Who is Lisa?

My name is Lisa, and I am a 30-something wellness and nutrition professional working in online education, corporate wellness coaching, and lifestyle consulting. I teach for several colleges and universities online in the area of wellness, nutrition, and cultural awareness in health. My primary area of interest in working with individuals is enhancing the wellness of women and children (including fertility, pregnancy, and beyond).

My educational background is in exercise science, public health management, and community health promotion. I’m a new yoga instructor (trained in the Anusara variety), I have attended multiple trainings in Mind-Body Medicine and Food as Medicine, and I have a certificate in plant-based nutrition (although I’d like to add an asterisk that I am not vegetarian or vegan—when asked, I reply, “I eat real food.”)

I live in Canandaigua, NY, near my family (across the street from my Mom) and I love traveling to cities and to the beach. I feel very lucky that I chose to work in a profession that has a foundation in teaching people useful information that will help them to become happier, healthier, and live longer and better!

My journey toward wellness began quite early in my life, but I didn’t make a lot of headway until I went outside the Western paradigm and into a more functional approach to health. This opened a whole new world to me, allowed me to see what my own special nutritional needs are, and helped me to assist others even more effectively in their own journeys.

I believe in finding the roots of a health problem, and treating causes instead of using a band-aid approach to health. Food truly is medicine, and real food can heal and enhance health in immeasurable ways.

I’ve worked with people of all ages on improving their health, and my favorite memories of this work involve people being empowered to be responsible for and take control of their own health through their lifestyle choices.

In my own life, and for my friends and clients, I emphasize the importance of eating Real Food from Quality Sources. I like to keep the details simple and enjoyable, and to see food as nourishment, medicine, a medium for expression and sharing, and a source of great enjoyment.

In the beginning of my career, I worked for the Federal Government outside of Boston (Hanscom Air Force Base) in the Fitness Program. I learned that fitness is amazing and revolutionary in quality of life, and also that it would be important for me to learn more about food if I really wanted to help people reach their health and weight goals.

I moved back home to Upstate NY in 2003, to assist my brother-in-law in caring for my newborn nephew. His mother, my sister, had unexpectedly passed away from complications during childbirth. Ultimately, I was lucky to be a mother and auntie at the same time, and my nephew, now age 8, and I have a very special relationship and friendship.

In my free time, you’ll find me with the people I care about, making messes in the kitchen, chatting with friends over coffee, and sometimes reading anthropological studies about food and health. I do not practice any specific diet, such as Paleo, veganism, or the Raw Food Diet. Rather, I have taken all the pearls of wisdom I’ve found that resonate with my needs, and melded them together into my own way of eating. It is, and I expect it will continue forever to be, evolving as I grow and change and learn more.

My dissertation provided me with an enlightening experience in which I focused on women who were very healthy, and I studied their stories to find out how and why they made wellness a priority and sustained it.  I learned so many things from conducting this study, the primary finding being that we live our lives in stories, and we evolve and improve our lives by hearing about and interacting with the stories of others.

Regardless of the valuable things scientific studies say, the qualitative aspect of wellness will always be ranked number one in my book.

I hope you’ll both read the bits of my story that I share, and that you’ll also share bits of yours.

Thanks for reading.

-Lisa

lisa@thrive-style.com