ISHBEL CAVALERI 

I feel truly fortunate to be able to say "I love my job!". Over the years I have been trained by the best in the business and have gained a knowledge-base that allows me to help people with various injuries, some more serious than others. I have experience doing yoga and Pilates with people who have low back and neck pain, shoulder injuries, sciatica, paralysis, hip and knee replacements, pre and postpartum, Parkinsons, depression and Fibromyalgia. I've helped my Nutritional Therapy clients who struggle with digestive disorders of all sorts, diabetes, weight loss, adrenal fatigue, autoimmune diseases and mental illness. Some of my clients just want to get in rocking-good-shape. I can do that too! 

YOGA 
I first started doing yoga with my mom at five-years-old. I can still remember laying on the floor of our living room in savasana imagining I was a popsicle melting on a hot sidewalk. I started teaching yoga in 2002. Since then I've studied many different forms of yoga: Iyengar, Vinyasa, Kundalini, Anusara and Yin. I've trained with YogaFit, Sarahjoy Marsh, Julie Lawrence and The White Lotus Foundation, which was the first yoga studio opened in L.A. by yoga gurus Ganga White and Tracey Rich. I dive deep into meditation and relaxation practices with my clients and have extensive training and experience designing yoga practices for specific needs, conditions and injuries. 

PILATES
I began teaching Pilates in 2003. I did my initial training with Power-House Pilates and then became fully certified with STOTT PILATES. I am trained in Mat, Reformer, Cadillac, Chair and Barrel. In 2012, I became an Instructor Trainer for STOTT PILATES, and I regularly teach certification courses for Pilates-instructors-to-be. I've done extensive trainings on the fascial system and exercises specifically designed to retrain the nervous system. In addition, I've worked with and studied under one of the most influential Pilates and Physical Therapists figures in our field - Melanie Byford Young. I credit her with so much of what I know and am grateful to continually be able to train with her on the ever-expanding study of the musculoskeletal system. 

NUTRITIONAL THERAPY
I am a certified Nutritional Therapist through The Nutritional Therapy Alliance. I've also done specialized training in digestion, hormones and food inflammation and am a certified Restorative Wellness Solutions Practitioner. I am grateful to be a part of a Mindshare program that allows me direct access to my mentors, Ann Fischer Sylva and Margaret Floyd Barry, so that I can stay up-to-date on the newest approaches to nutritional therapy and the best tests available for identifying imbalances. I specialize in helping people with digestive and hormone issues, fatigue, allergies and weight loss. I've received extensive training in gastrointestinal stool testing, food inflammation testing, and hormone testing for men and women (cycling and menopausal). The hormone testing I use can also identify bone-loss issues associated with menopause. I use these tests to curate unique healing protocols for my clients. 

MY HEALTH JOURNEY 
I've struggled with my health for a lot of my life, and I have a keen awareness for how much these issues can impact every area of a person's life. As a teenager I had chronic sinus infections. In a single year I would take upwards of 6 rounds of antibiotics to keep my sinus infections at bay. Little did I know that the source of my illness was in my gut, and the antibiotics were only making things worse. When I was 19 I severely injured my back and continue to rehab that injury to this day. Moving into my 20's my health continued to deteriorate, and I started struggling with debilitating fatigue and hormonal dysregulation. I finally received a generalized diagnosis and was told I would never have children unless I did IVF. 

Going to the doctor was frustrating for me. More often than not I left with a prescription that gave me temporarily relief, but it seemed my symptoms always came back with a vengeance. At times, my back pain and fatigue would get so bad they would interfere with my ability to go to work and spend time with the people I love, much less do the things I enjoyed. I realized that if I was going to get better, I would have to figure it out myself. 

They say all things happen for a reason. I'm so grateful for the health struggles I've experienced as they've not only lead me to a career that I love, but they've also given me the empathy to truly "see" people and to understand just how debilitating it can be to feel rotten and yet not know why. And, while I'm still on the "quest" for understanding my own health, I feel a million percent better than I did when I started this journey. I rarely have back pain; never get sinus infections; and my digestion and hormone issues are improving steadily! And, you know that doctor who told me I would never have children? I wish I could introduce her to my daughter.