August Superstar- Donna Parolie

Meet Donna

How did Donna go from focusing on quick weight loss to concentrating on her wellness as a whole? It was achievable by building a solid mindset and vision. Donna has been a member of Sphericality for about ten years. At that time, she needed something different than traditional exercise and was interested in yoga. Through the years, she would come to class but stop if life got in the way but always managed to find her way back to the studio and classes.

In August of 2020, she decided she needed more. Everyone was coming out of Covid lockdown, and she was doing the same thing as everyone else: wearing sweatpants, no makeup, hair in a ponytail, drinking Pina Coladas, and eating way too much!! In addition to coming out of lockdown, she knew she didn’t want to accept what her friends were feeling and saying. “Why don’t we accept who we are and be fat and happy. Life is too short to worry about this.”

She was frustrated with failed attempts at weight loss but decided to email Dorian asking for help, the next day, they met at the studio, and her real journey began.

The Journey 

The journey has been a long one, and it wasn’t an easy start. The first meeting was long, and with the explanation of the program, Donna felt very overwhelmed. Her inner voice kept saying, “I’ll never do this!! I’ll do it for two weeks, and then I’ll quit like I always do!!” Being overwhelmed, she stopped listening to us and focused on the voice in her head. After we broke it down into smaller increments, she could envision it being a reality.

Donna started with our six-week challenge, then the MyZone belt, and after that, food tracking with My Fitness Pal. After two weeks, she began to see a change and decided to commit herself and joined the 4 Seasons program right after the six weeks were over.

Like Minded Women

After a year of being in the program, it’s still hard for Donna to choose her favorite part of the program.

She said, “All the parts of the program are equally important and fit together beautifully. I don’t think I can pick one favorite, but if I had to, I think the coaching and the community of fabulous, like-minded women are my favorites. The coaches, teachers, and women of Sphericality are tremendously supportive and so much fun!! This is where I learned about a positive mindset.”

Since joining the program, we’ve seen an enormous mindset change in her.

Old Mindset

If you asked Donna about her mindset a year ago, she would say she’s a worry wort that worries about things she can’t control. She would say she’s never been a “Zen person” and didn’t buy into the idea of positive things. She always failed when it came to her wellness; how would this time be any different?

Her change has been slow; she never had a light bulb go off in her head with a positive mindset. It took her to learn that this journey has a start date, but it should not end. Realizing her wellness practice will be for the rest of her life was a significant change for her.

She says, “I now take one day at a time and realize that nothing is perfect and there will be setbacks. However, now I start up again, with a positive outlook.” The work we do in the 4 Seasons program has helped Donna with this. It’s helpful for her when she can understand why she does the things she does. She can dig deep and think about things she wouldn’t usually take the time to acknowledge.

If an issue pops up, we work on strategies to handle it. Understanding that life happens, she can take the exercises and apply them to issue or situations that might pop up.

Specifically, she enjoyed creating a mission statement for herself in her wellness, which she uses as a guide and a reminder for her wellness journey. The strength in her mindset has helped give her determination despite some setbacks. She says, “I can now wake up and say, OK, today is another day, instead of throwing my hands up and giving up!!”

The Golf Outing

This year Donna was the lead in planning and executing a golf outing fundraiser for The Somerset Regional Animal Shelter and as she say’s “it sucks the life out of you.” This year they also decided to do a tennis outing, which means almost double the planning!

“There are a lot of balls in the air and details that have to come together. This year, the added stress was coming off of Covid. It was a leap of faith to decide in January to have the outings in July. We didn’t know what the world would look like in July and what the restrictions would be. I was very close to canceling again as we had to do in 2020.”

She expressed her feelings of discouragement, and after speaking with us, she decided to contact the committee. They all agreed they should do something good after such a challenging, negative year. After her total commitment to continuing the outings, she experienced more people and businesses reaching out, wanting to be a part of the day.

“The outings were a huge success, filled with happy golfers, tennis players, and people that attended the luncheon and wellness workshop. We raised about $50,000 for the homeless animals of Somerset Regional Animal Shelter.”

Donna believes that the success of outings wouldn’t have been as great if it wasn’t for her staying positive, keeping positive people around, and not giving in to negativity. In addition to staying positive, she decided she would NOT give up her routine while working on the outings.

Donna decided she would get to the studio for exercise, make it to the group coaching meetings, track her food, and complete her precision nutrition lessons, and that’s precisely what she did. She managed this by delegating to the volunteers, something she wouldn’t have done in the past.

Things got busier as the fundraiser got closer, so she chose to focus on her minimum, which was getting to the studio, and she let the food tracking and PN lessons go for the moment. After the event was over, she got right back on track, something she would have never done in the past.

Not An Option

Throughout the year, Donna has experienced things that could have thrown her off regarding her wellness. With each moment, she stayed positive and determined with the help of her coaches, community, and a strong vision of her health.

“Sphericality is an amazing place. I didn’t realize how amazing until I fully committed to my wellness. Instead of doing things “my way,” I started to listen to Dorian, Robyn, and the teachers fully. That’s when the change started to happen. And I will never go into my future “being fat and happy.” That’s not an option.” -- Donna

Take the leap like Donna, and schedule your coaching call here!