Skip to main content

About


Welcome to Healthy Life Lessons and thanks for visiting!

I created this blog to chronicle the many struggles of parenting young children and keeping sane and healthy.

I am not a doctor or dietician, but I am passionate about sharing my knowledge of health and fitness that I have acquired through my more than 20 years as a fitness instructor and personal trainer.

The information I provide is evidence based.  I use my past training and experience as a researcher to interpret all the conflicting information about health, nutrition and weight-loss and give you the straight goods.

I love working out every day and one of my greatest creative outlets and pleasures is cooking and baking healthy food for myself and my family.

I have a BA and MA in sociology, as well as a PhD in Exercise Sciences from the University of Toronto.  I also have a Masters in Counselling Psychology and a special certificate in infertility counselling.

I currently work as a psychotherapist, with a focus on infertility and pregnancy loss counselling.  I also help people with anxiety, depression, weight-loss, low self-esteem and relationship issues.  For more about my practice, please visit my professional site at www.ericaberman.ca .  I am passionate about my work and feel blessed to have a career that I love.

I live in Toronto with my husband, Adam, and our two young daughters, and in case you care, here are some things you may not know about me:

  • I am a morning person and I am asleep most nights by 10pm.
  • I love getting up at 5am to workout.  I am currently into strength training and MMA fitness DVDs.
  • I eat oatmeal for breakfast every day and never get sick of it.
  • Beans, oatmeal, greens, and apples are among my favorite foods.  I am not vegan or vegetarian, but try to eat a mostly plant-based diet.
  • The only thing I do not eat ever (or almost ever) is refined flour and sugar and fast food...and rarely do I eat red meat.
  • I do eat A LOT.  When people see tiny me eating I always get teased.  I've just always had a big appetite.
  • I hate flying.
  • I hate hot weather.  Hate it.  For me anything above 20 Celsius (68F) is too hot!
  • I love autumn and everything that goes with it.
  • I have crazy, vivid dreams every night and I usually remember them.
  • I am really funny. At least I think so.  Adam tells me I am the ONLY one who thinks so.
  • My guilty pleasures are beer and HGTV shows.
  • My greatest talent is making an exceptionally realistic pig 'oink' sound.  So far, it hasn't gotten me far in life.
  • I have no real photography skills so you won't find pretty pictures here.
If you would like to contact me, please email me at erica@healthcounsellingtoronto.com .

Comments

  1. Hi. Pleased to meet you. Many things in common between us, which is what made me type these lines to greet you. Check my work out!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Japanese 7-Spice Kelp Noodles

I love trying new spices and seasonings, so I am very excited that the President's Choice Black Label line now has a bunch of new spice blends available.  My most recent find: Shichimi Togarashi, or Japanese 7-Spice blend. It's a combination of crushed red chili flakes, sea salt, Szechiuan peppercorns, black and white sesame seeds, poppy seeds, orange zest, wasabi powder and nori seaweed flakes. I make Japanese-inspired dishes all the time, but resort to the same old flavours most of the time: miso, soy, sesame, ginger and garlic.  I was so excited to be able to liven things up a bit. This dish is easy and tasty, although be warned that this seasoning packs punch.  I used 1 tsp, which ended up being too spicy for me, and I have a high tolerance for heat!  I recommend 1/4-1/2 tsp, or, if you don't like heat at all, make your own at home and omit the red chili flakes.  You'll get all the flavour without the heat. I served these noodles with a mix of seafood (

Book Review: The A to Z of Children's Health

Hey there, welcome to Monday!  We had a delightful, relatively quiet weekend.  How was yours?  Hopefully no one in your home was sick...there is a lot of nasty stuff going around these days. If you're a parent, than you have probably spent far more time that you would like to desperately searching Google and/or parenting books trying to figure out if your child's rash, cough or fever warrants a trip to the doctor or if there is something that can be done to treat it.  It's hard not to worry that it could be something more ominous that just an every day infection and while you'd make yourself (and everyone around you) nuts if you panicked every time your kid has the sniffles, as a parent, you naturally want to do everything in your power to prevent your child from harm. Recently I was sent The A to Z of Children's Health , written by doctors Jeremy Friedman, Natasha Saunders, and Norman Saunders, of Toronto's very own Hospital for Sick Children .  One of th

How to Look Like a Celebrity

Okay, I know you're going to be interested in this post! I am sure virtually every woman in North America has wondered how Hollywood celebrities achieve such 'perfect' bodies.  Well, at CAN FIT PRO last week, one of Hollywood's top fitness trainers, Eric the Trainer , was there to tell us fitness professionals the secrets! Eric the Trainer, gave several presentations, and I caught the one on Celebrity Secrets, and it was most interesting!!!  I also found some of what he said rather disturbing. First off, he was very upfront about the fact that celebrities come to him for improve their appearance.  Not to improve their health or athletic performance.  To look their best.  He admitted that his approach then, is entirely dedicated to that end. Male and female celebrities are trained in completely different ways because Hollywood wants women to be lithe and thin and in his words, "look like they dropped out of heaven looking this way without every having ste