Researchers at the University of Zurich in Switzerland found that unlike males, female Masai giraffes form enduring bonds with other females and this affords them a survival advantage over more solitary giraffes.

Additionally, mother giraffes with calves tend to spend time near human settlements with livestock. These mothers likely found that having human neighbors nearby warded off predators like lions who hunt their calves.

What about you?

What has doing everything alone and pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps gotten you?

I love the definition of “sustainable” because it means being able to take care of one’s own or maintain one’s viability. But it also means capable of being supported or upheld.

Are you sustainable?

Even our giraffe friends know that their survival is threatened by being alone.

So I encourage my clients to stay in the community and use the tools that they learn in coaching to improve their relationships.

After I lost 30 pounds working with a coach, I wanted to better understand my own weight loss journey and I used those same tools to transform my life.

After seeing much death performing autopsies as a medical examiner, I realized that I wanted to reach people before they wound up on my autopsy table.

That is what made me decide to become a coach.

We truly are stronger together.

Female Masai giraffes form enduring bonds with other female members of their species. Through these social bonds, they receive help finding food, rearing the young, and protecting their offspring.

How much time do you spending obsessing about food, worrying about what you are going to eat, or wondering if an item of clothing will make you look fat, etc?

When you are sustainable, when you have your needs met, when your life is aligned with your values, the above concerns matter less and less. Sustainable weight loss allows you to better care for others because you have already taken care of yourself.