Hi, I’m Candace,
the Creator of
Fit for Life Foodies
For over 30 years, I’ve helped people get stronger and healthier as an exercise therapist, personal trainer, group fitness instructor, yoga and Pilates teacher, dance professor, and of course, a nutrition coach.
I’m from a French-Louisiana family and food is an important part of our culture. I’ve been a part of the underground dining scene in Dallas, followed local chefs and mixologists, regularly attend wine and bourbon tastings, and even had a celebrity chef cook in my kitchen. I love to travel, and the food of a particular country or city is a major factor in choosing a destination—with Italy, New Orleans, and San Francisco being some of my faves. I am a Foodie.
But I also understand that as we get older, our eating habits and nutrition have greater consequences on our health. Here’s my story…
Over the course of my 50+ years, I’ve never had a weight problem—I was petite, athletic, and rarely had to watch what I ate. I relied solely on exercise to keep in shape, so when my weight started to creep up a bit in my late 30s I just figured I needed to exercise more. I did lots of cardio classes with little to no results. Next I started running, and eventually ran a couple of half marathons. I joined yet another boutique fitness studio that focused on HITT workouts and training “in the zone” but I was still carrying an extra 15 pounds of fat on my 5-feet-tall body. The problem was that the more I exercised, the hungrier I was! With a degree in Exercise Physiology and years of experience as a fitness trainer, I should have known better, except at the time the industry didn’t know better. “Eat less and exercise more” was the mantra. If I was gaining weight, it was just because I was lazy and had no willpower. Sound familiar?
Every time I went to the doctor he commented on how my weight was going up, and finally I hit my own personal “oh shit” moment on the scale. Of course, I know that weight alone is not the be-all measurement for health, but so many other things were going haywire. My sweet tooth was insatiable, cravings were out of control, my energy level was down, my blood pressure AND blood sugar was up, I couldn’t sleep, and I was hurting all over. At this point it wasn’t about weight or size, it was about HEALTH and how I was feeling. As a health coach, I felt like a fraud because I couldn’t figure out my own shit. I knew I needed to make a change. It wasn’t about losing weight anymore, it was about not wanting to feel like crap anymore.
I began to look at my food. A friend of mine told me about Whole30, so I decided to give it a try. For 30 days, I gave up all dairy, beans and legumes, all grains, alcohol, sugar and sugar substitutes. I also did not eat foods with MSG, carrageenan, or added sulfites. So what did I eat? For 30 days, I ate meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, vegetables, fruit, nuts, and seeds.
Eliminating dairy, beans and legumes, sugar, alcohol, and grains forced me to scrutinize the ingredients lists on items like salad dressing, thus revealing some of the crap in foods I had been eating daily. I cooked and prepared almost all my meals and learned how to compose meals that have the right balance of protein, carbs, and fat to keep me feeling satiated, keep my energy up for several hours, and keep my cravings in check. Eliminating processed, high-sugar foods and drinks allowed me to kick my sugar addiction so that naturally sweet foods like strawberries actually tasted sweet!
At the end of the 30 days I had lost 7 ½ pounds. But that wasn’t the most important thing. My blood pressure dropped from being 135/82 to 114/70. My blood sugar was now out of the danger zone. The numbness I felt in my hands disappeared. My skin looked fabulous, I was sleeping better, and my energy levels were consistent throughout the day.
I felt amazing and wanted more, but I also didn’t want to live this life of restriction all the time. It sucked never to be “allowed” to enjoy a slice of artisan bread with butter or some home-baked cookies with a glass of milk. I wanted to figure out how I could continue to feel great but also enjoy my food with mindfulness. I wanted to develop an eating style in which nothing was off limits and I didn’t feel deprived. Seriously, I’m a grown-ass woman, and restriction only lasts so long, with the natural result being an all-hell-breaks-loose binge.
I spent the next couple of years taking a variety of nutrition courses and exploring weight-loss programs, but I quickly realized that women 40 and up have different needs that quite frankly aren’t being met by those programs. While some programs focus on meal plans and instructions of what to eat when, others require counting points, tracking macros, and constant weighing and measuring. I didn’t want to do any of that! Most programs merely treat “food as fuel” and don’t address how our emotional relationship with food—including obsessive tracking, weighing, and measuring—affects how we eat.
This inspired me to create Fit for Life Foodies, a 100% online nutrition course specifically for women over 40. FFLF is grounded in the latest science on hormones and their effects on metabolism and weight gain over 40 and is based on developing realistic eating strategies. I also incorporate the principles and tenets of #Moderation365—a method for reducing food obsession for people with a history of yo-yo dieting, emotional eating, obsessive tracking, and going back and forth between restricting and binging. FFLF offers strategies for unlearning dieting rules, restrictive protocols, self-shaming and judgement and helps women learn to “navigate the middle” with food and learn to eat intuitively anytime and anywhere—at home, in restaurants, on vacation, and during the holidays.
No matter what age you are, it’s never too late to improve your health, and the best way to start is with nutrition. You don’t have to do a Whole 30, Keto, juice cleanse, intermittent fasting, gluten-free, sugar-free, or whatever trendy diet is in your social media feed right now. Everything I’ve learned, experienced, and tested became the basis for Fit for Life Foodies. I did the work, and now other women can benefit from my experience.