About Us

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My husband and I have been in this industry over 20 years and our experiences have awarded us an approach to wellness that is unique to the industry. You are a spirit that has a soul that lives in a body and all 3 of those components of your life need to be well and in good working order to truly be healthy and living your best life possible. We like to look at it as a wheel with 3 axels. If one of those axels is bent the other two will be doing extra work to help the wheel flow better. If two are bent, there’s only one that’s doing the grunt work. For example, if you broke your leg and couldn’t work or do the things you love to do like ride a bike, your spirit would get down and you may get depressed. If you’re suffering loss and your spirit is burdened you may suffer sickness in your body. 

Some of what we have seen in our business has saddened us. One of our clients who worked out with us twice a week but would not get her food in order and is now living on a battery operated heart. Another was going in for a new hip when the doctors told him he required a quadruple bypass instead. And yet another client lost her job and gained 35lbs from stress alone without changing her eating or workout habits.  Our approach to wellness has to be 3 dimensional. Your food, your exercise and your destressing all have to go hand in hand. These three things need to become a way of life – a lifestyle not bondage. Do we eat pizza?? YES! do we eat ice cream? YES! but the fact remains that we eat healthy more times than we don’t, we stay hydrated and get good sleep which is why we stand firm by the word BALANCE. 

Self-abnegation i.e. denying yourself is a vicious cycle. You deny yourself sweets for 30 days then at the end of the 30 days you eat an entire sheet cake all in the name of “I deserve this” then you feel guilty so you grab some chips and ice cream for comfort. Am I right? Diets are a 4 letter word in our book. First of all it has the word DIE in it and secondly because diets are not sustainable and proven to fail you. It’s a 97 BILLION dollar a year industry. And our pharmacies are busier than ever. One of my hero’s was a man by the name of Hypocrites. He healed people with food and herbs -Things from the earth. Now adays food is going to be one of two things to your body – Medicine Or Poison depending on what you choose to eat. 

Unfortunately, most of us aren’t taught what healthy eating looks like and because of the media inundating us we get overwhelmed with what’s good for you this day and bad for you the next. But here’s a very simple yet powerful truth – You have a thumbprint like no one else in the world. You are a beautiful, unique mosaic piece of art so why do we think our food should be just like the next guy? What works for me isn’t necessarily going to work for you. There is not one quick easy answer because you were designed to be exactly who you are, YOU. It doesn’t matter if you choose to be a vegan, vegetarian, a pescatarian or a librarian really. You need to make small healthier choices every day. If you can adopt this line of thinking in small baby steps and make it repetitive it will eventually become a habit which in turn will become a lifestyle.

As far as exercise goes, you do not have to have a gym membership to be healthy. The good outdoors for a brisk walk, jog or run and some bands, weights and a medicine ball hidden in your ottoman is all you really need.  The best thing you can begin to understand about exercise is that is doesn’t have to hurt you but it does have to challenge you to change you. Start small and knowing your weakness is an absolute strength. If you're not a morning person don't set a 5:30 a.m. time to hit the gym. Your mind is your battlefield. If you train your mind to remember how good you feel after you workout, how well you sleep and how your stress levels have lowered you will be eager to do it again. Rather than make excuses like I’m too busy, I’m too tired, etc. Getting started is always the hardest part. 

Here are some important things to know about exercise. First and foremost it is NOT about being buff for the beach or striving for a six pack. Scale weight is NOT as important as body composition. It’s more about skeletal muscle that what you see on the scale. Good skeletal muscle will keep you from osteoporosis as well as other illness and help you live a longer healthier life so weight training is crucial to your health. You can only build muscle to a certain age after that you can maintain and or stronger but you will not be able to build. Muscle definitely helps burn calories; however what you eat is most important in losing weight. It has to become a lifestyle. You can hit the weights hard but if you’re not changing what you eat and how much you eat you will not see changes.

Finally, we can’t tell you how many people we see putting their careers ahead of their health. I’ve had several clients come to me in their late 60s and even 70s and say ok, I just retired, I’m ready to get my body in shape.  This is mind boggling to me. Most of them can hardly get through the simplist of  workouts, have little to no skeletal muscle or flexibility and it breaks my heart why people don’t value themselves more. Certainly what you do in your 20s needs to change in your 30s and 40s and so on, but you cannot turn back to the clock, you have to be IN the clock from the get go. Be in the now, make time for yourself, you’re so worth it. 

I would like to wrap this up by telling you I wasn’t always a healthy person. I used to smoke a pack a day, I drank like a fish and I was in deep emotional pain in my life. So this journey means a great deal to me because I am certain I did not arrive here on my own. It's the passion of my heart to help heal people from the inside out.

Michele Tenney

Certifed Personal Trainer/Nutritionist/Wellness Coach