Fitness and Nutrition, Health & Wellness, Uncategorized

8 Weeks to Wellness

It’s that time of year again: the time where the New Year New Me thing happens. I love the energy that is created by the communal hope and goal-setting this time of year, it makes me feel like anything is possible!

But this energy fades, our motivation fizzles out, we finish our 21 Day Reset or Dry January and then what? We can often feel left to figure it out from there and with the first stressful day at work, condescending phone call from a parent, or fight with our spouse, we find ourselves “unstressing” with whatever “treat” is our favorite. By March we have reverted to so many of our old habits and these habits keep us stuck where we don’t want to be.

So how do we make sure that 2019 is different from every other false start that we may have had over the years? How do we hold ourselves accountable when motivation fades? How do we learn to recognize and more importantly break the patterns that are holding us back? How do we IMPLEMENT a goal instead of picking one?

… Enter Nutrition Coaching! Individualized coaching is the secret weapon that gives you the edge to make sustainable change. It will provide you with a plan that works for you to get to where you want to be. It is dynamic and adapts to your circumstances as they change. It gives you access to a trained coach who can help you cut through all the noise and confusion thrown out there by the diet industry.

This year, I am launching an online Nutrition Coaching Course: 8 Weeks to Wellness, and I couldn’t be more excited about it! This program is revolutionary in the way it helps women make and create sustainable changes for their health and nutrition. It doesn’t rely on products or quick fixes, in fact, the program is 8 weeks long specifically because this allows for enough time to implement lasting change. It also doesn’t require you to turn your life upside down – all of the shifts in the program are designed to integrate seamlessly with your lifestyle.

Over the last 8 weeks of 2018, I ran a group of volunteers through the program (that’s right, these ladies decided to invest in their health over the holidays) and they had incredible results:

“Before starting, I was hesitant about a couple things….a) that everything would be too much of a change for me to be able to keep it up and b) that I’d have to completely change my approach and way I grocery shop, start going to health food stores (which I’ve never done), and spend a lot more each week on food… both concerns which weren’t a reality.”

“Overall I’m eating way more veggies and drinking way more water, eating way less sugar and processed food.”

“I’m down inches, up energy, and still down pounds overall over the holidays!”

“Best part was simple, but thorough lessons… Plus your quick responses to questions.”

“I’ve seen an increase in my energy levels, I’m eating foods that give me more nutrition with less quantities (more bang for my buck), I’ve expanded my horizons in terms of trying new veggies, and I’m more able to make conscious choices about what I consume.”

“Alasen is friendly, non-judgemental, supportive, helpful, engaged, and wanting everyone to be at their best!”

“I’ve told so many people about my ‘program’ and how simple it is to follow. I would love to join a second round now that the holidays are over!”

If you are ready to finally make a sustainable change for your health and nutrition, the next 8 Weeks to Wellness course begins on January 20, 2019. Enroll in the course and personally see how powerful Nutrition Coaching can be! I can’t wait to get started. My reason for entering this field was to help as many moms as possible to cut through the diet hype and create affordable, sustainable, natural health for themselves and their families. 8 Weeks to Wellness is your key to accomplishing this.

To sign up, click here.

To read through some FAQ, click here.

If you have any additional questions, or would like to chat with me directly about the program to see if it is right for you, please contact me!

Health & Wellness, Uncategorized

What a Difference a Year Makes

Its been almost a year since I started this blog and my schooling to become an Integrative Nutrition Coach so I felt like it was time for an update. A year ago, I was excited to get started but also nervous about being able to effectively manage my full-time job, my responsibilities as a mom of 2 little ones, and school all at once. Looking back, that nervous feeling was a good thing since it drove me to sit down and carve out the time for the things that matter – one of which was school.

Last week, one of my school assignments was to reflect on what you have achieved and what you still want to achieve (with respect to becoming an Integrative Nutrition Coach) and I thought it would be great to share this assignment with all of you. I love that it starts with what you have accomplished, which gets you into the right mindset for goal setting (I talked about why this works in this post).

In the last year, I have had a lot of successes. I’ve studied diligently and passed all of the exams for school (by a wide margin – yeay), launched into practicing coaching skills with so many supportive friends and family members, completed all of the school requirements for graduation this May, and obtained my student coaching certification.


I started officially coaching some fabulous women in January of this year. The amount of progress they have made in just 3 months is absolutely amazing. They have given up sodas, started cooking most meals from home, beat sugar addictions, and made other amazing strides in their overall health. But the best thing about coaching is how much I love the work. There is something truly magical about watching another woman make breakthroughs on a regular basis.

