Don’t try to convince people to become your customers, be an example, an inspiration, a solution to their main challenges and they will come to you and look for support!
Today, more than ever, wellness is at the forefront of societal discussions. From mental health to physical well-being, women are making significant strides in bringing about change, introducing innovative solutions, and setting new standards. Despite facing unique challenges, they break barriers, inspire communities, and are reshaping the very definition of health and wellness. In this series called women in wellness we are talking to women doctors, nurses, nutritionists, therapists, fitness trainers, researchers, health experts, coaches, and other wellness professionals to share their stories and insights. As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Christine Forment.
Christine Forment has been a diplomat for the last 20 years for the Foreign Services of the European Union to provide aid to development for the population of several tropical “paradise islands”. In the last years, Christine decided to follow her own path and pursue her life mission so she became a nutrition, beauty and wellness and business coach in order to help women over 45+ to age gracefully, younger, healthier and sexier and love themselves and their image in the mirror again.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?
In2015, I was totally depressed because my mum passed away and I was harassed at work and I discovered by chance the world of personal development in the person of Tony Robbins. He became my mentor and from one event to another my biggest learning was that pain is part of life but suffering is an option. I then understood that our biggest pain can lead to our purpose in life to help others not to feel the same pain, so my quest for my life purpose began and lasted for some time.
Until one day in 2020, my husband declared to me that I was looking so disgusting that he couldn’t look at me anymore, or even touch me! What a shock! But I am forever grateful for him because this was my wake-up call!
Indeed, I had gone through the whole period of menopause like a frog in a pot full of water on a burner, getting warmer and warmer and feeling so comfy until it was cooked. That was me: boiled and cooked! Without even realizing the changes in my body, my mood, my sleep and my libido!
In that moment I decided to drastically change my lifestyle. I followed a new nutrition program until I reached the weight of my age 25 and began to coach women with this method. I discovered beauty and wellness anti-aging products and devices that I used extensively to rejuvenate, until the changes became noticeable.
This is how I finally found my purpose in life, help women not to go through the same issues because, believe it or not, menopause is NOT a curse! You don’t have to wait until you cannot stand your image in the mirror, avoiding to look at yourself and see the blame in your partner’s eyes (or friends or family or even strangers). You can prepare yourself for the metamorphosis and improve your quality of life, reduce the health and mental challenges induced by the menopause process!
So, this is why I will fight for each and every woman to age gracefully, younger, healthier and sexier and love themselves and their image in the mirror again.
This has become my mantra: Sixty is the new sexy!
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?
The most interesting story belongs to my career as a diplomat, but the main lesson is universal and can be applied in every career or business.
At some point in my career. I was studying quite hard to pass a competition to get a very high posting in the hierarchy. I was very much prepared and on the day of the competition, I sat amongst around 50,000 candidates and started to answer the questions and write my essay. Until I saw a friend of mine (with the same background as mine) leaving the competition before the end and I started to doubt myself: if she is leaving, this is because she cannot answer the questions and what if what I’m writing is totally wrong? As the minutes went by my doubts started to increase … until I left the competition too! I learned afterwards that what I had written was totally correct and, had I continued to write until the end, I would have gotten the position!
So, my lessons from this event were to never again compare myself to others. I have everything I need within me and I have to trust myself in every circumstance. I have to believe in myself and never forget that I am worthy beyond all possibilities. In a career or business, always trust that you are on the right path. It’s only after having analyzed the results that you can assess whether you were on the right path or not and adjust the approach if needed.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about a mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
When starting my beauty and wellness business, I was so enthusiastic that I wanted to share everything that I had learned and experienced about the products and convince people that they needed this or that product. Actually, I was analyzing their needs (for example their wrinkles, losing hair, leaky gut, etc.) and taking for granted that they wanted to solve their very issues. When they didn’t want to hear anything about it, I was so sad or disappointed that they didn’t want to improve their condition. I was particularly sad about a few close friends with a very wrinkled face, that didn’t want to try or use my products and devices to rejuvenate.
