycle of yo-yo dieting and binge eating for years.
I didn’t realize it at the time but this also triggered my struggle with symptoms of hormonal imbalance of chronic pms, anxiety, mood swings, bloat, breakouts, and crippling period pain.
Along this journey I tried all the diet and exercise programs but discovered that there were so many more reasons for gaining weight, binge eating and cravings.
Looking for connection is a formidable food trigger and it wasn’t until years later that I understood that so many of my unhealthy food obsessions came from observing and copying my dad (he was a big stress eater)- and kind of connecting with him through the experience of enjoying food together.
I was that person that had to have bread, pasta, sugar- anything high carb- every day, that had to have huge plates of food and go back for more and volume eat to feel satiated, and would be on that daily pendulum swinging between extreme hunger and feeling overly stuffed.
Heck, I would eat even when I wasn’t hungry!
I would think about food 90% of my waking hours and have intense daily urges for certain foods and beverages- I kid you not when I tell you that I planned my day around what I was going to eat.
I would obsess about my weight, and the truth was that I was skinny fat.
I was driven by a battle of perfectionism, wanting to please, and the often unrealistic expectations I had for myself contributed to using food to fill voids, provide comfort, numb out, and manage stress.
My First Turning Point
Meeting and marrying my saint of a hubby and beginning having children was a turning point for me. We had a whirlwind marriage, and started having babies immediately- 3 within the first four years together! This while running our law firm together.
It was so tough because despite the success in these amazing areas of my life, the feeling that I couldn’t control my eating or my post-partum weight left me feeling ineffective and stupid for struggling with something that seemed like it should be straightforward and effortless.
Working full time, having babies, and trying to juggle multiple roles, in step with feeling and looking my best and in step with my professional performance left me distrusting my body.
I desperately didn’t want that for my own children. .. so I burnt through every diet plan and exercise regime only to suffer shame, guilt and embarrassment when I felt that I didn’t experience the results that I was looking for.
It took me until I was 37 years old, pregnant with my 5th baby to do this, and I never looked back.
I was ecstatic… I felt free.
And I had finally ended the intergenerational trauma of dieting and body shame.
It had taken a LOT of trial and error, disappointments and maddening frustration and tons of research on neuroscience and the psychology of change but I was now thriving. This was the era that my Stop Bing, Cravings, Sugar, Fix Program came out of.
Hitting Rock Bottom- The Hormone Storm
So there I was, liberated from diet culture and the rule-restriction-rebel cycle, no longer at war with myself and I just felt good in my body and my brain.
I wasn’t thinking about ‘hormones’ but I was dreading ‘the change’. Transparently, I felt fear around it, and I felt grief about that part of me that had bought these amazing souls into the world.
I had my 7th baby when I was 42, and I’d had another three in my thirties, so I was busy with being a mom and working. I thought I was prepared for anything.
I truly felt that after all I had been through that I would be fortunate enough to go unaffected by perimenopause. I put it out of my mind, that was “tomorrows problem”.
Truth. I totally underestimated the sheer force of midlife transformation.
Not because peri/menopause means you need to suffer…
because… let’s be clear you don’t.
I under-estimated it because there was no education on it.
Symptoms are put down to aging, or something else.
WRONG.
Perimenopause and menopause are not based on age they are 100% solely a hormonal shift.
But I don’t know this.
So I’m now experiencing unfamiliar symptoms, literally it’s as if my body suddenly started speaking a language I’ve never learned.
My weight starts to fluctuate… after all that freaking hard work of healing and ditching the post-partum weight… what the heck.
Yes, as group we tend to focus on the wanting to lose weight part. And yes, we want to be rid of the belly fat creeping up on you. But it’s more than that isn’t it?
But we don’t want to look weak, but I probably like you, was experiencing changes in my body, metabolism, mood, and energy.
Painfully… most of us don’t have a clue about it. I was experiencing ‘complaints’, I didn’t understand what was happening to my body.
I doubted my symptoms, the sleep disruptions, the anxiety, the aching in my joints, the way my body suddenly felt foreign.
I blamed stress, my schedule, anything but hormones.
I did what most of us do: suffered silently, trying to push through, and pretend it’s normal.
I literally learnt the hard way.
I hit rock bottom. I suffered several keys of undiagnosed symptoms of perimenopause metabolic syndrome resulting in a complete inflammation breakdown and adrenal fatigue.
I hit a transition that no one prepares you for. I felt broken. I asked myself…
“Is this just how it’s going to be from now on?"
The Hard Truth?
Nearly 100% of us suffer symptoms of peri/menopause and 66% of us have more than 12% symptoms.
IT’S TIME TO FLIP THIS STATISTIC ON IT’S HEAD
Wisdom, Freedom And Clarity.
But when I got deep into the research I had my ‘eureka’ moment! I was just uninformed about what my body needed. This wasn’t the beginning of the end.
It’s simply I was doing all the wrong stuff.
Peri/menopause does not mean decline. It means change—and with change comes the amazing opportunity to rebuild and reclaim control over our health and future.
And because peri/menopause is solely a hormonal shift it meant that I DO have control over how I move through it and experience it… this wasn’t ‘woo woo’ ideology, it’s data proven science backed… and this should give you some relief and optimism.
The sucky part was that my lifestyle mattered (which felt totally unfair!) but heck… better than suffering for the entire next chapter of my life!
So, if you ask me now whether you can torch belly fat, dismiss horrible peri/menopausal symptoms, get strong, vital and in killer shape during midlife hormonal transition and beyond …
…even after 7 kids and at age 54… the answer is…
“HECK YEAH!”
My core methodology within The Midlife Vitality Blueprint Program, is focusing on you as a whole being operating within the ecosystem of your health, your struggles, your life, and the world around you.
The job that you do, the children you may have, the time stressors that make up your day, the daily responsibilities you have, the unhelpful baggage you’ve experienced or picked up along the way… these all impact your hormones and your relationship with your changing body.
And that’s why my programs are so different. I teach you how to make change within the crazy, hectic, life that you’re living right now. I meet you where you are.
As a mom of 7 who has only ever worked full time, I understand that one of the things that has held you back is not being able to find the mental energy and space to make change.
There wasn’t someone out there to realistically help career-driven women like us who didn’t have a lot of extra mental space, and was extremely time and energy pressed to reclaim our health, energy, and confidence through our midlife hormone transition.
This program was created during that part of my life- not the other way around. It’s battle tested.
Wherever you are in your midlife journey I’ll create a space for you to unpack and heal your mind and body challenges.
I do this with permission and it is my honor.
Your challenges are safe with me.
Want to renew, heal, re-set, balance and thrive in your midlife and beyond? You have options : )
If you would like to explore working with me and book a free 30 consult call you can do that here.
If you want to learn the essential roadmap to lift brain fog, drop stubborn pounds, torch belly fat, re-balance hormones, and confidently navigate perimenopause/menopause… and get past the 'want to' and find 'can do' watch this.
If you’d like to dive in and get free help and mentoring head over to my YouTube Channel here.
And definitely sign up for my weekly insights, real stories and research-backed tips to pull you out of feeling depleted, confused, and emotionally worn down and have you: Thriving In Transition.
No matter how you feel, wherever you are in your life right now, you have the power to change your reality.
Thanks for taking the time to visit my site, I genuinely appreciate it … and you.
I’m looking forward to catching up with you on the inside.