Women In Wellness: Blakeley Blackman on the Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
The first thing I wish someone told me is that a lot of people equate being healthy to losing weight or being slim. This is a huge misconception because weight does not necessarily determine whether someone is healthy or not.
As a part of my series about the women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Blakeley Marie Blackman.
Blakeley Marie Blackman, CEO of Blakeley Blackman Enterprises LLC, is a nutritionist, certified Zumba instructor, financial coach, single mother of two, and advocate of developing a healthy lifestyle to avoid preventable diseases and ailments. In 2015, before Blakeley’s grandmother passed, she expressed her regret in not listening to the doctors who were avidly trying to correct her diet and lifestyle choices. It is Blakeley’s goal to make sure that she educates women and her community about the importance of generational wealth and financial literacy. Her health and wellness coaching encompasses a full circle of nutrition, fitness, lifestyle, and financial wellbeing with her clients. She is partnered with a whole food nutrition company, along with credit monitoring and restoration services that include attorney consultations. Throughout COVID-19, Blakeley has continued to empower women everywhere to remain focused on the keys to longevity — nutrition and fitness, along with their financial freedom.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?
My grandmother passed in 2015 due to kidney failure. Throughout her life, she had over twenty-seven surgeries and had even had a lumpectomy in her seventies to remove cancer. My grandmother was a warrior in her own right. However, before her passing, she revealed that she regretted not listening to doctors in the past who told her to live a healthier lifestyle. After seeing my grandmother suffer, I knew that I did not want that for myself or my children. That experience ignited a passion from within, and since that time, helping others develop healthier lifestyles has been my mission.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?
One of the most interesting things that have happened to me was realizing that I was getting in my own way at the beginning of my career. As a single mom of two girls, I started to compare my life to the other health coaches that I saw on Instagram who were living these glamorous lifestyles and traveling all over the world. I became intimidated because I felt that my life wasn’t as glamorous and that people would rather be coached by these other women who seemed to live carefreely. I eventually had to realize that I was the only one limiting myself and that there was a place for me in the health coaching space. I learned that the only person I should be comparing my journey to is myself.
Can you share a story about the biggest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
The biggest mistake when I first started was not realizing that everyone has their own health journey and their own process to get to where they want to be. This may seem obvious, but it wasn’t obvious to me at the time. I had a friend that I was encouraging to get healthier. They expressed their dislike of being overweight and I wanted to help. I began to pour a lot of myself into my friend and their health journey, but it seemed like they weren’t as dedicated to their journey as I was. Health and Wellness is my passion, and I couldn’t understand why this friend expressed a want to lose weight but was not listening to the lifestyle changes that I was suggesting them to make. I pushed them too hard and it eventually caused a wedge between us. The lesson I later learned from this experience was that there are a lot of factors that can contribute to why some people have a difficult time losing weight and developing healthier lifestyles. Sometimes it is rooted in mental health issues like depression. Other times it is rooted in physical health issues. This experience showed me to have more compassion and to be more attentive to a person’s needs altogether.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I am grateful for my mentor and business coach, Chris Holder. He is the busiest man that I know, but he makes himself more available than anyone else I know, too. I have known Chris for years because he mentored my mom for about 10 years before he became my mentor. One of the things that he taught me years before I became an entrepreneur was about the importance of constantly evaluating the quality of your friendships and the people around you, and whether they are adding to or taking from your life. I didn’t completely understand until I became an entrepreneur, but I have appreciated that information because it has helped me to prioritize myself and my clients and the change that I want to make in the world.
Ok perfect. Now let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?
The work that I am doing is super important, especially because we are currently in a global pandemic. I am always stressing the importance of fortifying your immune system and eating more whole foods because our food is our medicine. The pandemic made this a more important issue. While doctors and experts were pushing the importance of wearing gloves and masks and social distancing, I felt that it was equally important to talk about what we are putting in our bodies, and making sure that we are eating more fruits and veggies to increase our source of nutrition. The stronger our bodies are the more we have a fighting chance against any virus whether it be the common cold or COVID-19. Moreover, I use my grandmother’s death and the experiences of people around me to encourage others to develop healthier lifestyles. Earlier this year I learned that Tufts University had done a study that determined that the U.S. alone could save $100 billion in medical costs if doctors prescribed more fruits and veggies. This would ultimately prevent about 650,000 deaths, 120,000 cases of diabetes, and 1.93 million strokes and heart attacks every year. This information only further proved how important what we eat is, and how we can prevent so many ailments if health and wellness became a priority in our lives.
Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing? Please give an example or story for each.