What I learned from this is that not everyone wants to age younger and sexier and who am I to convince them to change their mind? I learned that aging gracefully is what matters the most. Accepting the years as they come, accepting and loving our image in the mirror is the most important, with or without the help of anti-aging products and devices. I also learned that each and everyone of us has a pain point that could at some point become so unbearable that they would do anything to avoid that pain.
This is why I am now in the beauty and wellness business, to inspire and not to convince!
Let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?
My work is to help women over 45 + to age gracefully, healthier, younger and sexier. Everything that could help women wellness has an impact in the world, because then they become better leaders for themselves, their family, the society, the economy. Feeling well, beautiful and confident help women to inspire their husband, sons, and other males and balance the masculine/feminine energy in the society at large.
On another level, coaching women worldwide to develop their own business in the beauty and wellness industry will definitely help them to increase their family welfare, create generational wealth and contribute to the education level of young girls and women.
Finally, the launch next year of an at-home DNA assessment to capture your “digital twin” from your genes through AI, will help you build your optimized self by giving you personalized suggestions for your physical and mental health and wellness. I strongly believe that this new approach will disrupt the health and wellness industry and have a massive impact in the world.
Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing? Please give an example or story for each.
I am fairly convinced that a better wellbeing is directly derived from 80% of psychology and 20% of mechanics. This is why my main lifestyle tweaks will focus on mindset first.
1 . Make a decision.
The first step towards your wellbeing is to acknowledge your awareness of your current situation and feel deeply that you cannot stand it anymore and want to leave the pain in the past.
Then make the decision that will shape your destiny and dictate all of your attitude moving forward.
What do you want to achieve in your wellbeing and WHY?
Say for example that you want to gain 20 pounds of lightness, why do you want to reach this goal? Is it for you? to feel more energetic? be healthier? look with pride at your image in the mirror? See new sparkles in your partner’s eyes?
For me, the first decision I took was to choose to be in a beautiful state every day, no matter what! You can imagine that sometimes it takes a village to keep it beautiful!
Then, it was all about seeing my image in the mirror and be proud again of my body and become the girl in the Versace pants (and to light the sparks in my husband’s eyes!). Then, health became my sustainable goal.
2 . Practice affirmations
Moving towards your wellbeing requires that you become who you already are!
Who are you? Who are you really? Draw a list of identities that you think define your multiple personalities, make them juicy and keep repeating them every morning. Stick this list on your bathroom mirror, on your laptop, wherever you will see it several times a week.
You can also create a default powerful personality by playing a pattern interrupt. This is how we do it: feel intensely a negative identity and emphasize the feeling by holding a sad look, shoulders down, sitting, no smile, then stand up, say out loud STOP, put a big smile on your face and affirm your new identity, then celebrate by tapping on your back shoulder. Do this at least 10 times a day, faster and faster until the new identity will become your default identity. For example, I am fat, wait, STOP, I’m light like a feather, Celebrate!
Here are some of my affirmations:
I am HEALTHY, I am an unstoppable AMAZON, I am a SEXY BITCH, I am GODDESS VENUS, I AM GODDESS APHRODITE
3 . Visualize
Your brain doesn’t make the difference between your imagination and the reality. Use it then to see in the future what you already are! After your daily affirmations, take a moment to practice your visualization.
What is the future YOU? How do you look like? Where are you? Who is around you? What are the colors, the smell? And more important, how do you feel? What are 3 positive emotions that you need to feel in order to be the future best version of yourself?
Is it confidence, courage, resilience (these are mine!)? Can you remember an event where you ever felt that way? Go back to that moment and feel it and take it back to that visualization of your future self. Does it empower your vision?
To reinforce this feeling, do you have a picture of yourself being your best version or of someone that looks like your vision, do you have a role model that you could embody? I personally choose Salma Hayek for her sexiness that I want to incarnate and JJ Virgin for her energy that I want to feel every day. Keep that picture in a very visible place to inspire you to achieve that goal.
