🌿 Thrive with Isabelle™

A Little About Me

I was born in France and came to the United States when I was seven. But my French beginnings came with me.

My mother carried many of the food traditions she knew into our life here. For the most part, we ate simply — meals made with real ingredients, fresh bread, plenty of fruits and vegetables, and food that was meant to be enjoyed. I didn’t grow up thinking much about nutrition or weight.

That early experience stayed with me, even as my life changed.

I married my husband and raised two sons. Today, I’m a wife of more than four decades, a mom to two grown sons, and a very happy Grammy. Family has always been at the center of my life.

Professionally, I’ve spent much of my life doing work that required me to research, ask questions, sort through complicated information, and make it understandable. My background includes legal work, journalism, advocacy, coaching, and nearly two decades working closely with children and families.

I’m also a certified coach, and I’ve studied nutrition, health, and behavior change both formally and independently for many years.

I suppose I’ve always been someone who wants to understand why something works — not simply be told that it does.

That part of me would eventually become very important.

A 40-Year Journey I Never Expected

I didn’t grow up struggling with my weight. As a child and for most of my teenage years, it simply wasn’t an issue.

That changed during my last year of high school, during a difficult and stressful time in my life. My eating habits changed, too, and for the first time in my life, I gained about 15 to 20 pounds.

When life settled down, I lost it.

I thought that was the end of the story.

It wasn’t.

Over the years that followed, the weight gradually returned, and what began as my first experience with weight gain became a nearly 40-year cycle of losing, regaining, and trying again.

I tried more approaches than I can count. Some worked for a while. But I never found a way to lose the weight that also taught me how to live normally and maintain what I had lost.

After more than four decades, I was tired of riding that roller coaster.

I wanted off.

Read My Full Gains & Losses Story →

When I Stopped Looking for the Answer

April 2025

Nearly two years after being just 17 pounds from my goal, the 20 pounds I had lost had returned.

For years, I believed the right plan was out there somewhere.

I kept looking because I knew I could lose weight. I had done it before. What I couldn’t seem to find was a way to lose it that I could actually sustain when life became busy, stressful, or simply normal.

Less than two years earlier, I had been just 17 pounds from my goal and feeling better than I had in decades. But by the spring of 2025, the 20 pounds I had worked so hard to lose had gradually returned.

This time, instead of asking, “What plan should I try next?” I began asking a different question:

“What would I need to make this work for the rest of my life?”

That question changed everything.

I stopped looking for someone else’s answer and began building my own.

What started as a solution for myself eventually became Thrive with Isabelle™.

Why I Created the Plan →

What Happened Next Surprised Me

I began following the plan I was creating for myself.

I ate balanced meals made with foods I enjoyed and began paying attention to what my food was giving me — not simply how little I could eat.

And then things began changing.

Within about a week, I realized the chronic pain I had lived with in my arm and shoulder for years had disappeared. My energy improved. I felt stronger. As the weeks passed, other people began noticing the difference, too.

And the weight came off.

I lost 20 pounds in about three and a half months — without feeling as though my life had to revolve around losing weight.

But perhaps the biggest surprise was how different I felt while doing it.

For the first time, I wasn’t simply trying to reach a number on the scale.

I was learning how I wanted to live.

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Could I Maintain What I Had Lost?

That was the question I still needed answered.

Losing weight had never been the whole problem for me. I had lost weight before. What I had never figured out was how to keep it off without continuing to diet, track, restrict, or make managing my weight a constant focus of my life.

So when I finished losing those 20 pounds, I moved into Stabilizing and then Maintenance, continuing the same basic way of eating I had learned while losing weight.

And I maintained that 20-pound loss for more than a year, staying within about three pounds.

That mattered to me every bit as much as losing it.

For the first time in more than four decades, I wasn’t starting over.

A Note From My Husband

Side-by-side, through it all

My husband has been beside me through all of this — the ups, the downs, the trying again, and finally, the changes he began seeing in me.

For years, though, there was something I misunderstood.

Whenever I was dieting, he would often try to convince me to stop. At the time, I took it personally. I thought he didn't understand how important losing weight was to me, or that he simply wanted me to go back to eating the way he did.

But something remarkable happened when I began Thrive.

He stopped trying to talk me out of it. Completely.

For the first time, I began to understand what I hadn't seen all those years. He hadn't wanted me to stay overweight. He had wanted me to stop being miserable.

And this time, I wasn't.

I was eating food I enjoyed. I wasn't constantly hungry or preoccupied with dieting. I had more energy. I felt better.

And something else had changed, too.

For years, when I was following one diet or another, I would sometimes try to make the same meals for my husband that I was eating. He usually didn't enjoy them, and that created its own kind of friction. I was trying to stay on plan, while he simply wanted food he liked.

With Thrive, that disappeared.

He genuinely enjoys the meals and recipes I created. For the first time in all those years, we could sit down together and enjoy the same meals.

And instead of watching me struggle through another diet, he was watching me become more myself again.

Looking back, I understand him differently now.

This is how he described the changes he saw:

“She has more energy now, and it lasts throughout the day. She seems lighter, clearer, and more present. I’ve watched the weight loss change the way she moves, carries herself, and even how steady she feels.

But it’s more than that. She just seems healthier, more vibrant, and more engaged in life.

The food she makes is balanced, nourishing, and genuinely delicious. Nothing about the way we eat feels like a diet.

For me, the best part has been watching her step more fully into herself. I’m grateful to be alongside her.”

His words mean a great deal to me.

Because this journey was never only about what I weighed.

It was about feeling healthier and stronger. Having more energy. Feeling comfortable in my own life again. And being able to be fully present for the people I love.

Having him beside me through all of it has meant more than I can say.

Where I Am Today

Today, I feel stronger, healthier, and more energetic than I have in decades.

I’ve also learned something I wish I had understood much earlier:

Losing weight was never supposed to be the end of the story.

I needed to learn how to eat well when I was losing weight, when I was maintaining it, when life was easy, and when it wasn’t. I needed something flexible enough to grow with me rather than something I would eventually have to stop doing.

And that’s why I decided to share Thrive.

I know what it feels like to wonder whether this time will be any different. I know what it feels like to lose weight and then watch it return. And I know how much hope can come from finally discovering a way forward that feels possible to live with.

My story is still being written.

But after more than four decades of starting over, I finally feel as though I’m moving forward.