You’ve adapted to the constant stress by working harder and getting used to uncertainty and everything changing overnight. And then changing again. And again.
Through it all, you’ve supported your kids and grandkids, your spouse, your parents, your coworkers, and your neighbors. You’ve helped everyone else feel better about the chaos, and made sure they had what they needed to get through it.
You've been living on comfort foods and convenience foods, because you don’t have the time or energy to do anything different. Or maybe you don’t feel like it would make a difference anyway. Exercise? What’s that? Who has the time?
Your old self-care routines have been pared down to a quick glance at your favorite moisturizer--you know, the expensive one--every now and then. It would feel so nice, but there's no time.
And all this stress is physically manifested in weight gain--maybe just a few pounds, or maybe quite a bit more. You don't like it, but you feel powerless to change.
One Year of Body-Positive Group Coaching for More Joy & Less Weight
We don’t have enough willpower. We can’t really be that hungry. We should just eat less and exercise more. It’s simple, they say.
The problem is not that you are lazy, crazy, or stupid. It’s that the world is set in a pattern of patriarchy, of white supremacy, of colonialism, and of rampant capitalism.
The world profits from your pain. From you squeezing yourself into their little boxes. But you don’t belong tucked into a little box. You are not a tiny cube.
It’s about empowering women so they can make informed choices.
So many women believe incorrect information about how our weight works, and make their choices about how to eat based on that false information. They suffer unnecessarily, either because they torture themselves in an attempt to lose weight, or by giving up after repeated (and, frankly, inevitable) failures.
Much of the popular wisdom and even accepted science about weight is wrong and as a biologist, I’m furious. As a woman, I’m offended. And as a nutritionist and wellness coach, I’m fighting back the only way I can: by teaching.
In the More Joy Wellness Circle, you’ll start to understand how your weight works and begin playing with the levers that help you lose or gain weight.
You’ll find a healthy ‘default’ way of eating that you can continue for the rest of your life—it’s the basis for losing weight, as well as maintaining weight-loss in the long term.
You’ll develop practices that help keep you aware of your body instead of being stuck in your head so you can make better decisions about eating and exercising.
And by working together on this for a full year, you’ll be able to fully integrate this way of being into your life—practicing how to recover from slips, mistakes, disasters, and just the stresses of ordinary life.
Running like a thread through our year together is the understanding that making peace with your body is the key to wellness.
You will experiment with different embodiment practices that help you get out of your head and back into your body. You'll spend time learning to love your body: both developing the feeling of love towards your beautifully imperfect body, as well as performing acts of loving kindness to your body such as feeding her well every single day and making sure she gets the rest she needs.
Your body doesn't suddenly become worthy of love and care once you’ve reached some magical number on the scale. You're worthy of love and care right now.
In the More Joy Wellness Circle, we will do three things together:
A one-year group wellness coaching program focused on helping you overcome your obstacles on the path to wellness and weight loss. When you join the More Joy Wellness Circle, you'll get:
Weekly live group calls over Zoom, recorded so you can review them later
An online dashboard contains all the links and information for the Circle
A private online community (NOT Facebook) for conversations, questions, and support, so you can connect with the other women in the Circle
Daily and weekly check-ins to keep you focused and on-track
Invitations to all the live, virtual movement classes I teach, for free: both Qoya and the Joyful Body Spirit Workout
52 wellness coaching calls: $5200
Private mastermind community: $1200
24 Qoya classes: $288
52 Joyful Body Spirit Workout classes: $624
On signing up for the More Joy Wellness Circle, you’ll gain access to the course dashboard. This is where you’ll access the course once we begin on January 1, and where you’ll find everything for the course, including links for the weekly calls.
The weekly Zoom calls are the core of our circle. This isn’t a standard course with a set curriculum that everyone goes through at the same time in the same way. Instead, the topics of our calls will be responsive to your needs.
We’ll be alternating between teaching calls, in which I teach a particular skill or topic, and integration calls, which is devoted entirely to troubleshooting and Q&A.
All of our calls will include (optional) breakout sessions for more personal discussions among circle participants.
Can’t make the calls, or want to review a topic? The calls (but not the breakout rooms) will all be recorded so you can watch them again.
For conversations between our calls, and for community support, the dashboard will also contain our online community. Not a Facebook group, it’s a private discussion board just for the circle.
You’ll have the opportunity to do daily and weekly check-ins to help you reflect on what you’re learning as well as helping with accountability.
(Are you a Rebel, according to Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies? Me too! If so, keep in mind that these are absolutely not required—if you find them helpful, play around with them, but if not feel free to ignore them.)
