Bonjour!
I'M JANELLE.
A Certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, a Holistic Health Mentor, and a student of mindfulness and yoga.
I have a gift for connecting with people and I inspire my clients to live a fully creative and meaningful life. I work with stressed professionals and individuals who are disengaged from their partner, or are single after being in a long-term relationship.
From attaining better focus and clarity, to digestive issues, weight loss, stress and sleep challenges, allergies and mild depression, I support and empower my clients to set goals and make sustainable, long-term lifestyle changes that improve their health and happiness.
Ideally I would love for everyone to feel less overwhelmed and stressed, learn to care for themselves, live without medical conditions and simply feel good all the time!
about ME
I live a well-rounded holistic lifestyle and have varied interests like travel, cooking, photography, outdoor activities, architecture, psychology, and horticulture amongst other things. I have a thirst for knowledge and an insatiable curiosity about people, discovering new cultures, and life in general.
so how DID I GET HERE?
My passion to help people started in High School, when I wanted to become an Art Therapist. While it never came to fruition, life over the past 25 years; a life filled with health issues and much frustration, culminated to get me where I am today.
My own health transformation journey didn't happen overnight. It was long and at times arduous, with many ups and down. And it started young. From when I was a toddler I suffered from severe seasonal allergies, headaches, chronic constipation and skin rashes, not to mention a weak immune system (I was always getting colds or the flu and hit me twice as hard as others). In my teens I had severe PMS, depression and anxiety in addition to the other afflictions. I thought it was normal to feel bloated and gassy, to "feel down" all the time and to expect to feel the cold-like symptoms of seasonal allergies every year.
I went from one medical expert to another, suffered through painful procedures under the age of 10 and basically thought: "This is how my life will always be".
And I just accepted it.
It wasn't until after a divorce in my early 30's, that I started consulting with alternative medicine and holistic practices. I discovered eating for your blood type, Ayurveda, veganism, yoga and meditation. I tried different dietary theories and read and researched... a lot! Basically health became a devotion. Already a passionate cook, I stared to experiment with Ayurvedic and Eastern cuisine and discovered that eating healthy was actually the opposite of boring and tasteless. I started to feel better and many of my afflictions started to disappear.
Today, I no longer suffer from constipation nor am I afflicted by seasonal allergies and skin rashes. My anxiety and depression are under control and I seriously feel both physically and mentally the best I have ever felt!
This made me want to assist others, like you, go through their own journey of self-healing.
myTRAINING
There were many failed attempts and much frustration trying to find what I should "be" in life, including working in the corporate world and with developmentally delayed teens (I’m also a Certified Interior Designer) however, instead of being an impediment, I understood that my various interests gave me the advantage of possessing an unconventional combination of skills and strengths.
My calling to help others had always been there nipping at my heels, so when I discovered that I could become a health coach, it took me one year to research the best school that would offer the most comprehensive program in holistic health coaching. Armed with 15 plus years of devotion to health and wellness, I enrolled at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN) and earned my certification as an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, (or a Holistic Health Coach).
Of the hundreds of dietary theories I was taught, comprising Eastern and Western nutrition, I learned that diets are not sustainable and therefore don't work in the long run; that given half a chance, the body will heal itself by itself; the concept of bio-individuality -- where "one man's food can be another man's poison" -- in other words eating Paleo may work for you, but Veganism is a better choice for another, etc.
I studied with the world’s top health and wellness experts including Joshua Rosenthal (founder of IIN), Dr. Mark Hyman, Dr. Andrew Weil, Dr. Deepak Chopra, Dr. Walter Willett, Dr. Joan Borysenko, Dr. Marion Nestle, Gabrielle Bernstein, Geneen Roth, Dr. David Katz, Dr. Susan Blum, David Wolfe and Dr. Christiane Northtrup, amongst others.
I'm a member of the International Association of Health Coaches (IAHC) and the Association of Naturotherapists of Québec (ANQ)