Day 184: Ashley Koff
“…you see the visual manifestations of what a lot of us suppress in our bodies in animals, because they just won’t suppress it. So whether it’s needing to eat and … getting a certain portion size or, as I said, wagging your tail or taking a walk.”
.
.
.
Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Ashley, for agreeing to be part of the Project today, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?
Ashley Koff: Sure. I’m Ashley Koff, and I’m a registered dietician. I’m based in Los Angeles.
Toni: Well thank you, and thank you for being here. When you think about that word inspiration, Ashley, who do you inspire, and how does that happen?
Ashley: Wow – it’s hard when somebody asks you who do you inspire. It’s easier when you think about, you know, who inspires you, but I can tell you who I hope to inspire. I think one of the biggest challenges in my field – as I mentioned, I’m a registered dietician – is all the time I see people who are really at their wit’s end, and they’re either that way because they are unbalanced, they’re getting poor nutrition, and you know, they might even be seeking solutions that are not working for them. Or a lot of times, I have people who feel like they’re working very aggressively at their nutrition, and they’re frustrated because they’re not seeing the results; and I hope to inspire them.
In my work, I look to provide simple, strategic solutions that work in someone’s life. So instead of giving over-arching or what I’ll call “mass-themed” answers, I try to personalize my prescription so that, you know, instead of just telling someone “Here’s what you should have to eat,” I explain to them “Here’s the exact product or here’s the exact recipe, and for you at three o’clock in the afternoon, this is how you do it.” Really focusing in on what I call implementation strategies. And in doing that, I really hope to inspire absolutely anyone that I come in contact with to feel that nutrition and optimal health is not only just achievable for them but doable without having to sort of completely turn their lifestyle upside-down.
Toni: Fantastic. So really, your inspiration, as far as others are concerned, is all around education, and customized education about their own nutrition.
Ashley: Yeah, you know what, I think it is. I tell people all the time, I say “Be pro-choice; it’s healthier for you.” The idea is not really when we’re talking about a woman’s right to choose there. What I’m talking about is, when you have education about what works in your body and you have the right information, you’re able to make choices, and when we make choices we don’t feel deprived. We recognize that if we can have anything, but we make it specific, we choose to do something, then we feel extremely empowered by our being able to make that choice, and really own the results. And that, I think, goes towards the long-term success in terms of not just getting to where you want to get weight-wise, but getting where you want to be and should be health-wise. So I think that makes a big difference, that choice piece.
Toni: And how do you think that helps to explore someone’s potential?
Ashley: Well, you know, if we aren’t … if we feel low energy or if we feel uncomfortable, whether it’s in our physical skin or in our emotional skin or mental space, then we really can’t realize our own potential, and I see it all the time. You know, I can feel it when somebody comes into my office or when I’m out and somebody’s asking me a question. That challenged energy literally has a feeling to it, and it’s like a block to your actual … your authentic self or your, you know, who you can be.
So many times I have people who will say to me, you know, “I’m confused about what I want to do on the planet or in my life or in my relationship,” and we’ll talk a lot about that. And in a way, a lot of what I do ends up being … I’m very clear to say that I’m not trained as a therapist, but it does get people talking so it has therapeutic benefits, I guess. And in doing that, it really opens people up.
So much of … for example, one clear example … I see so many people for digestive issues, and if you have chronic gas, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, or all of the above, there is no way that you’re going to feel good day in and day out about, you know, stepping out into a public space.
Or your energy, you know, you’re not going to be sleeping as well in the evening or not getting the benefit from nutrients, and so with that decreased energy, it prevents inspiration. It keeps you from really … whether it’s the creative juices flowing or the analytic ones, it really prevents that space that’s letting you be who you’re meant to be – your best self, I guess.
Toni: So it’s really not just the potential of someone being their best self physically, but it also has a direct impact on exploring the potential of being the best that you can be and what you’re meant to do because you have clarity and you feel good, and you’ve got that energy. So it really is a … it’s almost like a double whammy, isn’t it?
Ashley: Yeah and, you know, take any discipline around the world, whether you believe in chakras and, you know, you look at the blocking of chakras there, or whether you believe in energy healing, or whether you look at traditional medicine and you say to yourself “Are my arteries or blood vessels, are they clear,” or, you know, “What’s my digestive tract look like” … in any of these spaces, if there are blocks, then they’re energy blocks and they’re producing energy and balances.
And without the energy being in balance, we end up suffering on some level. You know, it prevents us from optimizing our health as well as our – as I said before – as well as our mental and sort of our clarity on that part.
Toni: So Ashley, what do you need to be inspired?
Ashley: Well, my dog.
Toni: Your dog?
Ashley: Yeah, my dog. He’s sitting here with me, Rerun. I have a little chocolate Labradoodle. I always tell people he’s like my Clifford. And you know, it’s funny, you realize things. And whether it’s with kids or whether … my garden is another thing that inspires me, and there are a lot of people that inspire me. But when I talk about my dog and my garden, you know, there’s nothing like seeing a being waking up every day that just is wagging its tail, you know, and ready to go, and knows that it needs exercise on a regular basis and is going to fight you until it gets it, or is extremely frustrated.
