Nourishing Wisdom: Articles: Giving Her Clients Food for Thought Health Consultant Takes Holistic Approach

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as featured in Newsday, March 4, 2001

Giving Her Clients Food for Thought Health Consultant Takes Holistic Approach
by Patricia Kitchen

HOLLY ANNE SHELOWITZ is a food coach. No, she's a career coach. No, she's a relationship coach.

Come on now, just what is she? No kidding-she's more than a little of all three, although eating habits are what her clients come to talk to her about. But theymay be surprised to learn her focus is less on scales and food plans and more on the total picture.

When people come to her complaining of yo-yo dieting, sugar cravings, coffee and tobacco addictions, she gently probes into other parts of their lives-relationships, families, workplaces and careers. And she might very well ask them whether they're getting enough rest or having enough fun.

"We could talk about food for six months, but if we're not dealing with the underlying issues, it [a solution] isn't happening," says Shelowitz. "It's like being a detective." Her title? Holistic health consultant. As such, she's coached clients to:

ask for a four-day workweek
establish boundaries with their bosses
take more vacations, and
find more opportunities for self-actualization.

At the heart of her work is discovering a client's "primary food," she says. And that's not the food on your plate but "that which feeds the soul." It's personal for everyone. It could be stronger family ties, writing or woodworking. "It's some other [non-food] place in their lives where they are really hungry," she says.

For one legal secretary from the Bronx, her "primary food" was tapping into her own creativity. She came to Shelowitz carrying an extra 65 pounds-and a hatred of her work. At heart, she said, she was really an artist, but what could she do? She needed her job to support herself. The woman, who asked not to be named, recalls saying, "All I have is food to take away the pain of having to do something I don't want to do." So Shelowitz started helping her look for ways she could put more art in her life. And seven months ago, the woman left her 9-to-5 job and signed on for the night shift at another law firm, leaving her days free for drawing, painting and sculpting classes. She's taken a pay cut of "several thousand dollars," but she says, "I spent 25 years doing something I basically disliked. There was so much gaining and losing weight and never focusing on the real issue." And as she learned, "The real issue was not the food." Thanks, also, to Shelowitz's cooking classes and health-food-store field trips, the woman's eating habits are shifting, her clothes are getting looser, and most important, she says, "the fear of being fat has left me." Shelowitz, a commercial photographer who grew up in Oceanside and Long Beach, started training three years ago for work that would allow her to capitalize on her 20-year passion for healthy cooking and eating. She signed up for a two-year weekend program at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in Manhattan (www.integrativenutrition.com). Today, she's the proprietor of HA! (for Holly Anne) in Manhattan (www.nourishingwisdom.com), seeing clients from all walks of life, including computer programmers, corporate managers, lawyers, a financial planner, even a police officer.

Apart from the frustration of being in the wrong profession, she says, people are burdened with plenty of other food stresses that are workplace-related. For instance: toxic relationships, deadline pressures, plus all those eating temptations, with few healthy alternatives. How about those trays of cookies, vending machines full of fat and sugar products, the bottomless pot of coffee? Poor eating habits at work make you fuzzy-headed and less productive, she says.

And one overlooked but major trigger for daytime fatigue? A lack of water! So what are you to do when you're feeling so pressured you can't break for lunch? Start looking for some perspective, she says. Ask yourself whether those deadlines really are life-or-death issues. Can you re-prioritize, delegate or ask for help? If you're panicking about some future event, ask yourself if you can't just focus on one hour at a time.

And keep on hand dried fruit, herbal tea, nuts, cookies and snacks that contain healthier ingredients. Steer clear of what she calls "sleepy foods"-those full of refined flour and sugar. That means bagels, muffins, cookies, pasta, thick slices of bread. These things can become "glue in our guts," she says. (For her further advice, check out Seven Ways to Nourish Yourself at Work Without Eating a Thing) So, how about Holly Anne herself? Does she ever succumb to a Krispy Kreme? No, but she does respond occasionally to the siren call of a cannoli or a good chocolate-chip cookie. And you know what? "I thoroughly enjoy it," she says.

"When 98 percent of your diet is healthy and wholesome, you can eat those things now and then and not get totally thrown off."

Holly Anne Shelowitz Email: holly@nourishingwisdom.com Phone: 845.687.9666