Our Story

Lifestyle for Health was founded in 1991 by Cheryl Townsley as a part-time ministry to help friends and family.  Here is her story.

Nine months after my last suicide attempt, April 1990, I was introduced to a nutritionist/chiropractor who helped me understand the connection between my stress-filled life and my deteriorated health conditions.  He initiated me into a cleansing and building program.  In this program I was told to eat a large variety of fresh fruits, vegetables, and, in time, whole grains.

We were on a very tight budget.  I was no longer able to consult as I had before a difficult pregnancy.  I was “unemployable” and we had lost our business, our home and gone through bankruptcy.  We were living on a monthly income of less than $850 – Forest’s unemployment check.  To pay for the first appointment to the chiropractor, I did sewing for a friend.  Money was tight and hope was at an all-time low.

I was unfamiliar with many of the foods he recommended and had no idea how to cook with them or use them, particularly on our tight budget.  This led me to study and experiment with recipes, and to create recipes of my own – I simply could not eat food that did not look and taste delicious!

The results . . . I began to teach cooking classes at a local health food store on how to make “health food” look and taste great! This brought in additional income and gave me a discount to purchase organic foods.  Students loved my recipes and I soon had waiting lists for packed out classes.  When students began to request recipes, I recognized a business opportunity.

In July 1991, I borrowed a Mac Classic (lacking all resources to buy a computer) and wrote the first book, The Lifestyle for Health Cookbook.  We printed the book ourselves, using the print shop at our church.  We spent part of September binding up the 400 page book and getting ready to sell.  We set up tables in our garage and stacked 100 sets of each page.  We called on friends to help us correlate the book.

Forest and I took turns GBC-binding each book . . . 10-15 pages at a time.  Mid-September, 1991, the first book along with our new business, Lifestyle for Health, was born in our home in Littleton, Colorado.   I was the author, Forest the printer and friends as binders.  Truly humble beginnings!

I was hooked; now I wanted to offer others the opportunity to provide healthy food and recipes that tasted good to “normal” people;  recipes that were easy and affordable for the average family to include in their daily lives.

In 1992 I wrote Meals in 30 Minutes (revised in 1996) to provide a healthy alternative to the cookbooks on bulk, once-a-month cooking. 

More recipes were developed.  Parallel to Meals in 30 Minutes I wrote Kid’s Favorites - later revised and renamed Kid Smart to provide healthy options for children and their parents.

These were both self-published books and furthered the work of LHF Publications and our understanding of the publishing business.  We began to build our publishing team – text designer, proofer, graphic artist and printer – to produce quality books in quantity.  To date, over 300,000 of my books have been sold through LFH Publications.

Relationships have always been important to me.  In 1993 I became close friends with Anne Frahm.  As a result of our friendship, her publisher – Pinon Press requested I write my health story.  This story was the basis of Food Smart.

As a result of working with a national publisher, I was introduced to the world of media.  My first radio and television shows were complete “unremarkable” except that I realized I could reach more people through media.  Hours of study and practice led to 1,500+ interviews and eight months with our own television show in Denver, Colorado. 

In 1996, as an answer to the question “Is health New Age?” I wrote Return to Paradise.  The book was acclaimed and endorsed by many Christian leaders.  During this year I also wrote Healthy Giving, a book of recipes and gift-giving ideas on a budget.  It came as a result of my giving 300 Christmas gifts on a $300 budget, to the people who supported and blessed us that year (1989 – 1990) while we were learning how to become healthy.  

In 1997, I wrote Cleansing Made Simple (revised in 2001) to give people the basics of building a immune system and how to cleanse the toxic loads from their bodies . . .  cleansing basics they could do themselves.

My writing and teaching began to lead me in the direction of working with clients on a one-on-one basis and a new season in our business was born!  Little did I know at that time that this would ultimately turn into a million dollar a year clinic!

In 1999, I wrote, Candida Made Simple (revised in 2001) to give people an understanding of Candida and how to deal with this “silent” destroyer of our health.  A Candida recipe/cooking section was also provided.  This book came out of my growing clinical experience with clients.

Also during 1999, it became obvious I needed to further my education.  I had an undergraduate degree in Home Economics/Nutrition (Washburn College, Topeka, Kansas – Phi Beta Kappa) and BBA in Business and Computer Science (Washburn).  I had also pursued my MBA while in corporate America.  Now I needed to further my education to meet the demands of our rapidly growing clinic

I graduated from Trinity College with a Naturopathic Degree in 2000 (very aggressive course work).  Over the years I have also completed the Loomis Institute advanced training on Enzyme Therapy, the Energetic College by Energetix and a host of other certifications and classes.  With every class, I went back to clients to determine if what I was taught could and would produce results on real people.