I love giving people lifestyle tweaks because wellness is all about taking baby steps until it becomes part of your everyday routine. The first lifestyle tweak I would say is to incorporate some type of movement into your everyday routine. Whether it is a workout you found on Youtube, or just taking a nice walk around your neighborhood, it is important to keep your body active. When you exercise, your body releases endorphins, which ultimately makes you feel good. It may be hard to start at first, but once you get your body moving, you will start to feel better overall. The second lifestyle tweak I have is to not go cold turkey and quit unhealthy habits immediately. Some people can go cold turkey, but others struggle and tend to return to their unhealthy habits if their goals seem unattainable. It takes 21 days to develop a habit so start developing healthier habits slowly. You can start with something as simple as drinking more water or reducing your consumption of fried foods. Once you can master this for 21 days, you add on something else. Third, it is okay to have a cheat day, as long as they are sporadic and you don’t overindulge. You know yourself and you know what your body can and can not handle. I always suggest making your cheat day about every two to three weeks but don’t make it too close together where it will be easy to fall back into your bad habits. Also, don’t spend that cheat day overeating and eating the most unhealthy foods that you can find because that will counter all of the lifestyle changes that you have made, and your body will not feel good after. The fourth tweak I think is super important is to surround yourself with people who are going to support your wellness journey. Whether it is family and friends or an accountability group you found on Facebook, this journey can be tough. I needed support when I began to develop a healthier lifestyle, and you will feel so much better with people around you who want to see you improve your wellbeing. The last and most important lifestyle tweak is to not depend on diets and to truly make wellness a lifestyle. So many people look at health and wellness retrospectively, instead of doing things proactively. You should not wait until you are sick, or struggling with your weight or other ailments to eat better and change your habits. If you made an effort to eat better and live better now, then you could prevent a lot of sicknesses in the future.
If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?
A movement that I would start is education around the critical connection between nutrition and mental health. This is one thing that I teach my clients because people don’t realize how what we consume can affect our brains. There is a reason why certain foods make us tired, while other foods make us energized. I feel like this is very important and isn’t talked about enough. In my own journey combatting depression, I came to learn that I was lacking essential vitamins and minerals which were a contributing factor in my energy levels and mood. More emphasis needs to be made on incorporating more holistic treatments into Western Medicine, especially preventative ones.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
The first thing I wish someone told me is that a lot of people equate being healthy to losing weight or being slim. This is a huge misconception because weight does not necessarily determine whether someone is healthy or not. The second thing I wish someone had told me is that there are a lot of people that just don’t care enough about their health to make the lifestyle changes that they need to make. I have coached many people, and some people tell me outright that they refuse to make certain lifestyle changes. This response especially hurts when someone is seeking my help due to a health issue like high blood pressure or diabetes. It is heartbreaking to know that someone would rather struggle with their health than take certain things out of their diet to improve their overall quality of life. The third thing I wish someone told me was that it is okay to have your off days. At the start of my health and wellness journey, I used to feel bad if I craved some ice cream or cake once in a while. I used to feel even worse if I gave in to those cravings. I had to learn that I was not a failure and my journey was not inauthentic just because I ate something that wasn’t healthy. I even have my days now where I will enjoy something sweet, which does not mean that I do not care about myself. This is something that I make sure to share with others at the beginning of their wellness journey. The fourth thing I wish someone told me was to not get discouraged when I lose clients. This can be general advice with any business, but I would get so excited with people starting their wellness journeys, that I would take it personally when they decided that they no longer wanted me to be part of that journey. I had to learn to wish them well and to not let it get me down. The last thing that I wish someone had told me is that this wellness journey does not have to be miserable and restrictive, it should be fun. The wellness journey is all about finding the activities that you like and can have fun with, finding healthy substitutes to the foods you crave, and still giving in once and a while.
Sustainability, veganism, mental health and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?
Mental health is definitely a cause that is dearest to me because I have struggled with my mental health. In January of 2019, I suffered a mental breakdown. Before that breakdown, I had also been struggling with having panic attacks and severe insomnia. I had been struggling with depression for a long time, but as a single mom of two who worked and went to school full time, I figured that I didn’t have time to go to therapy and get help. My mental breakdown was my wake-up call and I immediately put myself in therapy, and I was put on antidepressants. I was able to address a lot of my issues in therapy, but there was something else that I realized while I was going through this experience: my diet was horrible. I saw my primary care doctor a lot during this time and learned that my iron, blood pressure, and Vitamin D levels were low, and I had never had these problems before. While seeking therapy was still part of my healing journey, I realized that I had not been taking care of my physical health during that time. I always knew that unhealthy habits could be a contributing factor to depression and anxiety, but now the evidence was right in front of me. The day that I nearly passed out in my doctor’s office in April 2019, I knew that I had to return to my healthy lifestyle. I reestablished my health habits and my iron, blood pressure, and Vitamin D returned to normal. I also was eventually taken off of my antidepressants. I tell this story often because many people do not understand how much unhealthy eating habits can be a contributing factor to depression and anxiety.
What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?
Instagram: instagram.com/blakeleymarieblackman
Facebook: facebook.com/blakeleymarieblackman
https://www.blakeleymarieblackman.com/
Thank you for these fantastic insights!
Women In Wellness: Blakeley Blackman on the Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.