This portion of each step helps you cut through the mass of confusing nutrition information out there and makes basic truths tangible so you can start to know and practice your inherent wisdom about how to nourish yourself. It doesn’t really help to tell people what to eat; what helps is to teach people how to know what works for them. Every two weeks, you’ll learn about a new food group, how and why it affects you, what causes cravings and emotional eating, and how to master your hunger so you’ll always know what, why, and how to eat to feel full and nourished. You’ll learn about plant-based choices versus animal-based choices, and about how food affects your digestive system, your health, your mood, and your weight. There is no magic diet and no single right way to eat for everyone. As you deepen your food knowledge, you’ll learn to listen to your body and its wisdom and know what you need to use food as nourishment and a tool for health and wellness.

This portion of each step is a growing practice in self-awareness, self-compassion, and self-love. It teaches you how to be mindful of your thoughts and emotions and how to recognize the patterns that keep you stuck so you can stop dieting, end cravings, and move forward. We can be scared of our emotions and often engage in emotional eating to avoid our feelings. We might have been told as children to “toughen up” or that we were wrong to feel whatever we felt. The Mindfulness section helps you gain clarity by gently teaching you how to feel kinder toward yourself, and how to become grounded in your body so your emotions can pave the way for making the changes you want and the good habits you need to live a more nourished, healthier life.

This portion of each step is about active change. Knowing what to eat is one thing; actually doing it is different! How often have you promised yourself that tomorrow you’ll do “better,” only to realize at the end of the day that you forgot or simply did not follow through? Did you think there was something wrong with you or that you were weak? Not true! It’s only that the nature of habits (good and bad) is mindless and automatic, so we need mindfulness to be able to change them. If you’re beating yourself up about your inability to change, you can stop now. The Habit Shifting part of each step will help you identify and get clear about what’s important to you, what motivates you, and how to create action steps toward a life you love. It’s the make-it-happen section for getting healthy and dealing with hunger, losing weight, overeating and emotional eating, and feeling blah—so you can enjoy living healthfully, sustainably.

Engaging in Path for Life online is like having a big collection of health and good nutrition books at your fingertips in one immersive program, with the added benefits of learning mindfulness and self-coaching supported by inspiring photographs, useful tips, visualizations practices and immediate access to a wealth of delicious healthy recipes and other resources.

The best gift we can give ourselves is to know ourselves more. Path for Life is built on the process of the labyrinth, which takes you into your core to experience yourself more deeply, then back out so you can walk with new insights, intentions, and good habits. You can start your Path for Life wherever you are. It is your personal journey with the guidance of my experience of more than ten years of working with people just like you, one-on-one. I wrote this program to reflect the experience of working with me in person—how I would teach you, guide you, and cheer you on if we were meeting in person. I built in all the ways I know to help you to become a person you love and take good care of every day.

Path for Life recipes are accessed through an Ingredient Index, organized by the same food group principles as the steps. The Index will help you become a creative cook and eater with easy tools and inspiration to intuitively find appealing recipes and put nutritious and satisfying meals together. It is all about nourishment. You’ll learn to avoid feeling hungry and to finish meals feeling full but not stuffed. You’ll learn how to use ingredients whether you’re cooking or dining out. This is one of the ways Path for Life is different than diets: rather than giving you a food regimen, it gives you a basis for self-nourishment where YOU learn to easily and naturally choose the real foods that will help you thrive. The Toolkit also includes insightful tips you can use as mantras to help you anchor what you learn, “Tidbits” blog posts about health and wellness, educational infographics, and guided visualizations that include recordings you can download and listen to whenever you like.