Countdown to 60: Journey of Vitality

I was happy to be able to provide a testimonial for Shelley’s business - Shelley Wallace Vitality Coaching. Working with Shelley has had a profound impact on my physical and mental health! I have struggled with my weight since childhood and attempts to lose weight had left me feeling like a failure. After gaining a lot of weight in 2020, I knew I needed help. Shelley’s coaching helped me identify and release limiting beliefs (that I was completely unaware of) about myself and my relationship with food.  This newfound awareness is really helping me to love myself and to make my physical health and mental wellbeing a priority. It now seems that I am releasing the weight almost effortlessly and I am becoming fitter and healthier every day. I am so very grateful for Shelley’s knowledge and compassion and for being a guide on this journey! Making the decision to invest in myself has paved the way for what I truly believe will be the best years of my life!     

Although I knew that I sometimes ate for the wrong reasons, I still believed that my issue was more of a physical addiction to sugar/carbs. I even told my naturopath earlier this year that I was not an emotional eater. Boy, was I ever wrong! My first session with Shelley included lots of questions about my relationship with food, going all the way back to childhood. When I mentioned a memory of being taken to Weight Watchers at a young age (maybe 12), I burst into tears. That and other childhood messages - from family and peers - completely distorted my view of myself. I was no longer okay - I internalized the message that I was not good enough and that I needed to be fixed. This was a huge breakthrough for me! Even though I was responsible for the unhealthy choices I’d made, I could clearly see that those choices were a direct result of believing those messages and not loving myself. Food was power and a voice as well as a substitute for comfort and love. Now, as I learn to love mysel...

  I imagine that we are all born with the ability to love ourselves. However, for most people (women especially, I think), life brings negative messages - from parents, teachers, other people and media in all forms. And even when there are more positive messages than negatives ones, it is the critical and judgmental ones that we internalize. Add in body weight issues that make us self-conscious about our appearance ... and self-love goes out the window! However, I am learning - through my transformational coach and a variety of other sources - that self-love is key to our weight loss success and to our happiness in general. Just as self-love can be lost, it can also be found again. At the beginning, you may have to say it (and repeat it often) until you actually start believing it. And if, like me, you just can’t do it on your own, I highly recommend a coach or therapist to help you reach that point.

Weight loss plateaus have often derailed me. I lose patience and either start thinking that the effort just isn’t worth it or that the process has stopped working for me. Sometimes I even try to outsmart it. Usually by eating more liberally for a couple of days with the intention of shaking up the routine and then getting right back on track to jumpstart the losing process again. Inevitably though, my body proves smarter than me. Getting back to bad habits reignites the sugar addiction and constant cravings. Instead of a couple of days, I am off track for weeks or months at a time and lose any progress that I have made before thinking I know how to beat a plateau. The truth, as Deborah Murtagh puts it, is that plateaus are normal, healthy and expected. They are just our bodies taking a break to refocus energy to recalibrate hormones after a period of weight loss before it tackles another. Important lesson - trust the process. If you know that a program has helped you release weight, tr...

Writing is something that has always come quite easily for me. But when I thought about starting a blog, I wasn’t sure about a theme. I didn’t want it to be all health or all business. So I looked at my businesses and my passions to see where there was common ground.  It turns out that all of them revolve around home, health and family. Tiny house advocacy, Norwex (chemical-free homes), Epicure (simple and delicious family meals) and my personal journey towards better health (that so many others also struggle with). Another component of all of these topics is being able to use these passions to make a difference in people’s lives. That can be sharing knowledge, using my business income to donate to worthy causes or just supporting someone on a similar journey. So, although most of my posts will relate to my journey to vitality, don’t be surprised to see references to my other passions. Being passionate is, after all, an important component of vitality that is every bit as important...

 I’m a list person. Checking things off a list gives me a sense of accomplishment and accountability. This is the weekly list that has been working for me. It could easily be adjusted with any specific goals and actions that will help move me towards long-term success. I know from experience that small consistent steps will lead to losing weight. The numbers on the scale may not go down as quickly as I’d like but I know for sure that consistency is key to success. My list consists of food goals, exercise goals and personal development goals. It also has room to record a couple of small successes - any positive step I have taken or improvement that I noticed that has made my day better. At the bottom of the page, there is also a two-column list of the things that I need/want to get done during the week. Crossing things out is just as satisfying as checking them off!