Women’s Wellness Partners, LLC is the collaborative effort of Certified L.E.A.N. Coaches Shari Willis, PhD, and Ingrid Carter, PhD, and Angela Marshall, MD. Together, these women live and work in the Washington, DC metropolitan area where they use Dr. Sears L.E.A.N. to coach women and families to better health and wellness.

Women’s Wellness Partners initially evolved from a series of conversations between Angela and Shari about their mutual interest in helping women and families adopt healthier lifestyles. Angela sees the effects of obesity every day in her medical practice as an internist specializing in women’s primary care.  Eventually, Ingrid joined the partnership and they began to look for ways to meet their goal of increasing wellness and well-being among women and helping prevent obesity in children.

“Dr. Sears L.E.A.N. was a natural fit for us,” Ingrid said. “We were already working from a philosophically similar foundation, so we were excited to incorporate L.E.A.N. into our work.”

After attending the Online Dr. Sears L.E.A.N. Training and Certification in the fall of 2010, Coaches Shari and Ingrid introduced the framework of Traffic Light Eating to their Weight and Wellness group in order to encourage participants to consider the quality of the food they eat. They also teach label reading, shopping, and meal planning skills.

Currently, Women’s Wellness Partners (WWP) holds weekly Weight and Wellness classes where they incorporate L.E.A.N. principles and have scheduled full L.E.A.N. workshops for summer 2011. To date, WWP’s success has primarily been word of mouth promotion. They’ve been offered an opportunity to do some outreach to health and sport clubs and the DC metro area YMCA, and they’re bringing a fitness trainer and Super Bowl champion to speak to their Weight and Wellness group. In the future, they plan to continue to expand by partnering with other physicians and to hospitals.

Shari and Ingrid are excited to be teaching L.E.A.N. in the DC area and can be reached at  info@womenswellnesspartners.com.