Hi there! I’m Fay, a 30 something year old wellness lover living in Columbus, Ohio with my boyfriend and pup. I am a Holistic Health Coach that focuses on balanced living by taking a root cause approach to tackling life’s lemons.
Since early on, I have very much been interested in nutrition and holistic wellness but I will be the first one to admit that I didn’t always have the healthiest approach with my own wellness or nutrition goals. For years I struggled with eating disorders, body dysmorphia and orthorexia (an unhealthy focus on eating in a healthy way). I spent countless hours in the gym trying to force my body to look a certain way. I would insist on knowing which restaurant we were going to so I could look up the nutrition information in advance and plan out my meals. I would restrict food calories to save them for drink calories. I would shame myself for eating outside of my strict parameters and would blame others for my “failures” when they wouldn’t be more supportive of my weight loss efforts.
Looking back on my twenties and early thirties, I think about how much time and energy I spent on trying to change my physical body and how much this in turn affected my mental health. I know now that the idea I had in my head of what I was “supposed” to look like had intensified over the years but in actuality started at a very young age.
The first time that I can recall anyone commenting on my weight was in middle school. I had signed up for track and field because I was desperate to find a sport that I liked and was good at. Sports in grade school is just what you did, right? And being much taller than the majority of my classmates apparently made me an ideal candidate for basketball, volleyball etc. The problem was, I hated organized sports and playing on a team just presented the fear of letting someone down when I failed. Track and field seemed like the best option because I believed that the only person I could let down would be myself. I made it through the season begrudgingly, but I will never forget when my friend’s mom commented on how much weight I had lost and how good I looked from my daily after school training.
As I continued throughout life, navigating high school, college, and my twenties (yikes!), things only seemed to get worse. I would attribute increased happiness with a lower number on the scale. I would obsess over what food went into my body, focusing on clean, unprocessed foods but always counting calories and restricting main food groups. When I got divorced and moved back to Columbus, I used exercise as a coping mechanism and lost more weight than ever before. While I was incredibly fit from a physical standpoint, mentally and emotionally I was far from OK. I hit some of the lowest points of my life, masking the underlying issues with unhealthy vices. I knew I needed to make a change but just wasn’t sure how to do it. Honestly, I realize now that what I needed at the time was a health coach!
My decision to become a health coach was selfish at first. I had spent all of my years after college trying to figure out “my thing” and dabbled in several different careers, never being fully satisfied with any switch. I grew tired of the Monday through Friday grind of meaningless work and knew that I wanted and needed to start my own business. But what could I do? Enter, Nourish and Evolve, a health coaching certification program taught by a holistic health coach named Emily, who had more than 10 years of coaching experience. I hopped on a discovery call, agonized for hours about whether or not I could afford to take the course, and ultimately took a leap of faith that would change my life forever.
As we navigated through the course and I worked one on one with Emily as my very own health coach, I began to overcome some major obstacles that had hindered me from my best self for years. I also started to realize just how many people I could help. People, just like me, who have struggled for years with a lack of confidence, a poor body image mentality, a negative relationship with food brought on by diet culture and an overall lack of understanding of what my body and mind truly needs to flourish. I am so excited that I have finally found what I truly believe to be my purpose in life and I hope to be able to change the lives of so many women in the world!
