The Green Door Life

Over the last 10 weeks, I’ve had the honor of watching one of our Green Door Life members and clients,  , transform from someone who felt like she needed to do everything “right” into someone who has begun to deeply trust the signs and signals of her own body.

That kind of transformation is difficult to put into words and it’s a deep honor to be a part of her unfolding journey.

Alicia first came to us through Awaken Your Foundations, a 4-week journey guided by our co-founder, Lisa Kirby. Foundations was created to help individuals reconnect to the true basics of health… light, walking, balanced meals, movement, mindset, hydration, and learning the importance of rest inside of our health and fitness goals.

No hacks.

No extremes.

No punishment.

No tracking or programmed workouts.

Just starting with the foundations.

Once Alicia built those foundations, she chose to continue deeper into our 12-week Awaken Your Nutrition program with myself, Shannon, alongside the somatic and emot...

Between the books, the podcasts, the Instagram dietitians, the Reels, the macro calculators, and that one really detailed PDF you downloaded at 11pm three years ago, you've absorbed a lot about health.

We're not in an information shortage anymore. Haven't been for a long time.

What we actually have a shortage of is implementation (how to actually change long-term) under real-life conditions. 

The gap between: "I know this" and

"I'm doing this consistently, in the middle of a stressful Tuesday, when I'm tired, when my kid is sick, when I'm traveling, when I'm three days from my period and everything feels harder"

...that's where the years go.

That's where the DIY trial-and-error stretches into a decade.

That's where smart, capable women lose months at a time to plateaus they can't decode, hormone shifts they can't translate, and small inconsistencies that quietly compound into "nothing's working."

And biologically, this makes sense.

We know that sustainable transformation is ...

If you had asked us what “health coaching” meant, we probably would’ve said something about macros, workouts, consistency, and discipline when we first unofficially started The Green Door Life in 2018.

And while those things still matter…

What we’ve discovered after coaching thousands of clients is this:

The biggest thing standing in the way of transformation isn’t lack of bio-individual knowledge... it’s the disconnect between the mind and the body.

Modern neuroscience and trauma research continue to show us that the nervous system plays a massive role in behavior, habit formation, emotional regulation, recovery, hormone health, inflammation, sleep quality, and even our relationship with food and exercise.

Research now suggests that up to 80–90% of communication between the body and brain is actually “bottom-up,” meaning the body is constantly sending signals to the brain, not just the other way around. 

Which means many people are trying to mentally override their way through...

There’s something we’ve noticed after coaching thousands and thousands of people through body composition, metabolism, hormones, and long-term transformation:

The biggest difference between someone who maintains a healthy body composition and someone who constantly struggles with their weight isn't just about what they eat.

And it’s not their exercise either. 

It’s how they think about food.
How they think about exercise.
How they interpret "setbacks".
How they perceive to data.
How they speak to themselves when things don't go as planned.
How they recognize objective progress (or not).

Because two people can eat the exact same meal, follow the exact same workout plan, see the exact same number on the scale... 

…and have completely different internal experiences.

One spirals. One adjusts.
One sees failure. One sees feedback. 
One makes a single meal mean: “I’m ruining my progress.” Another thinks: “That meal didn’t make or break anything. Let’s keep going.”

That difference matters mo...

Your body doesn’t just “burn calories.” At any given moment, it’s primarily using one of two fuel sources:

• Glucose: derived from carbohydrates you eat (or if those are absent, derived from other substrates like protein)

• Fat: dietary fat from food or stored body fat

And what determines which fuel your body uses is influenced by:

• Your biological sex

• Your body type

• Your body composition (fat vs. muscle)

• Your height, weight, and age

• What, how much, and when you eat

• Physical activity, including exercise

• Your stress levels

• Your hormones

• Your insulin sensitivity 

And this is where most women get completely misled.

Because the advice we've been given around workouts, calories, and diets has been studied in and is largely based on a man’s physiology.

That's why intermittent fasting, Zone 2 cardio, and low carb or keto often work well (and quickly) for men, but not for most women.

