Gray Matter Health
Your health goals are personal.
Take them on with personalized guidance.
Hi, I'm Michelle Shu.
As a former software engineering lead, I saw firsthand the toll that burnout takes on tech leaders. This inspired me to pivot to a career in health and wellness.
Now, I serve high performing professionals as a health coach. I am a certified nutritionist and personal trainer with over 10 years of experience with running, weightlifting, and CrossFit. In my practice, I integrate health science, psychology, and my own experiences to give my clients the tools they need to succeed.
I believe that elite leaders deserve the same resources as elite athletes, enabling them to solve complex problems, perform under stress, and sustain their energy day after day.
How can I help?
Lose weight
Lose weight
Get lean without starving yourself
Extreme diets only cause you to crash and burn. Instead, work with a coach who can guide you through a steady approach to shedding fat while keeping energy high.
Break the cycle of yo-yo dieting
There is nothing more discouraging than working hard to lose weight, only to gain it all back once the diet is over. Our plans are designed to be sustainable above all else, so that you can keep the weight off, once and for all.
Let someone else worry about your progress
With a coach in your corner, there’s no need to obsess over what to eat and when. Your coach will work with you to set up simple guidelines to follow. They monitor and manage your weight loss, so that you can be free to focus more important things.
Take control of emotional eating
Identify and understand what triggers you to overeat. Learn how to comfort yourself without feeling the need to turn to food.
Include both nourishing and enjoyable foods
Find a balance between nutritious and delicious that makes you feel your best. With experience, you’ll discover how to eat in a way that aligns with your health goals, while enjoying the foods you love in moderation.
Love my body
Love my body
Shift from shame to acceptance
It’s time to stop letting self-criticism prevent you from living the life you want. While messaging from media and culture may cause you dissatisfaction with how you look, you can fight back with self-compassion and grace. It’s a long and complicated journey to self-acceptance, but with coaching, you don’t have to go it alone.
Embrace body neutrality
When it comes to body image, on some days you’ll feel great, and on others you’ll feel bad. And that’s ok! There is no need to pressure yourself to feel positive 24/7. With practice, you can move away from valuing yourself based on how you look, and move toward valuing all the other positive aspects of who you are.
Repair your relationship with food
Fall out of the patterns that don't serve you, and move towards nourishing and respecting your body. With the help of a coach, you can get back in touch with what your body needs and find a balanced approach to food.
Be proud of what your body does for you
You’re only given one body to live in. Regardless of your physical ability level, this body gets you through your life. Learning to respect your body is an important step in loving yourself and unlocking your full potential.
Gain muscle
Gain muscle
Understand the building blocks of muscle
Each person needs a different amount of protein, carbohydrates, fat, and micronutrients to maximize their potential for muscle growth. A custom plan ensures that your body is getting exactly what it needs to grow.
Build muscle while limiting fat gain
Avoid the pitfall of an extreme bulk, which will lead you to gain much more fat than muscle. Your coach will lay out a process for a steady build that puts less stress on your body and keeps you relatively lean.
Manage fullness while eating more
By gaining a deep understanding of your lifestyle and routine, we work together to develop strategies for what to eat and when. This ensures that you don’t feel constantly stuffed to the brim while putting on weight.
Get the most out of your workouts
Learn what and when to eat before and after training to best support muscle gain and recovery. Give yourself enough energy to perform without feeling weighed down by food.
Improve sleep and recovery
Improve sleep and recovery
Wind down your way
Whether it involves stretching, reading, journaling, or something else, we will work together to construct an evening routine that helps you shake off your stressors from the day.
Improve the quality of your sleep
Sleep is the essential ingredient for recharging your body and mind. When you are short on sleep, you are operating with impaired thinking, mood, and movement throughout the day. With the guidance of a coach, you can make tweaks to your bedroom environment and nightly routine that pay huge dividends for your sleep quality.
Maintain steady energy and positive mood
Improving your nutrition, sleep, and mindset can prevent dramatic energy spikes and mood swings. Gain a clear mind to excel at work and emotional stability to nurture your most important relationships.
Make physical activity challenging but recoverable
When you have ambitious fitness goals, it is easy to veer into the territory of being over-trained and under-recovered. While pushing to your limit may yield fitness gains in the short term, it inevitably leads to a crash in the end. By evaluating your training, nutrition, and recovery comprehensively, we can find the sweet spot of keeping you competitive while preserving your longevity in sport.
Perform at my best
Perform at my best
Prevent injury with good nutrition
Insufficient nutritional support can result in major injuries that keep you sidelined for months on end. An individual plan evolves with your training load, ensuring that you have enough fuel for workouts and competitions.
Support your strength training
Learn how to fuel your body day to day to maximize strength and power output. Long term, a coach can guide you through phases of building, cutting, and maintenance to achieve the body that you feel strongest in.
Support your endurance training
Give your body what it needs before, during, and after your workouts to go the distance. Find a balance of carbohydrates and electrolytes that works best for you in long training sessions, so that you don’t bonk before you’re ready to quit.
Maximize the benefits of training with proper recovery
At the end of the day, you only reap benefits from the sessions that you can recover from. With a mix of proper nutrition, sleep, and other relaxation protocols, you can get the most out of the effort you put into your training.
Achieve peak condition for competition
Get a specific nutrition plan for the weeks, days, and hours leading up your competition, so that you can confidently show up at your best.
Manage stress
Manage stress
Address all the dimensions of stress
Chances are, there are many types of stressors in your life and they all add up. There’s physical fatigue, mental load, emotions such as anger and sadness, relationship conflicts… and the list goes on. Each source of stress compounds the last, and together, they can be difficult to cope with. With a health evaluation, we can take stock of everything going on, and prioritize which areas to focus on from there.
Learn healthy ways to cope
Coaching provides targeted recommendations on tackling the specific sources of stress you are experiencing. Whether you’re dealing with a high pressure workplace, emotional overwhelm, or a challenging training block, we’ll work together to find ways to make things easier for you.
Recover from burnout
When stress becomes too much for too long, it ends in a helpless sense of overwhelm we call “burnout”. The road to recovery is extensive and it can take months to fully recuperate. If you’re feeling burned out, a health coach can provide social support while helping you find effective ways to get the rest you need.
Develop resilience
Resilience is your ability to bounce back from setbacks that occur in your life. Just like a muscle, it can be trained through intentional practice. It’s important to embrace challenges in life and actively work to overcome them. Through this process, you will emerge stronger and more capable to take on more in the future.
Ready to get started?
Your body and mind are your greatest assets.
Nurture and develop them, so that you are ready to take on anything life throws at you.
By improving how you eat and recover, you can thrive — physically, mentally, and emotionally. No matter where you are in your journey, I am here to help you achieve your goals while respecting your values.
Testimonials
Don’t just take my word for it, check out what my clients are saying.