Finally, and unique to the More Joy Wellness Circle, I’ll also be teaching weekly and monthly embodiment classes. From the outside, they look like dance fitness classes. However, Qoya and the Joyful Body Spirit Workout are both forms of intuitive movement that help to get us out of our heads and into our bodies. They are the primary tool that I use to help women make peace with their bodies.
The More Joy Wellness Circle isn't everyone's cup of tea. It's a perfect fit for some people, but others will want to find another program.
The circle is designed for adult women (including trans women), especially those in their forties through seventies.
Not an easy fix. In order to get anything out of our time together, you'll need to show up and work instead of just signing up and hoping for a miracle.
It took you decades to get to where you are now. It will take time to learn new skills and habits as well as to see changes that you're working for. Not decades, but months and maybe even as much as a year or two.
The wellness circle is a sacred, safe space for all women, and we respect and honor each others' experiences, especially those of the body. Without each individual there would be no circle.
If you find yourself here, you'll want to explore other options because the circle wasn't designed with your particular needs in mind. If you're not sure whether the circle will meet your needs, please send me an email (adrienne@soilandsunshine.com) and I can help you figure it out.
These people have different physical and emotional needs than adult women. There are more similarities than differences, but the circle isn't right for you, right now.
The circle can be a helpful for those who have already taken some steps to address disordered eating, but is not a replacement for therapy and professional treatment.
Eating disorders can be life-threatening: please get the proper help from a qualified professional.
If you are focused exclusively on reaching a particular number on the scale, as quickly as possible, you will not be happy with my long-term, slow-and-steady approach. I also encourage all my clients to maintain a weight appropriate for healthy aging and a joyful lifestyle.
A wellness circle is a women’s circle led by a wellness coach, with a focus on eating, movement, and mindfulness in order to meet wellness goals like improved health and weight loss.
I'll be setting the schedule for the Zoom calls with the goal of ensuring the most people can attend live as possible. If you can't make it, you will be able to watch the recording later. You are also invited to submit any questions in advance so they can be answered even if you aren't there.
The circle will not take place on Facebook at all. We'll be using the proprietary platform Zenler and with our live meetings hosted on Zoom. All live meetings will use a two-step registration process for enhanced privacy. Our discussion group is also hosted on Zenler, not Facebook. All conversations and emails are strictly confidential and not published or shared without permission.
Wanting to lose weight isn't a requirement to join. Know that we'll be having many conversations about what weight loss is and how it works, as well as troubleshooting when weight loss isn't happening for people. Having that information available for the future can be helpful, because what I teach isn't common knowledge.
But at the same time, the core of what I teach is just good, lifelong eating habits. In fact, I encourage people to not worry about deliberately trying to lose weight until they've spent several months focusing on building up those good habits. Even without a focus on weight loss, you'll still get plenty out of the circle.
I'm happy to offer full refunds through the end of January 2022. Just send me an email and let me know that you don't think it's a good fit for you.
Possibly, depending on interest. If you'd like to join an in-person wellness circle and live in southwest Michigan, send me an email (adrienne@soilandsunshine.com) and we can talk about it.
Yes, and no.
I can't address specific, personal health challenges within the circle, and I'm not accepting any independent 1:1 coaching clients in 2022.
However, if you are a member of the circle, you can apply to register for nutritional therapy counseling alongside your work in the circle. If you're interested, send me an email after you've signed up for the circle and we'll talk about how that will work out.
Qoya in an intuitive dance class created by Rochelle Scheick. You can find out more on her page, Qoya.love, and my page. It is, at it's heart, a way of connecting women back to their bodies as well as to one another. The classes are about ninety minutes long and include gentle warm ups, easy yoga, a little choreographed dancing, a little free dancing, and some stretching. It's suitable for beginners as well as the more athletic. After a lifetime of not dancing, it was how I fell in love with dancing. I teach one to two classes a month.
The Joyful Body Spirit Workout is my exploration of embodiment. We move together for thirty to forty-five minutes once a week, experimenting with the sensation of moving our bodies to music. Between classes, you will dance on your own, for as little or as much as you want, to practice waking up your body and spirit with music.
Neither classes are required for participation. However, they provide a counterbalance to both the intellectual, learning side of our work together and the nutrition side. I have found that a practice of joyful, pleasurable movement (not just a hard workout) is absolutely key to making peace with your body.
And also, they're really fun. :)
Yep, I sure do. Send me an email (adrienne@soilandsunshine.com) and we can talk about it.
If at any time through the month of January you decide that the circle doesn't fit your needs, I'll refund your money in full. Simply send me an email before February 1, 2022 and I'll take care of it.