Even if you’re doing regular workouts and eati...

That time I stopped eating plants and needed medical intervention 🫣

I remember the summer I cut out all plants in my diet and paid for it big time.

It was around 2014, before Instagram blew up, so I was absorbing all my nutrition advice from audiobooks on my daily work commute to San Francisco, including The Plant Paradox.

The title should have been a red flag that the fear-mongering alone would be strong. This book completely convinced me that plants were toxic and trying to kill me. Remember first hearing about "leaky gut" and particles in your bloodstream? Honestly, this was the last book my nervous system needed.

Not once did it mention that plants have incredibly powerful nutrients and with proper preparation that our ancestors have been doing since the beginning of time, such as cooking and soaking, we can reduce plants' anti-nutrients significantly if not entirely.

Not to mention, ALL food carries potential negative properties. That's because all food is foreign to our bo...

What is the real cost of waiting?

Not that long ago, for most of my 20s and 30s, you would not catch me in a pair of shorts. Not once.

And with summer coming up, and so many women telling us, “I don't have time for this, I’m just so busy right now,”

It’s got me thinking... I remember the first time I bought a two-piece bikini.

I was in my mid-30s. 

Yes, mid-30s!

Two full decades of my adult life had already passed before I felt even remotely comfortable wearing a bikini, let alone shorts.

And when I think back on that version of me, it wasn’t just about the clothes.

It was the constant mental noise.

Thinking about food all day but trying not to eat.

Over-exercising to compensate the evening binge eating.

Starting over every Monday.

Trying every single diet featured on Cosmo.

Spending over 25 years actively trying to lose weight without realizing that what I actually wanted wasn’t just weight loss...

It was so much bigger than that!

I wanted to feel strong.

Confident.

How do you respond when things don't go as planned?

There’s something I’ve been moving through behind the scenes that I knew I had to share, because the moment it clicked for me… I immediately thought, this is exactly what our clients go through. And likely, you, too!

As many of you know, we launched a new 4-week program, Awaken Foundations, back in January. 

And it was wildly, unexpectedly successful.

Not just in terms of the number of women who enrolled, 102 to be exact, but in the results they experienced.

The energy shifts, the clarity, the improved menstrual cycles, the weight loss, the peace of mind… it was everything we hoped it would be and more! 

And more importantly, this offer aligns so deeply with our mission.

To teach real nutrition science and foundational health practices, especially for women and mothers, so we can support ourselves and the next generation. 

To create something that is accessible, affordable, and still delivers an incredible level of effective...

By now, you've likely heard of "tracking macros" in the world of health and nutrition.

But what does that actually mean?

At its core, macronutrient tracking is a more advanced nutrition strategy beyond just calorie counting.

It's often used to improve body composition, decrease body fat, increase energy, and define muscle mass.

Macronutrients include three components we need in large amounts for survival:

• Protein, which supports muscle repair and recovery, along with a healthy, functioning immune system

• Carbohydrates, which provide a combination of quick and sustained energy, support muscle building, spare muscle loss, protect your thyroid, increase serotonin, help regulate digestion, and maintain regular bowel movements

• Fats, which support hormone production, help maintain body temperature, and play a key role in overall cellular health

When you track macros, you’re usually following specific targets for each of these based on your body, your goals, and your ac...

Women don’t create lasting change with willpower... it starts with belief.

We just took a big leap in our business and hired a well known ad agency to help us expand our mission of helping people feel better in their bodies… because we believe that a healthy, functioning, regulated, properly fueled body creates a better world, one person at a time.

And that starts with food.

What we eat and drink, when, how much, and why not only impact everything in our body, it becomes us.

And when you have the resources, energy, and vitality to show up in this world by balancing your meals (not just "eating whole foods"), that’s how you create true, lasting change... the kind of change that positively impacts the trajectory of health and lifespan for generations to come.

We know the power of eating in balance and proper nourishment because we’ve spent plenty of time in the opposite experience: waking up every day feeling weighed down, inflamed, stuck, purposeless, bitter, and completely deple...