Hello beautiful souls!
Thank you for taking the time to visit and read my thoughts and ideas! The fact that you are taking some of your precious time to read what I write truly means the world to me! Thank you!
This is my first blog! Yikes! I am filled with nervous excitement right now!
I want to use this first blog to introduce myself, share where I think this blog is headed and what my new business is. So here it goes…
My name is Tiffany. Just to give you a little background I was brought up in broken homes and in more foster homes than I can count. I moved out on my own at 17 and finished school while working full-time to support myself. I went on to college but paused my education due to pregnancy. I had two children that I gave birth to, I was blessed with a bonus child through marriage and then another bonus son, who was originally my nephew, he and his wife blessed us with a grandson. I am happily married for 10 years now.
Growing up I had no idea what it meant to eat a healthy diet. Our meals consisted of mac and cheese with hot dogs, hamburger helper, “cheese” sandwiches, sloppy joes, etc. As a teen I became bulimic for about two years, I was able to stop purging and started starving myself instead. Once I became pregnant at 19 I made up for all those years of starving myself, I ate and ate and ate…I gained 80 pounds with my son and man was it a surprise when I only lost about 10 after birth, LOL. So, I fell back on the only thing I knew, starvation. I did lose all but 10 pounds when I got pregnant with my second; I learned my lesson and with my second pregnancy I only gained 25 pounds.
I spent most of my young adulthood and early motherhood stage starved and frankly abusive to myself. But I was skinny, even though I always felt obese and not thin enough. I would try anything that came out that promised to make me thinner, the magic pill or supplement! I did go back to school for a year in hopes of becoming a child psychologist. Once again life happened, and I had to get back to full time work. I was also struggling with chronic migraines that would make it impossible to read for hours as was expected in my psychology classes. During this time, I did like to cook what I thought was healthy for my family. Looking back, although I was not cooking mac and cheese and hamburger helper, it wasn’t much better, typical meal was a meat, canned vegetable and either potatoes or a box of rice or spaghetti. I did the best with what I knew at the time as I believe that my parents and foster parents were as well.
Fast forward to age 27 and I met an amazing woman that I would spend every day with at my office who was at the time training to be in a competition and was a beach body coach. At this time, I had never worked out and still had no clue about nutrition, I was still under the mindset that if you don’t eat much you stay skinny and never thought about nourishing my body with what it needed! Under her influence I started some Beachbody work out videos and portion control diets. I was a wreck! I had shin splints just from a mile walk, I pulled my neck while doing a crunch, I was the prime example of being “out of shape”.
I did however get stronger with every work out and soon I felt like a pro and craved to work out every day. I did not have my diet figured out yet. I went from portion control to everything nonfat, to paleo, tried vegan for a couple weeks, to intermittent fasting, to keto and so much in between. Somewhere along the way I did adopt the concept that there is not a one size fits all diet plan, and that I want to eat and work out to nourish my body and dropped the concept that “Skinny equals healthy”. I slowly started to realize that I loved experimenting with my own body, what felt good when I ate it or what workouts did my body enjoy. With every new “diet” I did learn something and gain a little more knowledge about myself.
Then back to school in February of 2021 to become a Holistic Wellness Coach! I started learning what your body needs and in what foods you can find these things. I learned how to cook whole foods and prepare raw foods. The more I am learning though the more difficult it becomes to know what is right and what is just others making money from feeding us a bunch of BS. What I know for sure is my body is my greatest teacher. I know that our bodies were meant to move and that they like to eat God made FOOD not man-made FAKE food. I also understand that there is so much more to diet than just what is going into our mouths, there is your environment, what state your body is in when eating, mindfulness vs shoving stuff into our mouth when and where we can, etc.
Through my journey I have realized that I love to speak to others about theirs and my own health journeys. I get lost in researching things I would hear from others about what works for them. I also realized that my passion lies in walking these wellness journeys with others. I have coached many friends and family members with their health journeys along my own journey. And so here it is…I have turned my passion in to my business! Simple Serenity With Tiffany!
What is a wellness coach? What does a wellness coach do for me?
Below are the concepts of a wellness coach that I read early on when I started my schooling that I think answers this question perfectly:
· accept and meet us where we are today
· ask us to take charge;
· guide us in doing the mindful thinking and doing work that builds confidence;
· help us define a higher purpose for wellness and uncover our natural impulse to be well;
· help us tap into our innate fighting spirit;
· address mental and physical health together;
· help us draw a personal wellness blueprint;
· help us set realistic goals;
· small victories lay the foundation for self-efficacy;
· harness the strengths we need to overcome our obstacles;
· help us view obstacles as opportunities to learn and grow;
· help us build a support team;
· inspire and challenge us to go beyond what we would do alone.
The above bullet points were taken straight from: http://www.wellcoaches.com/images/whitepaper.pdf
What’s to come for this blog?
I want a place to share what I am learning and what is working for me on every level of this human experience. I will be starting with a 30-day experiment of eating a vegan diet. My next blog post will be the preparation and beginning measurements and such. I will then take you along for the journey over the next 30 days while on a complete vegan diet.
I will be writing as the expert in these blogs as I am the expert on my body, mind and soul. With that said, you are the expert of your body, mind and soul and my results or opinions will not always be yours. I am writing about my experience in this body and how my body responds, but that does not mean that it will be the same for you! This is where wellness coaching comes in to play. As your coach it is my job to help you dig deep and find what works well for your body and where your true wellness lies!
Again, I thank you for reading this introduction blog post and I hope you stay on this journey with me!
Sending blessing and lots of love to you!
Tiffany