In November 2000, we released Discovering Wholeness, a reference book on spirit, soul and body healing.

In 2001, I took the basics of customizing food and exercise based on blood type, metabolism and digestion and wrote The Food Puzzle.  This book helps people work with blood type, metabolism, glycemic index, Candida and Digestion.  The book was based on over three years of clinical experience and years of personal observation.

In 2002, I joined with Christie Ward (www.christieward.com), to begin developing wellness seminars.  Our first seminar was Health Mastery and was based on training facilitators to run eight-week classes on restoring health.

That seminar went on to become the Unquestionable Results seminar.  Now corporations, ministries, individuals could get the insights on what holds them back in their pursuit of breakthroughs – whether the area of challenge is health, finances, relationship or profession. 

From 1996 to 2004 the Lifestyle for Health Clinic grew.  I worked with clients from around the world (South Africa, Europe, New Zealand, Canada, etc) as well as around the U.S. 

With success, I moved faster to see more people, write more books, do more speaking, hold more seminars . . . and as I reached age 50, I was running out of control. Once again, I had taken my strengths and built a self-sabotage pattern that was sinking my health and expanding my weight.

In December of 2004 I went on sabbatical.  I was tired, stressed and once again overweight.  I took time off to rest and replenish.  During this time I began to realize that just knowing how to do something and being successful was not enough.  Knowing how to let life be easy and fun within strengths was the insight for this season.

During this time, I committed to having a personal breakthrough with exercise.  I had mastered food, supplements but had never liked or tolerated exercise. I had worked with trainers, done programs, only to find that I felt worse after exercise and never felt any better.

In March of 2004, I made a commitment to 5 days/week of exercise for the rest of my life.  Something in me changed.  I made a real decision that has kept me motivated ever since.  I started slow (baby steps) and have found many resources and people to help me move to the next level.  I now exercise 1-2 hours/day 5 days/week.  I have lost the weight, increased my stamina and I am doing things I have not been able to do in over 30 years.

As a result of that sabbatical, I was able to begin a consulting business, working with one of the large nutritional companies with had built a relationship with through our clinic. The owner had originally come to me to work on his health. As a result of the change in his life, he asked that I work with his family and his company.   The best part is that he understands and lives the principle of letting life be easy.  He holds me accountable to keeping it easy and fun and I mentor his team on growth and breakthrough!  What a great – healthy – partnership!

Back in 1997, Forest had joined a network marketing company. No one could have considered network marketing more distasteful than I.  The only problem was that many of their products worked and gave me results that no other products could provide.  So, do I skip the products and results because I don’t like the delivery mechanism?  I wasn’t that short-sighted, so I worked with the products and left Forest to do the business.

Later, when I was worn out, tired and ready to go on my sabbatical, it was our network marketing income that allowed me to do so!  Now I was feeling guilty that what I had judged as inferior was now feeding and housing me.  I began to see my arrogance and pride and realized that provision can come from many sources.  The mechanism or source is not distasteful - - - it is usually the people associated with the mechanism.  I repented of my pride and forgave myself for that arrogance. I began to see that “networking” is what any effective practitioner or corporate executive does all of the time.

As a result, Forest and I began to look at how we could use the strengths of networking and bring integrity to our business approach so that others could experience the lifestyle margins we now experience in our lives.

Whether a person simply uses quality products (networking, professional or retail), or a person chooses to earn some extra income through referrals (when was the last time the movie theater paid you for a referral) or build a business to learn how to have a business - - - Lifestyle for Health had created an option for people to build financial health.

In 2007, we had the privilege to become students of Arthur Samuel Joseph of Vocal Awareness www.vocalawareness.com. His mentorship is empowering us to own and speak with our authentic voices.  His mentoring is impacting how we consult and mentor our clients.

Without a doubt, this adventure has taken me many exciting places. I have had ups and downs, learned much and met some incredible people. I know the journey has only begun.

If I could sum up the current position of Lifestyle for Health, I would say “life is worth living when you feel good, look great, have energy and have margins - - - -and best of all it is, it can be EASY! When life gets hard . . . something is missing.  An authentic, satisfying life is EASY and FUN!”