Happy Spring!
With the arrival of a new season, the blooming of magnolias and cherry blossoms everywhere, I am also entering a new phase of my life - I am back at school, studying nutrition and getting certified to be a health coach.
When I was looking into courses on nutrition, a topic of study which I thought would enrich my skills as a yoga teacher, the term "health coach" kept coming up. What exactly is a "health coach"? Why do I want to make the leap from being a yoga teacher to a health coach? And how do I even know if I am healthy enough to tell people what to do with their own health?
What I have learned so far, a health coach is someone who empowers others to reach their health and life goals by making sustainable dietary and lifestyle changes. It is sort of a cocktail of a personal trainer, yoga, meditation teacher, nutrition counselor, personal organizer all rolled into one.
I love food, I have educated my daughter to like kale, I am obsessed with health, I practice meditation, I am a yoga teacher already and have been doing the work of teaching people to be well, so....why not? And if I may just take a moment to reflect, I am in my mid 40's. I am
definitely getting wrinkles and a few grey hair, but physically, I feel
stronger than ever! Every morning when I practice my sun salutations, I ask myself "can it get better than this?"
Thanks to my yoga practice - the single most consistent and influential force in my life for the last 20 years. Being a yoga teacher, I have had the luxury of time and space to practice self-care - exercising, meditation and eating well.
It
is overwhelming how much there is to learn in the nutrition field, all
the opposing dietary theories, new studies coming out every day telling
you what the healthiest oil is or whether gluten is really so bad for
you. But I also know that I know a lot already, almost intuitively, what
it takes to be well, to get older and not have to be weak and sickly,
to age vibrantly and gracefully.
Here is to Spring and an amazing year of health!
