February 23, 2018

So, what’s the Healthful Evolutions Program? Here’s the gist…

One of the most common questions we get here at the Wellness Training Institute is how, exactly, our Healthful Evolutions Program works.

It’s a good question. Not because what we do is complicated, or even all that hard to describe. It’s actually pretty straightforward.

The question comes for another reason: Our Healthful Evolutions program isn’t like anything else most people would be familiar with.

Here’s How We’re Unique

It’s not a diet like Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers or one of the million weight loss programs out there. There are no crazy, restrictive rules. It’s not something that promises overnight success. It’s not a gym. And we don’t believe supplements are the ultimate cure.

Instead, it’s a strategic, personalized plan that’s designed to replace all the bad habits you have—the habits that are slowly killing you—with good, life-affirming ones. It’s a tried and true process that gives you back everything you put into it—and more! And although it can be hard to shift away from the habits you’ve had for a big portion of your life and none of the benefits of these changes manifest overnight, Healthful Evolutions provides something that very few other “health programs” can offer. Which is: True and lasting change.

Our program is based on science, years of research, and experience working with people. We’ve learned what works—both in terms of short-term benefits as well as how to create changes that last for the rest of your life. We are constantly innovating and enhancing our program. When we learn something new, we want you to know it too! The world we live in is constantly changing— which means we need to learn how to respond to it. We need to learn how to face new challenges. The biggest advantage we have in getting people truly life-lasting results is that we set a foundation that allows people to face challenges that come up in life and give them the tools to choose health… even in the worst circumstances.

So, now that we’ve hit the 1,000-foot view, here’s how the program works…

How We Work

Most of our members come to the program through one of our free Wellness Dinner Seminars, where we eat a meal together and both Dr. Dangovian and I offer a ton of great information on how to get healthy… and stay that way for good.

The next step is to schedule a consultation. During the seminar, you get to know us. The goal of the consultation is for us to get to know you. We want to determine if we’re a good fit. We want to know if our program is right for you. Our program isn’t for everyone, so we also need to discuss if you’re ready to make the changes necessary for getting healthy.

Here we’ll sit down, learn about you—your goals, your challenges, and how you got to this current stage in your health, wherever that might be. We run you through a thorough Wellness Evaluation, where we’ll ask a lot of questions. Many of these questions are ones that you’ve never been asked—but should’ve been. We want to get a clear picture of who you are and what your body needs to be healthy. We’ll also have you bring any recent lab work.

If we find that we are a good fit for each other, we will talk about financing options at this stage. (Insurance doesn’t cover our program, but we haven’t had any problems helping our members with financing.)

From there we take our program and adapt it to you. There are five pillars of health — nutrition, fitness, detoxification, hormone testing and attention to reducing stress and supporting your nervous system—and our program focuses in on each. It’s a simple equation and I’ve seen it work a million times: Build up those pillars, and health just happens.

We’ll walk you through orientation, order blood work panels, and begin to talk about nutritional transitions.

We start with nutrition because it’s what the other four pillars primarily depend upon… you can’t, for example, start getting active without a good nutritional foundation. It’s like trying to run your car on an empty tank. So, we do a six-week pre-detox preparation followed by a 21-day detox. This process resets your body, allows it to heal, and eliminates all the toxic stuff our current American lifestyles expose us to on a daily basis.

The Name of the Game

Throughout all of this, support is the name of the game. The program lasts anywhere from three to nine months, and during that time, we offer tons of sessions designed to get you results.

We have five yoga classes per week. We have a recipe club. We also have group cooking days and an interactive Q and A called “What’s for Breakfast?”, both of which are designed to show you how to prepare great-tasting food that’s also great for you. Plugging into the community here at the Wellness Training Institute is probably the most rewarding part of the program for many of our members. So, you’ll be spending at least an hour every two weeks here building healthy habits and finding the support many wouldn’t otherwise have.

Some of our members have opted for our virtual program. Folks who travel for work, for example, can get the same level of support from us through email, training videos, bi-weekly check-ins over the phone. Plus, our whole team is available at any time, whether you’re physically here or not.

The goal of everything we do here is to get you well so that you can live a better life. We want this season of your life to be the best.

The process works. But, here’s the deal… it won’t work by itself.
Probably the most critical element of your success in our program is, well, YOU.

YOU are the one that does the work. YOU heal yourself. We are simply your guide.

You need a guide. You can’t get healthy alone. And you need someone who understands the overall strategy and can adapt the program to your specific needs.

Everyone is different. My experience going through the program is going to be wildly different than yours. Why? Because our bodies need different things. I can anticipate a lot, but not everything. Because of that, we usually try to keep our members in the program for a minimum of six months, because it usually takes that long to really figure out how to maximize your health. To find your lasting success.

Which, as I said before, is the whole point!

What You Deserve

You deserve to be healthy. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to live your life to its fullest.

And if you’re ready to take that next step? We’re ready and waiting… and super excited to walk alongside you on that journey!

The first step, as I mentioned before, is to come to dinner!

Have more questions? Visit our FAQ page here.

