Dawn’s Health Story

I’m one of those.

The “bigger girl.”

At least, for most of my life. Up until recently.

My history was this:

• Not exercising.
• Eating for comfort.
• Eating cheap, processed foods.
• Eating for pleasure. (Ah, the finer things.)
• Yo-yo dieting on any diet that I could get my hands on.
• Eating out. A lot. Because that’s what you do when you don’t enjoy cooking.

A perfect storm for an unhealthy lifestyle that eventually led to a health emergency.

They were behaviors learned at a young age.

Behaviors that I reverted back to, time and time again.

And behaviors that, in some or in part, led to a lot of health problems.

(And chances are if you’re reading this, you’re in a similar boat.)

Enter the health challenges…

In 1997, after 2 long years of being unable to keep food down very well and being emaciated (a rare period in my life), I was diagnosed with celiac disease.

The addition of a gluten-free lifestyle added even more complexities to my already complicated history with food. As I explored foods that were gluten-free (at a time when eating gluten-free wasn’t trendy or accessible), I gained so. much. weight.

At a new all-time high, my wedding dress had to be redone just a month before my wedding.

I vowed to conquer food stepping into my marriage in July 1998…but my unhealthy relationship with food continued.

Despite a brief reprieve during pregnancy (ironic right?) when I was the healthiest I’ve been in some time, the weight continued to climb over the next 23 years.

Then, upending the rat race I’d created for myself over the years, the pandemic years gave me some much-needed reflection time.

And I decided it was time to focus on me.

I joined boot camps and started classes multiple times a week.

In May of 2021, after working out 8 times in 7 days, I was feeling pretty amazing.

But while volunteering at church later that evening, my skin was oddly itchy and irritated.

Hives. Hives everywhere. 

Doctors and I tried to uncover the cause of the hives and get them to stop.

• Blood test after blood test was run.
• Treatment with steroids and more.
• Halted working out. (sigh)
• Abandoned some of my new healthy eating practices. (double sigh)

All to pinpoint what could be causing my body’s largest organ to react in such a way.

Months later we finally had an answer.

My body, at such a heavy weight, had been under tremendous stress doing those classes.

And the option had been for it to react with hives—or a heart attack. At 45 years old.

(Guess I’ll take the hives.)

Grateful my body had chosen what it had. 

But I also didn’t know where to go from there.

So up the weight went again, to a peak of 263 pounds in 2021.

 

Enter the solution that (finally!) worked for me…

In the winter of 2021, a dear friend and accountability partner announced she wanted to release 25 pounds.

(Already being relatively fit, I wasn’t sure where she intended to lose the weight from.😅)

But she did it. In just over two months.

And we all know how much harder it is to release poundage at lower weights.

Hearing about her working with a lifestyle coach and changing how she felt about her body, I was intrigued.

Could it work for me?

• My unhealthy relationship with food keeps me in a regular, unsustainable loop of indulge-sustain.
• The additional complication of celiac disease makes it difficult to find dietary programs that are sustainable, especially when someone else is making the food.
• I’m not a huge fan of the kitchen. (understatement of the year)
• Working out gives me hives (literally!)

Didn’t look promising.

But with nothing to lose but a future heart attack, I went for it.

And on March 30th, 2022 my box arrived in the mail. And in it was a 4-component lifestyle program: 

1. A health coach who supports with weekly accountability (well she wasn’t IN the box, but you get what I’m saying)
2. Educational materials designed to reframe my thinking on what it looked like to lead a healthy lifestyle and fuel my body properly
3. A community of support and safe place to ask questions, do life with others, and explore solutions to walk confidently on this new journey
4. A simple but customized meal plan that allowed me to fuel my body with protein, carb-balanced, low glycemic, nutrient-packed foods that I didn’t have to prepare or learn how to combine.

The result?

TL;DR (too long didn’t read) – In one year I released 79 pounds. (And still going.)

