“With all the technology we have today, people actually get disconnected,” Suzanne explains. “It’s a blessing and a curse. I’m using technology to reverse that.”
I’ve known Suzanne for about twenty-five years. She’s a high-energy mother of three who teaches full time. When she was doing her doctorate, she taught me the differences between auditory, visual, tactual and kinesthetic learning. I was surprised to stumble across her facebook page and contacted her to find out what it was about.
Suzanne tells me that after having her son in her early forties, her body didn’t bounce back. With her busy schedule, and the expenses of a family, she couldn’t get to a gym regularly or hire someone to work with her on her schedule. She had resigned herself to her new shape, “I thought this was it for me,” she says. But then she was scrolling through facebook and saw a photo of a friend who looked fabulous. The friend was a coach for Beach Body, a company that distributes a variety of exercise and eating plans and has online communities where people can work out and lose weight with guidance and support.
Suzanne signed on and, using her friend’s coaching and the T25 Workout Plan, she lost 30 lbs in ten weeks. She then moved on to PiYO, a yoga/ pilates program to work on sculpting. This firmed her body and took another 12 lbs off for her. Suzanne was excited by her success and decided to share her experience. She became a Beach Body coach. She found that it was important to look at a total healthy lifestyle, not just the weight loss, for it to be sustainable. She learned to use social media to bring people together in communities and market to spread the word. Now she creates and mentors groups of people working on exercise and eating programs. In closed facebook groups, the members have access to her as well as to each other. She provides “life hacks,” teaching and encouraging people to do things in a healthier way, bearing in mind that they are likely cooking and caring for a family – not just for themselves. Her ideas include low cost methods and meal concepts that appeal to kids as much as adults.
Helping people reach their goals means a lot to Suzanne. Once she was approached by someone struggling to lose her pregnancy weight. Suzanne guided in her eating and food tracking. The client called one day to say that it was her baby’s first birthday, and she was back to her pre-pregnancy weight. “I just got goosebumps!” Suzanne says, “That she would call on her son’s birthday like that meant so much.”
Is life coaching a big deviation from teaching? Not really. “Even as a teacher, I used to run The Biggest Loser competitions for my colleagues. And I still use my basic teaching concepts. Auditory, visual, tactual and kinesthetic!” As with teaching, Suzanne’s job is to encourage and inspire. “I share my journey with them, and then they do the work!”
To find out more and see some of Suzanne’s tips check out Suzanne Solomon-Hollander on facebook or contact her at Suzanne@inspirealliance.com.