how I went from being a tech entrepreneur
to becoming a Healthy Lifestyle Coach!
It all started when…
One year after graduating from NYU, at age 23, I became an entrepreneur. I started a software company, Lewtan Technologies, with my then boyfriend (now husband) to facilitate asset securitization for major banks. We were a bootstrapped company which means we had no outside investors. Saying it was HARD, would be a major understatement. It was grueling! After years of hard work and determination, the company eventually grew to over 100 employees and 13 million in sales and was sold to DGMI in 2004. It is now owned by Moody’s Analytics.
Let’s go back to 1994. I was living the stressed-out lifestyle of a full-time entrepreneur, while trying to mother my two small children. Out of the blue, at age 31, I experienced a major health crisis that landed me in the ER.
In this terrifying episode, I lost my peripheral vision and experienced alarming nerve tingling all over. I thought I was having a stroke.
Ultimately, the doctors ruled out a stroke, but they had no idea what had caused this, and discharged me from the ER saying it was probably just “stress.” I left the ER feeling embarrassed, confused, and terrified since I had no idea what was going on in my body. These debilitating symptoms haunted me daily leading to my barely surviving in my business and parenting.
A slew of doctors and tests over two years--including visits to neurologists, MRIs, and eye doctors--came up with zero answers. The doctors kept telling me, “You’re fine,” while I was experiencing daily repeats of this mini stroke-like episode again and again throughout the day. Given the divergence between what the doctors were telling me and what I was experiencing internally, I began to think I might be going crazy. These thoughts added to my problems, leading to panic attacks and daily tension headaches.
After two years of living in hell, I finally did what I assumed any other entrepreneur would do: I took matters into my own hands. Since these were the days before Google, I read books—lots and lots and lots of books.
I knew that her answers were out there, and I was determined to find them.
Quickly, I started following clues and connecting dots. Through my research, I came across some books that talked about migraines. I started learning about ocular migraines, which can cause many of the terrible symptoms I had experienced. I had never had a migraine headache, so this was a whole new world for me.
After interviewing family members, reading tons of books, and looking at the prescribed mediations that I refused to take, I peeled back the layers of the onion of my own health crisis and learned that my “stroke-like event” was caused by a combination of severe exhaustion (from my round-the-clock, hard-charging life as an entrepreneur and mother), crippling anxiety, and this unknown predisposition to migraines.
SOMETHING HAD TO CHANGE. I NEEDED A PLAN.
I started paying attention to how different foods made me feel and soon realized that the foods that I had been eating my whole life--including a typical entrepreneur’s diet of pizza, take-out, and ice cream--were making me sick, anxious and exhausted. I realized the importance of sleep and rest in my life. I figured out what exercises were right for MY body. I paid attention to caffeine, thought patterns, happiness, peace and positive thinking in my life.
AND, OVER TIME, I CREATED AN UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT I PERSONALLY NEEDED TO THRIVE. I NEEDED A WHOLE NEW LIFE DESIGN PLAN.
Soon after implementing this Life Design plan, amazing things began to happen. I started feeling (and looking) better and better. Within a year, not only had my chronic condition completely disappeared, but my health and vitality were far better than ever before.
Friends and acquaintances began asking me for health advice. At this point, I decided to deepen and expand my health expertise, and trained at the world’s largest nutrition school, Institute for Integrative Nutrition, receiving my certification as a Holistic Health Coach.
Over the next several years, I built out a thriving health coaching practice, helping everyone from stressed-out stay-at-home moms to high-powered CEOs bringing in the incredible health and wellness transformations and results that I was able to achieve for myself.
In 2016, I published the award-winning and best selling book Busy, Stressed, and Food Obsessed! and went on to host a live radio show called Healthy View Radio (now a podcast called The Healthy View).
Recently, I studied in one of the first classes to receive certification as a Designing Your Life coach, based on the NY Times bestselling book and class by Stanford University professors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. I also received a certification in teaching Mindfulness.
I continue to study all the time via courses, workshops, and conferences. A few of my passions have been Meditation, Body-Mind Coaching, Mindful Eating, Mindful Movement and Dance, and Lifestyle Medicine.
With private coaching, online courses, workshops, and retreats, I helps highly successful hungry go-getters to slow down, de-stress, develop a better relationship with food, reframe negative self-talk, investigate habits and triggers, and set strategies for success.
I LOVE TO HELP MY CLIENTS CREATE HAPPY, HEALTHY, AND MEANINGFUL LIVES.
My work has been featured in numerous publications including The Boston Globe, The Huffington Post, MindbodyGreen, and Reader’s Digest, and has been a speaker at companies such as Kripalu, Canyon Ranch, Rancho la Puerta, WGBH, and Google.