I knew my life had forever changed after the first two weeks. This simple program taught me about handling everything that impacts your ability to lose and maintain weight.

• Stress
• Sleep
• Movement
• Food as fuel
• Hydration

And when you find something that works? You share it.

Since October 2022 I’ve been blessed to coach more than 50 people. Giving them hope, direction, and results…the same way I was given hope, direction, and (finally!) results.

Now let’s change your life too.

It’s 3 easy steps to get on your way, and #1 is the only step to take right now.

• Tell me about what you’re hoping to accomplish with your health.
• After, we’ll set up a call to discuss what you’re hoping to accomplish and unpack strategies.
• If we’re a fit and now is YOUR right time, we make a plan and get started!

Even if it’s not a fit for you—or now isn’t the right time—you’ll get insights & clarity just by walking through the form and our conversation.

Dawn’s Business Story

Learning was always hard for me.

Maybe that’s what drew me originally to become a special education teacher.

My struggles with learning forced me to learn—and excel at helping others learn—how to break things down to the lowest common denominator.

Helping virtually anyone to understand any concept.

I understood kids in a different way than many others did. Because I had actually been there.

This deep knowledge helped me move out of the classroom and into an opportunity to pilot and build a functional life skills program that was rolled out to multiple schools.

And that was my first taste of / where my passion for creating processes was born.

“A passion for creating processes—really, Dawn?” you may be saying to yourself. 😂

Yes, really!

You see, life is a journey. You trial-and-error who you are, what works and what doesn’t, where your passions lie, and how you best contribute to others.

And after I left education to have my daughter and fell into other careers, I realized there was still a common thread in everything I did.

Whether in ministry, education, or small business, I always naturally fell into big, complex positions with a lot of moving parts to manage.

Wherever I was, I was gifted with the ability to help people get to where they wanted to go. I could go into any environment and:

• See the larger vision
• Figure out what needs to be solved
• Break needed actions down into specific, bite-size steps
• Carry that vision to other people
• Organize teams, troubleshoot and overcome obstacles
• Create systems and processes that anyone could plug into
• Teach and train in a way that helps people understand

So that’s a lot about what I was good at.

Want the gossip on what I WASN’T good at?

I wasn’t good at letting anyone help me. Or BE me.

Ironic, huh?

I could create systems and processes that anyone could plug into…

…and then I wouldn’t let anyone else plug into them, as me, so I could move on to the next thing.

I was a control freak. A control freak driven to take more and more on, without relinquishing control. (The #1 struggle of all business owners.)

Can you imagine what that led to?

Massive burnout.

Every time.

I ended up:

• Exhausted and miserable
• Having major conflicts with my family
• In one instance, in the hospital with high blood pressure

And no matter what career change I made, it ended that way every. single. time.

I clearly remember my final awakening: 

I had just left my job. During my little hiatus between starting the next, I spent a fun, entirely-too-long afternoon (and evening) at IKEA with my sister.

(Something that would have never happened if I was working anywhere, in any way, shape, or form.)

Driving home, basking in the afterglow of our laughter-filled hours together, bonding over Swedish meatballs and Cookie Monster rugs—I happened to drive by my old workplace.

And immediately started crying.

Because now, late in the evening, I would have still been there.

Ordering pizza and ignoring family.

Prioritizing my need for control over everything else.

It finally dawned on me that I was the common denominator.

And even though I was a natural teacher, and adored doing it—I was leaving out the most important part of it:

Teaching…and then letting people run with it. 

Prioritizing my belief in THEM. And by prioritizing my belief in them, prioritizing ME.

Doing us both favors.

Helping us both grow, and flourish.

So now, several decades after I began my journey as a teacher, we’ve come full circle.

I understand…because I’ve actually been where you are.

And this time, I’ve got all the pieces to help us both succeed:

• The pieces that have been proven to work over and over again
• And that final piece that had been missing

And when you find something that works? You share it.

