Why I'm Here (And What Health Coaching Actually Is)

Medication can change your body, but it’s YOU who can change your life.

When I tell people I'm a health and wellness coach, I usually get one of two responses: "Oh, like a personal trainer?" or "So you tell people what to eat?"

Not quite—but I get why it's confusing.

What Health Coaching Actually Is

Think of it this way: most of us already know what we should do. Eat more vegetables. Move our bodies. Manage stress. Sleep better. The internet is full of information. It can be overwhelming!

Health coaching is about the gap between knowing and doing. It's about understanding why change is hard, what's really driving your behaviors, and creating a sustainable path forward that works for your actual life—not some idealized version of it.

I'm a board-certified health and wellness coach (NBHWC) with a Master of Science in Psychology from Brunel University in London and health and wellness coach certification from Emory University. I work at the intersection of behavior change, psychology, and sustainable wellness. I help people navigate transformation that goes way beyond what the scale says.

How I Got Here (The Less-Than-Glamorous Version)

My path to this work wasn't linear. It was messy, painful, and ultimately transformative.

Want to know how disconnected I was from my body? I started my master's degree in psychology while my father was battling ALS, after our second international move, with an 8-month-old and a 2-year-old at home.

Read that again.

That's not ambition. That's not even overachievement. That's someone who has completely lost the ability to hear what her body is saying—or more accurately, someone who never learned how to listen in the first place.

I thought I was being strong. I thought I was proving I could handle it all. What I was actually doing was overriding every signal my body was sending me, running on fumes and willpower, convinced that rest was something I'd earn someday when everything finally calmed down.

Spoiler alert: it doesn't calm down. Your body just eventually forces the issue.

After my father passed, after that third international move, after years of running on empty—my body essentially pulled the handbrake on me. Hard.

I was living with debilitating neck pain and back pain. I underwent knee surgery. Then hernia surgery. Then a year of physical therapy to address the fissured disc in my neck.

Here I was with a master's degree in psychology, decades of professional experience, and I couldn't even pick up my own kids without wincing.

The real wake-up call wasn't the pain itself—it was the realization that I had completely stopped listening to my body. Actually, that's not quite right. I had never learned how to listen to my body in the first place. I'd been so focused on taking care of everyone and everything else, on proving I could handle it all, that I'd become completely disconnected from myself.

That struggle—and more importantly, working through it—became the catalyst that drove me to become a board-certified health and wellness coach. I needed to reconcile my body with my mind. I needed to learn what I now teach.

Why I Created The Lighter Evolution™

After my own transformation, I brought my background in marketing and over 20 years of international business experience—recruitment, sales, strategy—to this work. I understand what it takes to build something sustainable, to navigate major transitions, to adapt when everything around you is changing.

And then I started noticing something in the wellness world, particularly around GLP-1 medications like Ozempic and Wegovy.

Women were being handed powerful tools—medications that genuinely work—but without the psychological and behavioral support to create lasting change. The focus was entirely on the number on the scale, not on the person standing on it.

I saw women navigating massive shifts in their relationship with food, their bodies, their identities—all while being told their only job was to lose weight.

That's not transformation. That's just a transaction.

So I created The Lighter Evolution™, a 12-week group coaching program specifically for women 30+ using GLP-1 medications. It's built on the understanding that sustainable change requires more than a prescription. It requires support, strategy, self-awareness, and someone who gets the whole picture—not just the medical side.

What to Expect Here

This newsletter is where I'll share real talk about transformation. Evidence-based insights about behavior change. Tools you can actually use. And honest conversations about what it really takes to create sustainable wellness—especially when you're navigating GLP-1 medications.

Some weeks I'll break down the science. Other weeks I'll share stories from my own journey or what I'm seeing with clients. Always, I'll focus on what actually matters: helping you become the person you want to be, not just fitting into smaller jeans.

Welcome

If you're here, chances are you're done with quick fixes and surface-level solutions. You want your life back—your energy, your confidence, your ability to show up fully for what matters most.

You're in the right place.

I'm glad you're here.

Sally