Coleen’s healing story : My Road Back to Health

At age 28, I was a successful profession dancer, teacher and choreographer in New York City.  I was an immensely popular teacher at the famous Steps on Broadway dance studio and dancer/ choreographer for TV, film, music videos and live concerts.  Fortunate to travel around the world teaching and sharing my love of dance to students throughout Europe, Asia, North and South America and my students flocked to my classes to get a taste of my passion, energy and style.   I was on top of the world, featured in dance magazines and loved the energy that youth and health provided.

By 31, I received my Masters in Fine Arts degree in Dance from the University of Iowa, one of the top 10 dance programs in the country.  I had gained 30 pounds by then and attributed it to stress, not dancing professionally anymore and the rigorous schedule at school – “the graduate 30”.   After my first year as a dance professor I gained another 15 pounds and thought it was from injury and my metabolism slowing down after 30.  Over the next several years, pounds continued to appear – magically!?!  I noticed one day on a doctor’s form, he wrote that I was a moderately obese patient.  What is he crazy?  Me?  Obese?  Forget about it!  I had always had big bones, I had curves and my “girls” were always big -a family inheritance, I am NOT obese!  I was in denial, big denial.  I told myself that when I turned 40, I would be one of those women that were in better health then than in their 30’s and my weight loss would come off when I was ready.  40 came and left with no improvement and by then I was over 60 pounds overweight.

At 38, my health started to get worse and to decline ~ especially after a bad car accident, chronic stress and with 5 family member deaths during a six month period.  My pain would not go away, I was depressed and I could not dance anymore.  I had to give up my dance career, my passion, life’s purpose, my spiritual and emotional release and the other love of my life.  It was devastating.  Doctors tried to “label me” with all sorts of medical diagnosis and give me pills for: Chronic Fatigue, Fibromyalgia, Several Autoimmune Diseases, High Blood Pressure, High Cholesterol, Kidney Dysfunction, Border line Diabetes and Hypothyroidism, IBS, Esophageal Stenosis (with 2 emergency room surgeries) and the list goes on.  I was pricked prodded, poked, and all they wanted to do was give me pills, which were making me even sicker and requiring more pills to make me feel better from the first pills! Pills and shots, then more pills and shots – Crazy!  I was trying to exercise (to my pain tolerance) and do physical therapy, I ate a pretty healthy diet (or so I thought), my calories were no more than 1400-1500 a day, I did not eat at fast food or restaurants that often and didn’t have soda and chips and cookies in my pantry.  I even went Vegan, gluten free, sugar free, with no processed foods for six months and only lost 5 pounds!  Nothing conventional worked, I was still sick and fat and was just not able to fell better, reduce pain or lose the weight.  It was not good.  Something was wrong and the Western medical profession was not helping.   It was then I decided that I had to Pick myself back up and take charge of my own life.

I turned to holistic nutrition and natural medicine and found the underlying causes to my conditions. There were many reasons: Nutritional deficiencies, inability to detoxify, Systematic candida albicas (yeast overgrowth), Heavy metal toxicity, Leaky gut syndrome, Dysbiosis, as well as few serious genetic mutations.  These were all contributing to my underlying problems.  Things finally clicked, it felt right, natural and holistic became the new me.  I was determined to heal and educate myself so that I could help others down this confusing road.  It was not easy, it was of ton of work and MANY lifestyle changes ~ there were a lot of paths to navigate and it has been a long road to health, but every minute has been worth it!  Sure – I made a lot of mistakes, went down wrong roads, but I learned from each one of them.  My pain is gone, I have reversed my diagnosis – the labels the doctors gave me and lost over 50 pounds!  I was a tough case – I am still on the road to health, it will be a life-long one, but I am so much happier, healthier and have energy to live life fully again.

The biggest gift that I have received from this whole process is, now,  I can help others in need.  I have BOTH the education and personal experience to understand, empathize and help you through your journey back onto the road to health.