What is my area of expertise?

Food and nutrition, to keep it simple. My career is evolving every year and I have my hands pretty widespread right now. I have my own health coaching business where I work one on one with clients, businesses, in schools and in churches. My passion is to educate others about how food choices impact your health and life. Whether I am educating others on how to find good food, how to cook good food or how to maintain a healthy lifestyle – it all starts and ends with food and nutrition. I also work for a large organic food distributor, what I like to call “the day job,” managing a group of retail reps on the east coast from Maine to Miami. This helps me stay ahead of the game with upcoming changes in the organic food industry and be out in the community meeting other health food advocates across the country.

How did I get into this line of work?

Like every good story, my own family’s health is what led me to where I am today. I began my career 12 years ago in the marketing world, where I worked for several companies. I was chugging along nicely when small health issues started popping up in my life. My kids had the ever worsening “Ohio Valley” bit of allergies, asthma and eczema. I came down with a rare psoriasis after a bad case of strep, which never really went away. And my husband was teetering on the high cholesterol category and his doc started asking about meds. We were young, too young, to be having so many issues we would have to face for the rest of our lives. Then, something hit me one day while doing some research that it was our food that was causing it…it was a true “aha” moment. So I decided to go back to school and almost instantly changed our diets. We saw an impact within two weeks of the change and within six months all of our issues had gone away – vanished! It was then I knew I had to share our story and educate others about how to eat to maintain health. I haven’t looked back since.

How does my work contribute to the wellness of the community?

I love Louisville because we are a two degree separation city. Everyone knows everyone through someone else. We are all connected, whether we know it or not. So every person I meet, from my kids’ school to church, while in stores and at events, I reach out and share my story. The yo-yo diet world is so defeating, nutritional labels and claims have us all confused, and the simple task of going to the grocery becomes overwhelming. So, we end up just doing what we’ve always done and relying on our doctors to keep us healthy instead of taking our health into our own hands, where it starts and ends. I teach simple, small changes anyone can make and focus on a three-tiered approach. You need access to real food, you need to know how to cook it, and you need to have support in maintaining these lifestyle changes.

Why do I love Rainbow Blossom?

Rainbow Blossom is incredible and we are very lucky to have them here. It is rare to find such a community-interlinked independently owned business in the natural industry, and I visit a lot of health food stores! I actually began my research way back when at the Lexington Road location, by talking to their staff about different products and their uses for the health issues we were having. They always had time to talk with me, educate me and even walk me to the product in the aisle to help find it. Over the years, I’ve found they are sometimes the only local retailer to have something I am looking for. I have attended several of their community events over the years to continue learning and educating myself in all realms of health. I’ve also hosted events in-house with moms’ groups and am a huge ambassador for what they provide to our community. They truly are our very own community advocates for good health.

January Featured Wellness Ambassador: Teresa Neuman