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January 26, 2017

Our goal at the Wellness Training Institute is to provide the knowledge and tools for our members to live a better life. So, when that happens, we celebrate it big time internally.

But, we also think it’s important to celebrate the success of these fantastic people with you as well. Here are four, very inspiring stories of people who have recently graduated from our Healthy Evolutions program, and—more importantly—regained their lives.

Nancy & Bill H.

Nancy and Bill both had a number of health problems. When they sat down with us the first time, Bill was skeptical. He’s an analytical guy, the type who wants to have all the information up front before making any big decisions.

So, during that first sit-down (which I believe Nancy had to drag him to, since he was not at all on board at the beginning), he peppered us with questions.

You might think those are the type of people who are the hardest to work with—nobody likes being questioned at every step!—but the exact opposite is actually true. Bill, and guys like him, tend to resist change at first but then, once the questions have been answered and all the knowledge is set out on the table, they push all in.

And that’s what Bill and Nancy both did. They pushed all in.

Although it wasn’t smooth sailing at the beginning.

The primary roadblock at first for Bill was that he hated vegetables. Like, REALLY hated them. He could do potatoes and corn and maybe lettuce if it was already on his burger, but beyond that, their kitchen was a vegetable wasteland.

What he DID like, though, was cheese. A lot. Which was also a problem. He’d had severe chronic acid reflux for years.

The third issue was that Bill wanted results. And if they didn’t come quickly, he wasn’t going to waste his time eating food he didn’t like and making other potentially pointless lifestyle changes.

Some of our members get quick results. For others, it takes longer. The results always come if the person sticks with the program, but it’s hard to undo the damage from eating a Big Mac Value Meal every day for four decades.

Fortunately for Bill and Nancy, once they took the plunge and started working through the program, the results came quickly.

Bill lost 40 pounds, his cholesterol plummeted, he got off his blood pressure and cholesterol medications completely, and his acid reflux medication was drastically reduced.

Nancy lost weight as well as bringing her triglycerides down by over 300 points.

They are vibrant now. The change is incredible.

And one of the best parts? Bill now craves all sorts of vegetables.

Tina P.

Success in life is never guaranteed. And sometimes, halfway through a journey, it looks like the end will never come.

Which is exactly what happened to Tina P.

Tina got halfway through the program, and then quit. Or, at least, she tried to quit.

She didn’t have a support system around her outside our walls, was exhausted, had a lot of weight to lose, a lot of barriers where present at work… and had no energy left to handle all it at once.

So, we got her restarted on the program. The first detox left her feeling completely wiped out, but she continued to push through it. By the end she’d gone through three detoxes, lost the weight she needed to, and gotten her energy back.

She’s now running between one and three miles daily. She writes in her Gratitude Journal every morning. Meditation and Yoga had a big impact on her.

We don’t give up on people. Tina didn’t give up on herself. And now, she feels like her whole life is different.

One of the most interesting things about Tina’s story is that she told us, just last week, that she’d really only done “40% of the program.” She’d lost a lot of weight, gotten her energy back, and felt so much better. “But I can’t imagine what my life would be,” she told us, “if I’d done 100% of it!”

Gene J.

A lot of our members initially come into the program looking just to lose weight.

Gene was among them. With his job requiring him to travel internationally almost constantly, though, he made it clear up front that time was going to be an issue.

So, with Gene, we worked around his schedule, allowing him to meet with us for the bare minimum number of bi-weekly hours, and worked to provide him with enough resources to help him work through the program while he traveled.

And it worked!

Gene lost 50 pounds in 3 months, and his blood panels look drastically better than we even expected!

He’s thinner, happier, healthier, and likely to live a much better life going forward.

Maxine

So, weight loss is generally the thing that brings people into the program. When they leave, though, they have a much better understanding of all the other things that make up a healthy lifestyle. Learning to stand correctly, sit correctly, understanding how being aware of your own body through yoga or meditation grounds you at a fundamental level. Or, how important having a strong community around you that only wants you to succeed is to your overall health. Or, how your diet isn’t meant to be a restrictive “diet,” but instead a life-giving relationship with food.

But sometimes, we have members come in to the program for things other than weight loss.

Maxine came to us after two major surgeries. She was on oxygen. She required a walker.

And she only wanted one thing: Her goal was to dance—without the aid of her walker—at her 50th high school reunion.

She had a whole list of things wrong with her medically, and it was really very sad. The main issue we had trying to help her back to wellness, in fact, were all the medications other doctors had put her on.

But we worked on her posture, and her breathing. It was a gradual process, and a hard one at times, but finally, after months of work on everyone’s part… she did it.

She danced without a walker at her reunion!

Her success was enough to bring tears to your eyes.

The lesson here is this: No matter where you are health-wise, your body has an amazing capacity to heal itself. You just have to learn the right habits to allow it to happen. That’s what we do at the Wellness Training Institute: We give you the knowledge and the tools to take charge of your health and make this the best stage of your life!

Need more life-changing health info in your life? 

Of course you do.

Check this out:

Download the first installment of our NEW 7-part eBook series The 7 Habits of Highly Healthful People for FREE right now, right HERE!