4 . Sustainability
Changing your lifestyle is not a different diet, it’s a marathon not a sprint. It requires a change of your mindset, a goal, a vision that pulls you, not willpower that cannot last in the long run. It requires commitment and a little help from a friend, a parent, a community. You don’t have to do it alone to do it faster, do it together to go further and longer.
Changing your lifestyle requires to change your mindset and understand where your nutrition habits come from. We have all inherited a reptilian brain from our primitive ancestors that leads our survival instinct. We all need food, water, air and shelter to survive and believe it or not, it still commands our food habits. We eat our emotions: could it be only thirst? Do we need variety in our diet? Do we have a low blood sugar? Do we feel an emotional hunger? Do we feel having an empty stomach? Or is it a real nutritional hunger?
Being coached on all these aspects and learn how to deal with these emotions is a way towards your wellbeing.
5 . Exercise/nutrition/anti-aging support
After having explored some of the psychological tweaks, remains the physical approach. Once you have embarked on all 4 previous points, nothing can stop you to plan the exercises that appeal to you the most, elaborate a nutrition plan adapted to your needs and desires in collaboration with a coach and start learning to use anti-aging products and devices to complete the rejuvenation process and enhance your wellbeing.
All these aspects are elaborated and proposed in a specific retreat for women over 45+ during a week that will change your approach towards wellness.
If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?
Be well and rejuvenate: as I mentioned earlier, aging younger and sexier is not the Graal for everyone. What matters the most is to age gracefully and healthier. So, the movement I will start next year is to make the DNA assessment available to the most amount of people to help them optimize their mental and physical health with the analysis of their genes. I will inspire a majority of people by sharing the process, my health challenges and the results from the personalized treatment.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
I wish I had known that:
- Developing a business is not a direct path nor immediate success, you will encounter some ups and downs but you should never forget WHY you started and never lose sight of your target!
- When people say NO to you, it’s never personal, it’s not about YOU, not HERE, not NOW, not THAT. So don’t let your EGO play tricks with you!
- Thriving in business is all about teamwork, don’t ever think you can do it all on your own, be a servant leader and you will go further with your team, you always can learn from others and success is about co-elevation with every team member!
- Don’t try to convince people to become your customers, be an example, an inspiration, a solution to their main challenges and they will come to you and look for support!
- I should continue to believe in myself no matter what. I have everything within me to help others overcome their issues.
Sustainability, veganism, mental health, and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?
Sustainability is what I promote the most in beauty and wellness.
Once you have taken a decision about your health, you have to stick to the habits you committed to create. You have to keep your WHY in mind and never lose sight of your northern compass, keep track of your planning and not deviate from your target unless some adjustments are needed.
Indeed, using anti-aging and wellness products and devices for only a short amount of time will take you back to your pristine condition: wrinkles, leaky gut, fatigue or whatever it is.
The same goes for your nutrition plan. The smallest unforeseen deviation will lead to biggest ones until you go back to your original diet and unwanted pounds (and even more as a precaution developed by your brain).
What is the best way for our readers to further follow your work online?
You can follow me on Facebook on my page “Christine’s be well and rejuvenate best tips” and Linkedin “Christine Forment”
Thank you for these fantastic insights! We wish you continued success and good health.
About the Interviewer: Wanda Malhotra is a wellness entrepreneur, lifestyle journalist, and the CEO of Crunchy Mama Box, a mission-driven platform promoting conscious living. CMB empowers individuals with educational resources and vetted products to help them make informed choices. Passionate about social causes like environmental preservation and animal welfare, Wanda writes about clean beauty, wellness, nutrition, social impact and sustainability, simplifying wellness with curated resources. Join Wanda and the Crunchy Mama Box community in embracing a healthier, more sustainable lifestyle at CrunchyMamaBox.com .