Giving you hope, direction, and results. The same way I was given hope, direction, and results.

Now let’s change your life too. Your livelihood is worth a conversation.

It’s 3 easy steps to get on your way, and #1 is the only step to take right now.

• Tell me about what you’re hoping to accomplish with your business.
• After, we’ll set up a call to discuss what you’re hoping to accomplish and unpack strategies.
• If we’re a fit and now is YOUR right time, we make a plan and get started!

Even if it’s not a fit for you—or now isn’t the right time—you’ll get insights & clarity just by walking through the form and our conversation. You are worth a conversation!

Dawn’s Life Story

Look, life gets ugly. 

As much as we all want to project that we lead fairytale lives, the fact is…

The vast majority of us don’t.

And even if we DO (not likely), it probably won’t last forever.

That means me.

That means you.

That means your family.

That means your friends.

That means connections on social media.

Sometimes, it takes a long, slow descent until you suddenly realize you’re on the wrong path.

Or maybe things WERE good, and then the bottom just drops out.

And sometimes, you get real lucky and get both. 

Personally, I’ve had 3 really tough life challenges:

One was my workaholic nature.

I’ll start with that, because it feeds into the others.

While not the primary cause of the other issues, did it contribute?

Absolutely.

You can work on your problems all you want. But if you’re not eradicating them at the source…you’re not really solving anything.

Treat the cause, not the symptoms, so to speak.

So there I was, a workaholic, for many, many years.

A workaholic who always had to take on more and more and more.

A workaholic who refused help and had to be “the one”.

A workaholic who neglected her family.

A workaholic who neglected herself.

A workaholic who was stressed.

A workaholic who was unhappy.

A workaholic who used unhealthy coping mechanisms.

And then, in a series of epiphanies, I became a (recovering) workaholic who realized she’d had enough.

Who finally recognized SHE was the problem. (Not the job, not the family, not the obligations.)

Who accepted that she chose her priorities, and those priorities were all wrong.

Who owned up and set out to create a new, better life.

Another thing I’ve really had to work on? My marriage.

As the saying goes, marriage is never easy.

On top of that, I’m a child of divorce.

And for better or worse, children of divorce either throw in the towel really easily, or cling for way too long.

My husband and I are best friends, but we’ve really had to work at it.

We’ve disagreed on paths and directions.

We’ve had fights. Big ones.

We’ve even been separated. Like, formally separated.

We’ve dealt with external tensions like real estate collapse, mental illness, and church hurt.

We’ve overextended ourselves, lost everything, and had to rebuild from scratch.

It’s never easy to share your life with another person.

You’re two different people, with two different perspectives, and two different life experiences.

But the most important part?

We’ve learned lessons.

And we’ve applied them.

We’ve learned to have tough conversations.

And we’ve honored them.

And we’ve kept moving forward. Together.

And finally, the most clarifying moment in my life, marriage, spirituality, career, and family:

The mental breakdown of someone closest to me.

And not a quickly resolvable one.

Hours turned into day, days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and months turned into years.

Behavioral hospital visits, medication, therapy.

This was the “pattern interrupt” that changed everything.

As hard as it was at the time, if it hadn’t happened…

• I don’t think my marriage would still be together.
• I would probably still be working myself to death.
• Our family wouldn’t be where it is today.

A blessing in disguise.

It’s the hardest things in life that cause us to dig the deepest.

Your everyday, personal life is worth a conversation.

It’s 3 easy steps to get on your way, and #1 is the only step to take right now.

1. Tell me about what you’re hoping to accomplish with your personal life
2. After, we’ll set up a call to discuss what you’re hoping to accomplish and unpack strategies.
3. If we’re a fit and now is YOUR right time, we make a plan and get started!

Even if it’s not a fit for you—or now isn’t the right time—you’ll get insights & clarity just by walking through the form and our conversation. You are worth a conversation!