You know, you see the visual manifestations of what a lot of us suppress in our bodies in animals, because they just won’t suppress it. So whether it’s needing to eat and knowing, you know, getting a certain portion size or, as I said, wagging your tail or taking a walk.
And when I walk out into my garden, it’s amazing to me. I literally love, when I’m home, to walk outside and see what’s grown. And something could have grown a centimeter longer or, you know, if there’s a hole in a leaf, I want to see what bug has gotten in there and is chomping away on it, and sort of understanding how nature all works together. My garden has taught me to like worms. I always loved ladybugs, you know, these kinds of things. But it keeps it really simple, and it also is something that makes every day feel fresh.
I think the people that inspire me are really actually the same way. You know, there are people who despite being, in many instances, extremely intelligent and complex as individuals, are people that I encounter and are extremely … I don’t want to use … I use “basic” in a term that is actually very complimentary. You know, they’re able to communicate their needs, their wants, their desires in a very specific way, and I think that that’s inspiring.
I love to see people that are passionate about what they do. So whether it’s, you know, professional athletes or the high school coach, you know, or the teacher or … I have a great relationship with my gardener, because I learned so much from, you know … he does our whole neighborhood in terms of taking care of things, and we speak – me in broken Spanish, but him in very good Spanish — and he really inspires me to learn about how to just do things simply and then to wait, to have patience. And that’s something that I don’t have a lot of, so I’m learning that as well, yeah.
Toni: Well, actually you speak very, very clearly and with great passion and enthusiasm about your own sense of purpose, and I’m wondering, did you always know … did you always know that this is what you would end up doing?
Ashley: I don’t think so. I would say yes and no. I think I’ve always had a vision that I’m meant to communicate to people. I have been doing advertising, whether it was posting things, street signs for my lemonade or for my kids, when I was 11 doing a camp for kids in the neighborhood. I’ve been trying to get people together to do things for a long time, and so I think I’ve always thought that I would have an influence, not so much because I wanted to influence to force people things, but I wanted to get people together. I think it’s because I realize that I learn better from having people around who teach me, and so I want to be a part of making sure that that happens, and bringing people together in that way.
And the other thing, and it’s been, you know, you can ask my parents or my teachers, I really struggle when I don’t understand something. So as a kid, I was the one who would go back and back and back and ask why, to the point of probably driving people nuts. But you know, you want to get to those answers, and I think that where I am today is definitely on that same course.
But did I think that I would be a dietician and doing what I’m doing today? No. A lot of times I wake up in the morning and think “This is surprising that this is what I’m doing today,” you know? And certainly, you know, whether it’s doing TV or being interviewed for magazine articles and that sort of thing, you know, I’m extremely grateful and often surprised, you know, when somebody comes up and says, you know, “I want to ask you about what you wrote or what you said in there,” you know, and that sort of thing.
Toni: And I would imagine, based on how you’ve described what you’ve done throughout your life — which is question and trying to understand and so forth — to have that go into the nutritionist field and dietician field. It sounds as though we all benefit from having someone like you be part of that field.
So let me ask you the final question of the Project. What do you do to continuously explore your own potential so you can continue to do this type of work?
Ashley: Sure. I am just like anyone else, a work in progress, and I function in my private practice as well as in my media work on a core principle, and that is I would never ask somebody to do something that I wasn’t willing to do. So part of it is I am always trying things and exploring. And whether it’s getting sent, like I did last week, about 1,000 new products to evaluate, in evaluating them, I’m handling them, I’m giving them to people and asking them what their opinions are.
And then the other part of it is, you know — from a spiritual standpoint or often energy standpoint — I’m doing the work to make sure that I am just staying on my course. And that course changes all the time, so I guess it’s trying to figure out what are the things … you know, staying as malleable as possible and trying to be flexible. And I’ll come back to the two things that I work on every single day … are for me, listening and patience, and you know, those are things that I just have to explore different paths to see, you know, how I learn those best, because those are the things that are, you know … when you find the things that challenge you the most, those are the ones that require a great deal of attention.
Toni: Absolutely. You’ve given so much information away in this interview, and just to learn from you on how you inspire others and how that really translates and taps into someone’s potential, not only just physically but mentally as well, and then what you need to be inspired is just … it does come full circle, doesn’t it, as far as how the two go hand-in-hand. And I would imagine that what you do to explore your own potential is such a great impact on how you inspire others. I can see a direct correlation to that.
Ashley: Thank you. Yeah, you know, I couldn’t be who I am and doing what I’m doing if there weren’t others who were right there with me, and so, you know, we’re all interconnected.
Toni: Yes, we are.
Ashley: It’s so basic in that way, but you know, I think what was so appealing to me about the inspiration piece in your Project is that I’m so curious, you know, what inspires other people, because that helps me understand not only how I can work better with my patients, but also how I can be a better person.
Toni: Oh, well thank you for that, and that has been one of the greatest impacts of the Get Inspired! Project, and we so appreciate you being part of it, Ashley. Thank you so very much.
Ashley: Thank you.
Toni: Good luck with the work that you’re doing.
Ashley: Thanks so much. You too.
___________________________________________________________
For more information about Ashley Koff: www.ashleykoffapproved.com
.
Post Comment