Conventional wisdom would tell you that I’m “destined” for cancer. I’m my mother’s daughter - I look like her, we share the same blood type, I suffered from many of the same ailments as she did, I mean, half my genes came from mom! And yet, with some key shifts, so far I’ve been able to overcome a lot of the things that I thought would plague me for the rest of my life.

When a client tells me there is nothing we can do about their poor cholesterol/ weight/allergies/skin disorder/autoimmune disease/{insert challenge here} because it “runs in the family,” I honestly get pumped because it’s a chance to show them how shifting some key things in their life can lead to changes previously thought impossible.

So let’s take a look at some ways our genes are impacted and what we can do about it.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we all had an inner Siri that just tells us what to eat and do when we punch in some coordinates of where we’re at in life at that moment?

Good news folks... we do.

You know what I’m talking about... that quiet, wise, sometimes nagging, but always loving voice inside that tells us things like what’s right from wrong, which opportunities to take and when to leave a relationship.

Sometimes it’s not a voice, but rather a feeling, a sensation, a knowing.

The other day I woke up with a memory of something from when I was around 12 or 13 years old. Something that I had long forgotten… As a young girl, I did pretty well in school, had good friends, had great parents and was generally a happy and active kid… everything was seemed really normal, except that I secretly dealt with some issues that I now identify as on the spectrum of OC (Obsessive Compulsive).

Someone recently sent me an article in the NY Times Opinion Pages called “Can We End the Meditation Madness?” The author describes the rise in “meditation pushers” and admits to not meditating himself, which can sometimes feel like heresy in this new age of mindfulness and yoga studios on every corner. And he makes some great points. Don’t get me wrong. I’m one of those meditation pushers - just ask one of my clients. Incorporating a regular and meaningful meditation practice in my life has made an incredible difference - it truly has altered and opened up things for me in ways I can’t even explain. And I understand how annoying that can sound to folks who have no interest in pursuing a practice. But I’d like to reframe the author’s argument in that article - while he may not be sitting in lotus position, eyes closed in front of an altar, he’s most definitely practiced meditation in his own way.

Last week I went off-grid and spent time in the woods wilderness camping. Think: hiking a couple miles to the campsite, hole in the ground for toilet, no cell reception and the sound of birds and coyote keeping us company. It was awesome. No sense of time other than the sun and moon light, and our internal clocks getting a reboot. Coincidentally I picked up a Scientific American on the way to the campgrounds for reading material... Special Issue: The 100th anniversary of Einstein’s theory of relativity, which shaped our entire understanding of space-time reality. For those who need a quickie primer on the concept of relativity, let me take a stab at it for you (bear with me... I’ll get to weight loss in a hot minute... this is important stuff, I promise!)

As a holistic integrative nutrition coach, my entire focus of work is on food. This scares the heck out of a lot of people and makes it socially awkward when I’m at parties. Food is a very personal thing and there’s usually a lot of judgement and confusion around food (this is the reason I abstain from sharing what I do at social gatherings now!). But the way I see food through the lens of my work is more than what we typically think of as food. I view food as medicine, food as nourishment, food as fuel. This is a very different concept from what is commonly considered in dietetics or a diet plan. I don’t align myself with any one particular diet or dogma and I don’t count calories or macronutrients in a diet, or create meal plans.