Ever since 2010 Integrative Nutrition graduate, Lauren Imparato, resigned her job as a VP on the Wall Street Trading floors in 2009 to launch I.AM.YOU, a wellness lifestyle company based on Yoga, Nourishment, and Music – she has embodied the IIN mission to “create a ripple effect of health and happiness that transforms the world.”

From leading classes for tens of thousands of people in Spain, Cannes Film Festival, Ibiza Opening Weekend, and most recently, all of Times Square and the Great Lawn of Central Park to being named one of the 100 Women in Wellness & Elle’s “This is 30.”  Lauren is creating a world where healthy living is accessible, freeing, and fun. And we couldn’t be prouder of her success!

With the launch of her first book (hitting shelves today!) we took a minute to catch up with Lauren to get her take on the future of wellness and what it really means to “Retox.” 

RETOX: Yoga*Food*Attitude Healthy Solutions for Real Life
By Lauren Imparato 

Detox (verb): Abstaining from unhealthy substances.  Living confined.
Retox (verb): Adding in healthy substances.  Living free.

Detox detox detox.  How many times do you hear this word, re read it, maybe even use it… jumping on board out of some societal or self imposed guilt?  We all have at least once, because for some reason detoxing is considered the way to greatness.  The thing is, your body KNOWS how to cleanse itself. It was built precisely to do so.  Yet, over and over again, we strap ourselves up, lock ourselves in, and strip ourselves down.  Even though all we want is to be happy, healthy, and free…..

By its very nature detoxing implies a lack of freedom.  RETOX, on the other hand, is all about living.

RETOX is about adding things in that will make you strong in body, mind and life.  It is about harnessing all you and the world have to offer, and then adding a splash of simple, straight-up doable tips and solutions to make it all even better. It isn’t about depriving or regulating yourself or your lifestyle like detoxing mandates but instead about embracing it all and flourishing within it. RETOX is about freedom and actual down and dirty true happiness.

 When you retox you become the best you you can be, from the inside, out, and outside, in, all while living your real, actual life, no matter what life throws you.  We have enough stress and demands on us as it is – why add more via some strict, dogmatic detox doctrine? Why not, instead, just live?

I wrote RETOX because there was a need for a simple, straight up lens for wellness, one that could help you succeed and be happy  and radiant no matter what the day through you.  After 7 years on the trading floors of Wall Street and 6 as a Health Expert, Nutritional Coach, Mindfulness coach and Yoga studio owner/teacher, I realized that there was not yet an easy go to handbook for managing life’s most common ailments and challenges- so I decided to compile all my studies and work and put it together in RETOX.

RETOX is about accepting the chaos of the modern world around you and implementing the tools to not only manage it all, but thrive within it, becoming truly successful inside and out.  It doesn’t require you to spend hundreds of dollars on juice, wake up at 4 am to meditate, quit your job, or ignore your family and social life.  Retoxing takes that all into account, because that is life, and just gives you the skills and secrets to keep it all together and kick ass within that context.  As I say in my book, RETOX, “Retox does not change your world; it makes you better within it.”

RETOX uses yoga, nourishment, mindset and music, or if you prefer, breath, movement, food, thought, and sound.  SO simple, so easy, and so free.  30 seconds of yoga at your desk here, one minute of a Retox Shot of meditation there, a food you can pick up at any deli, restaurant or cafeteria, and well, my friends, you are retoxing.  Retox is a solution that is timeless, efficient, and functional.  A solution based on science, anatomy, psychology, philosophy, biochemistry, and the life we really lead.

RETOX is a transformation, a rethinking, reforming, reinventing, reconstructing of who you are and how you can truly be, inside and out.  It is about detoxing the past methods that have not worked or that are too demanding to every be considering permanently realistic, and then adding in new ways to be the best you you can be smack dab in the middle of the life you really lead.  It goes to the essence of what living is about – it is living itself.

We all want to be happy, healthy, strong, successful, and free. We all want a family, love life, killer career, and awesome bod. Yet this detox rage has lead us to think that we can only have these things by investing a ton of time, emotional energy, and money to get there.  Which, lets be honest, few of us have an excess of.  With retox you don’t have to do that.  All you have to do is BE YOU, live your life, and add in these simple tools.

Detox is over my friends.  It’s time now for the RETOX revolution.  Rest to rage. Mediate to work. Breathe to energize. Eat to flourish. Sweat to focus.  Sleep to party. RETOX TO LIVE.

I want to be free. I want to be happy.  I want to be strong. I want to be successful.

I want to be me.  Don’t you?

Detox yourself from the detoxing. Start RETOXing. Start living. 

To connect with Lauren and learn more go to: www.IAMYOUstudio.com & www.RETOXbook.com.

In today’s busy world, it can be challenging to make time to improve your health. At Integrative Nutrition, our students learn the key to supporting their clients is to provide simple actionable steps little by little to empower their clients to create a healthy life and balance. As Health Coaches, we pride ourselves on taking a holistic, total  body approach and love seeing the way that Lauren’s RETOX infuses a core Integrative Nutrition philosophy, Primary Food, within her unique new approach. Primary Food is everything that feeds you that doesn’t come on a plate, your career, relationships, spirituality, and physical exercise.

We’d like to hear from you!  What are your thoughts on “retoxing”?