Martha McKinnon
Cooking
My interest in cooking and all things food dates back as far as I can remember. My favorite place to hang out is the kitchen. I have been studying cooking, taking cooking classes and cooking vacations for more than twenty years, worked as a personal chef and spent a few stints working in restaurants, cafes, and for catering companies. I’m a graduate of The Natural Gourmet Institute’s Core Program in Health Supportive Cooking Program.
My love for cookbooks is limitless so my collection continues to grow and grow and grow. As a home cook and cooking teacher I love to share easy recipes that are both simple and delicious.
I believe that food is about nourishing both your body and emotions. I think the best food comforts people inside and out; helping them feel safe, satisfied, and loved. For me cooking is more about pleasing and less about impressing. I love to help people discover “The Joys of Simple Home Cooking and Baking.” Cooking shouldn’t be painful. I Love sharing the secrets of stress-free cooking and do-ahead entertaining in my small home-based cooking classes. To learn more about my cooking classes.
Nourishing Weight Loss
I have struggled with my weight for most of my life. In the process of losing and gaining and losing and gaining again and again on diet after diet, I finally discovered the secret - Diets Don’t Work! After throwing away the diet books, studying with holistic health counselors, attending psychology of eating training, and making the decision to enjoy eating deliciously real food, I have been able to manage my weight with minimal struggle.
It’s really all about finding a lifestyle that nourishes and supports you. I love to share what I have learned with all who are interested and offer on going nourishing weight loss coaching and workshops.
Yoga
I began practicing yoga in 1997 when I turned to it for relief from severe back pain and sciatica and completed teacher training with Anusara Yoga certified teachers Jordan and Martin Kirk in 2005.
I love helping beginners of all ages, sizes, and fitness levels discover the benefits of a gentle yoga practice. You don’t have to be young, athletic or flexible to benefit from yoga; I’m living proof. To learn more about private and small group yoga in Phoenix and Scottsdale, Arizona.
I’m also the Yoga Editor for Bellaonline.
Simple Living
I have been attracted to the concept of Voluntary Simplicity since the early 1990s when I first read Your Money or Your Life. The idea completely resonated with me and highlighted how out of sync my life of striving and spending was with the real me. I continued to read about Simplicity: Walden by Henry David Thoureu, Voluntary Simplicity (Duane Elgin), How to Get Off the Fast Track and Live a Life Money Can’t Buy (Kirsch), and my favorite The Simple Living Guide (Luhrs) and look for ways to live more simply and deliberately. It’s not always easy being attracted to a life that is so contrary to the bigger, better, faster, more-is-better, way of life that pervades our society. But the rewards are completely worth it.
Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray Love, expressed the idea of Voluntary Simplicity so beautifully on Oprah a while back when she said that before her personal transformation she longed for a ‘bigger, smaller life.’ To learn more about Simple Living.
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