Now to let you in on what’s coming over the next year. In June, I’ll be resuming initial health consultations for those who are interested (these are free, so if you’re looking for one drop me a message). Starting in July, I’ll be opening up a 6 month individual nutrition coaching program to 8 new and/or expecting moms. I can’t wait to watch these women achieve amazing life changes to better their health. I’m also working on an 8 week group coaching class that should be released by the end of the year.

In 2019, I’ll keep conducting the 6 month individual coaching sessions (with 10 spaces opening in January) and my 8 week group coaching class will open up. I’m looking forward to working one-on-one with people as well as the fun and dynamic learning environment that we can create through group coaching. It will be hard to top this past year, but I think we will!

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Time Management, Uncategorized

Ready, Set, Go!

In one week, I begin classes at IIN with the end-goal of becoming a Nutrition, Health, and Wellness Coach for pregnant and postpartum women. I am so excited to get started with this journey and I’m looking forward to what the next year hold in store for me.

One of the things I know that will be coming with going back to school is a lot of hard work and dedication. I already work a (slightly more than) full time job, we have two very young girls, and adding school to the mix will have its challenges. Through completing the IIN precourse work, I have been preparing for the challenge ahead with two main tools: capturing and clearly defining my purpose for this course and managing my time efficiently.

Defining my purpose has been a fun and insightful practice for me. I enjoyed spending the time brainstorming and dreaming about what I really want to achieve with this course. It was relatively easy for me to explain the main part of my “Why” (it’s up on the About Me page if you’d like to check it out), but there was another less defined part to this. Not only do I have a passion for helping new moms that comes from my own experience as one, but I also wanted a “better life” for me and my family. But how do you define better? Is it more (time, money, things, joy, etc) or is it LESS (stress, stuff, commuting)? It took a while but I finally was able to define what I am searching for:

I want a life that I don’t need to take a vacation from.

So over the next year, when things get hard (and I know that at times they will be hard), I have this phrase to come back to. I am building a life from which I will not need a vacation.

The second tool I have been working with is effective time management. I can be relatively good with this for a few days or weeks, but eventually I slip back into old procrastination habits. (I’m sure many of you can relate to that!). Over the past few weeks, I have been thinking about time a lot. There is a IIN pre-course class on time management and organization, I’ve been seeing “inspirational” quotes online about it, I’ve had seemingly random discussions at work about it, it’s everywhere. (Hey, this is synchronicity in action!) Through all of this discussion, I’ve created a three-pronged approached to slay the “too busy” demon and make space in my life for my new pursuit. This is centered around the big rocks method, the SRS, and Saying No.

The big rocks method is based on this story/example and is discussed in IINs precourse. The premise is that you determine what are the most important things for your life (like family time, study time, and work for example) and you schedule those before everything else. After this, you determine your next tier of important items (exercise, time with friends, cooking) and schedule those in. The remaining tasks are the “sand” that fills the jar (I’m looking at you errands, laundry, and housework).

For me, the real benefit of the big rocks method is that it forces you to sit down at the beginning and define what is truly important to you. It relates back to defining my “why” which was also helpful.

Once you know exactly which rocks are your big rocks, you can move on to figuring out what are the pebbles and what is the sand. Pebbles are things that still need to get done, even if you don’t enjoy them. The sand is stuff that you actually don’t have to do (yes, the is stuff in your schedule that you genuinely don’t have to do!). You handle the pebbles with the SRS and the sand with Saying No.

The SRS (sucky rotation schedule) was invented by a friend of mine (read about how to do it on her blog here) and is a great way to manage your pebbles. Whenever you need to devote extra time to a big rock, you choose a couple of things on the pebbles list that aren’t going to happen, so that you free additional time for the big rock. It’s ok to let these things slide for a week, because you rotate which things you let slide. This week, I’m not doing laundry. Next week, I’ll do the laundry but I won’t go grocery shopping. And you continue this cycle until you can rebalance and not need the extra time for the big rock. Over the next year, I’ll be using the SRS to free up the time I need to devote to IIN. Rebalancing occurs later (I’ll make a post about elimination pebbles in the future).

The last (and my favorite) method for handling your time is Saying No. This is how you deal with the sand from the big rocks example. You just don’t do it. You stop. This is a scary step to take for so many people (and me too sometimes) because you think “OMG, if I don’t make pinterest worthy decorations for my kids party, THE WORLD WILL END!” It won’t, really, I promise. In fact, no one is going to notice that you made the cute little deviled eggs that look like owls for your two year olds’ owl themed party (Did I do this once? Yes, yes I did.). I promise, no one will notice. Sand looks different for everyone, so take a few minutes to define what it is for you. If deep down, you are doing some task because of the expectations of others instead of your own, it may be sand.

So here I am, ready to tackle the next year with my purpose and my time management plan. I’m excited and can’t wait to start next week!

I’m building a life from which I won’t need a vacation.