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December 29, 2016

First, a disclaimer: I am a health coach, and nutrition coach, and a life coach. And I have a lot of coaches, myself.

But how do you find the right coach? I can tell you that my experience has taught me a heck of a lot more than my certifications.

So, we’ve compiled a pretty exhaustive list of what to look for in a health coach. Some of this is based on our own experiences over the years at the Wellness Training Institute. Some of it is based on the horror stories our members have told us about their previous experiences with health coach-types before they joined with us. And, well, some of it’s just good old common sense.

Whatever the origin, if you’re looking for a health coach, here’s what you need to keep in mind.

Are they where you want to be or beyond?

Never trust a four-hundred pound health coach. There’s something about living what you’re preaching that is going to radically shape how you teach those things to others.

Over the years, having gone to a staggering number of conferences across the country, I’ve met some life coaches. Some seem to have it together. Others, though… well, if you’re going to teach me how to live the life you’re living, thank you, but I’m gonna probably pass.

And by “probably,” I mean “definitely.”

So, look at who’s doing the coaching. If you want their life, then great. If not, find someone better.

Do they listen?

Picking a health coach is sort of like picking out a dog from the pound. If it’s obvious that the dog isn’t going to listen to what you have to say, the relationship is going to be a messy one. (This is literally true in the case of the dog.)

There are a number of reasons for this.

First, your health goals are not going to be the same as someone else’s.

Secondly, your body is different than everyone else’s. What works for you might not work for me, and vice versa. Although we’re all genetically 99.9% the same, there are a lot of factors to consider.

Third, the coach-coachee relationship is an intimate one. And if you’re going to start up that kind of relationship, you’re going to be frustrated if you don’t feel like you’re being heard.

You should be able to pick up on this in your initial meeting with a potential coach. If it feels like they aren’t listening, it’s time to cross that name off the list and find someone else.

Want more great information about the foundations of a healthy life? Download the first installment of our NEW 7-part eBook series The 7 Habits of Highly Healthful People for FREE right now, right HERE!

Are they willing to be wrong?

The “my way or the hi-way” approach isn’t going to work. Sure, you want an expert in the field, but part of being a real expert is knowing that everyone is different and has different challenges… and that compromises have to be made.

It’s also true that there’s a lot of trial and error when it comes to this sort of endeavor.

Just on the diet front, for example, you might have 10 different foods that might be triggering negative reactions in your body. The coach might speculate on which one (or more) is the true culprit, but you’re going to have to go through an elimination diet to really determine the facts.

If the coach is humble and shows that they’re willing to be wrong, that’s a pretty good indicator that they know what they’re doing. New data is always coming out. What we thought was definitely true yesterday might be shown to be completely false today. A good coach knows this reality—but at the same time isn’t a know-it-all.

Put simply: They understand that adaptation is the name of the game.

Are they offering quick fixes?

This should be a red flag from the start. If someone is claiming that results are going to come quickly and easily, that’s your cue to stand up, nod a polite thank you, and run screaming out of the room.

There are no quick fixes.

Instead, when you’re looking for a health or nutrition coach, you need someone who is focused on the long-term.

Which is a perfect segue into #5:

Is their system promoting lasting change?

Because, if not, you’re wasting your time and money.

A good way to determine the answer to this question is to determine their methodology (and philosophy) when it comes to health.

Are they focused entirely on one or two areas of wellness? For example, is most of their attention focused just on what you’re eating and how much exercise you’re getting?

Both of those are important, of course, but they’re also just parts of a much bigger whole.

A good health coach is going to tackle the whole width and breadth of your wellness. Not all at once, of course. But there needs to be a system in place that deals with diet and exercise, but also addresses cultivating your awareness, reducing your stress, analyzing your relationships, developing your breathing habits, and everything in between.

Health is so much bigger than just losing weight and counting calories.

You’re looking for someone who takes a holistic approach, and understands that the lasting change is always the goal.

Do they understand that it’s a two-way relationship?

This one might be a little hard to determine up front, but I’m including it because it might be the most important requirement of all.

Sure, they might listen. They might make compromises.

But the best health coaches are the ones that understand that your health journey is also theirs. They’re invested in your success and at the same time open to being changed themselves as they guide you down that path.

And guide is a great way to look at the relationship. Some of the best stories ever written involve a hero and a guide (Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Rainman, the list is endless).

And in the best of these stories, it’s not just the hero who is changed. The guide is also tested and tried and, if there’s a happy ending, comes out better for the experience.

Part of what I do at the Wellness Training Institute falls in to the health/nutrition coach category, so I know first hand how it feels to guide someone from sickness and brokenness into long-lasting health. I also know what those experiences do to me. I’m teaching them and, at the same time, they are opening my eyes to things I couldn’t see before.

And at the core, that’s what a health coach needs to be. A partner who understands that yes, the end goal is there, but the journey itself is really where the true magic happens.

(If you’re looking to make some changes for the sake of your health, I would encourage you to register for one of our FREE Wellness Training Institute Seminar Dinners. You can learn more and register here.)

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