New Site!

I have a new site and a new blog!  To view it, please visit www.angelamcoaching.com.  Thanks!

New Path

Lots and lots of changes in my life lately. While I enjoyed my job as a health coach, it was becoming more and more evident that I was not actually a good fit for the company I was with. It was a blessing that I was let go, and I am using this as a huge opportunity to pursue my dream of opening my own coaching practice. It's what I’ve wanted to do for the past few years now, and what I was in the process of doing back in October of last year when a crisis completely threw my family's life out of balance. We are working on healing hurts and reconciling relationships, and in the process, I'm finding my own balance and learning to stand on my own.

God has been so faithful through all of this. I have made so many mistakes in my past, and He has never left me. He did allow me to experience some struggle, but it has been essential to my growth.  Still growing, and always will be, but I'm stronger now than I have ever been.

I am also very excited that I am working on becoming certified as a personal trainer! Once I'm done with this, my plan is to get certified as a yoga instructor and in meditation as well. My goal is to create the ultimate weight loss program for women who struggle with emotional eating. I want this program to be well-rounded, including addressing the spiritual, emotional, physical and nutritional aspects of weight loss. I want to coach the whole person, discovering together with my client what it is they need.

I am so looking forward to what the future holds in this new path I'm taking. And I'm so excited about how many people I will be able to help along that path. Please keep me in your prayers.

Me, in my office at work :)

God has led me down an amazing path since my last post.  I am now working as a health coach for an absolutely amazing company called SlimGENEration!  I am extremely excited about this, as this company's view of weight loss is so in-line with my own.

Originally, my plan was to continue on my own as a health coach to work with each person as an individual, no "cookie-cutter" weight loss plans, etc.  But some twists of events changed those plans, and it's as if what I had been looking for was suddenly in front of me.  To say I'm thankful is an understatement.  SlimGENEration is different than any other weight loss company.  I've been privileged to be able to meet and get to know the co-founders, Sara and Jim Ford, and a few of the health coaches and other employees, and it's clear to me that these people truly care about others who struggle with their weight.  I'm so honored to be part of their mission to change the world of weight loss!

I'll go more into what is so different and so wonderful about SlimGENEration in later posts, but for now, you can check out this video:

Have a healthy day!

It's Official!!

I did it! I completed my Life Coaching Certification and received my official certificate!

I'm so excited now as I have begun networking with other local businesses, working to get the word out about how I can help our community, and meeting some amazing people in the process.  While I want to affect my local area in a positive way, I'm not limited to a geographic location.  In fact, I can coach pretty much anyone in the world via telephone and Skype.

So if you're reading this, I can coach you, no matter where you are!  And your first session is free--all you need to do is get in touch with me, either by clicking the contact tab above, or through a call or text: 832-409-8946.

I'm so thankful to God for leading me down this path, and am looking forward to meeting my future clients and friends.

It's Been a While!

In one month, it will be a whole year since I posted here!  A lot has happened over this past year, including me gaining about 20 pounds!  Not a good thing.  I got sidetracked by the holidays and that, combined with my addiction to sugar and junk food, made it very easy for me to pack on the pounds last fall and winter. 

But I'm back, and I'm ready to share my weight loss adventure!   And I'll be sharing other health and fun and happy life related things.

I hope this past year has been good to you, and I'd love to hear in your comments below what's been happening!

Bye for now, and stay tuned!

                    

Have Your Chocolate Cake and Eat it Too!

It's no secret that I love Dr. Joel Furhman's book, Eat To Live.  He advocates what he calls a nutritarian way of eating, in other words, eating the foods that have the most nutrients per calorie. What this means is basing your diet on plant foods: vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts and seeds.  A little meat once in a while is ok, but if your goal is being as healthy as you can possibly be, Dr. Fuhrman recommends avoiding animal products altogether.

Avoiding animal products presents a problem to those who love to bake, and to those who love to eat what is baked!  The following recipe solves that problem.

I haven't made this cake yet, but I assure you it is in my future, and I've heard some amazing reviews of it!

Ingredients

• 1 cup whole-wheat flour
• 2/3 cup chickpea flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 3 tsp baking soda
• 3 1/2 cups pitted dates, divided
• 1 cup pineapple chunks, drained
• 1 banana, peeled
• 1 apple, peeled, cored and cut into pieces
• 1 cup shredded beets
• 3/4 cup shredded carrots
• 1/2 cup shredded zucchini

• 4 tbsp natural nonalkalized cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup dried currants
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup raw macadamia nuts or raw cashews
• 1 cup vanilla soy, hemp or almond milk
• 1/2 cup dates, pitted
• 1/3 cup Brazil nuts or hazelnuts
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1 tsp alcohol-free vanilla flavor

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix flours, baking powder and baking soda in a small bowl. Set aside. In blender or food processor, puree 3 cups dates with the pineapple, banana and apple.

Slice remaining 1/2 cup dates into 1/2-inch-thick pieces. In a large bowl, mix sliced dates, beets, carrots, zucchini, cocoa powder, currants, walnuts, water, vanilla and flour mixture.

Add the fruit puree and mix well. Spread mixture in a 9.5-x-13.5-inch nonstick baking pan. Bake for one hour or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Or to make individual servings, bake in muffin tins lined with paper liners. Reduce cooking time to 20-25 minutes.

For the chocolate-nut icing, combine the remaining ingredients in a high-powered blender until smooth and creamy. Place a dollop over warm cake and serve or spread on cooled cake.

Simple, 3-Part Formula for Eating Healthy

I've been reading Joel Fuhrman's Eat to Live, and it is the plan he presents in his book that I have been basing my diet on lately.  And I'm really loving it!  He advocates what is called a "nutritarian" diet, or basically eating high-nutrient foods and avoiding low-nutrient ones.  High-nutrient foods are whole plant foods such as fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, seeds and whole grains.  Low-nutrient foods are meat, cheese and other dairy products, animal products, oils and highly-processed foods like white bread, for example.

On the surface, this may seem like a difficult way to eat, and for those of us (myself included) who were raised on hamburgers and sugary breakfast cereals with milk, it can be a challenge at first.  But the reality of it is, it is actually quite simple.  If it's highly processed, avoid it, and if it's natural, eat it.  It can take a little time to get used to, but the more you do it, the easier it gets, and you eventually PREFER to eat this way because you'll be losing weight so easily and feeling amazing!

You may be wondering, isn't this the same thing as a vegetarian or vegan diet?  It can be, but not necessarily.  You can still eat small amounts of meat and other non-plant foods, as long as you're making 90% of what you eat be plant-based.

When I say "diet," I don't mean a temporary way of restrictive eating to lose weight.  What I'm referring to is a different definition of the word, as in the food a person eats every day and for life. And I'm not saying eating meat is "wrong" or anything like that.  What I am saying is that the most nutritiously-dense foods on the planet are plants, and that's what I recommend we should eat most of for optimum health.  As a disclaimer, I'm not a doctor or dietitian, but I have spent a large part of my life researching and practicing different ways of eating, and so far this has been the best one I've found.  Now, my personal daily eating habits are a little different than Dr. Fuhrman's, but the basis of it is the same.

The formula is very simple; fruit for breakfast, salad with beans for lunch, and salad and two cooked veggies for dinner, fruit for dessert.  You can also add other things like mushrooms, quinoa and whole grain rice and nuts and seeds, but you'll want to limit these.  But that's basically it!

I'm still in the process of learning about this way of eating, but am enjoying every  minute of it!  If you're interested in learning more, please let me know!  You can ask questions in the comments below, or you can contact me here.

What do you think about the idea of a nutritarian diet?