Our Team

Karen Lill – President, Owner and Coach

LillyPad Health was born from a life changing personal experience.
In 2011, I weighed 230 lbs. I needed a sleep apnea machine, had restless leg syndrome, needed orthotics in my shoes, and found that I was always tired. It felt like I was living in a fog.

After 18 years of struggling with gradual and consistent weight gain, despite all my efforts with diet and exercise, I finally reached my breaking point. Literally. On Jan 14th of 2011, I broke my leg in two places, snapping my ankle while stepping down to my driveway. My ankle was repaired with a plate and 3 screws, while resetting my tibia and fibula meant that I was in a soft cast for 3 months. I wasn’t allowed to put any weight on my foot. When the cast finally came off I had lost a lot of muscle and strength. It was obvious that I could not do regular exercise at the gym and all the diets that had failed me in the past certainly wouldn’t help me now.

When I visited my sister in Halifax all that changed. She told me about the Ideal Protein diet and introduced me to her coach. When the coach explained how and why the body stores fat and how the Ideal Protein protocol worked, I thought I should give

it a try. Within four days the fog had lifted and I suddenly had my energy back. The program was easy to follow, the food was delicious, and I didn’t need to stress my recovering injuries. Within 4 months I was off my sleep apnea machine and my restless leg medications. After 6 months I had lost 65 lbs (10 inches from my waist!) without setting foot in the gym. I felt and looked better than I had in 20 years.

Once I felt good and had energy I realized how sick I had been. I needed to share my success with others. After starting with my family, and then my friends, it quickly grew until I opened LillyPad in a small office in November 2011. By April 2012 we had moved to 22 King St South and in August 2013 we expanded into a larger space with a kitchen and rooms for workshops.

I’ve never been happier and healthier. My dream to bring the same opportunity for change and improvement to others has become a reality at LillyPad.

The Best Gift We Ever Gave Each Other Is Health

Steve Lill – Manager, Owner

Well, like most guys, I enjoyed a few beverages now and then and over the years had slowly but steadily put on some extra weight (40 lbs)… I tried to just cut down on beer and junk foods but nothing really changed.

Karen was trying out a new diet plan discovered by her sister and she was getting some outstanding results but I knew I had to do my own research to see if this was another fad diet or if there was some real science behind it. It turned out that the science made sense so I tried it out and the fat started to melt off… I no longer had that dreaded 2pm cloud of exhaustion come over me and we were awake most days at 6am ready to go.

I lost 40 lbs off my neck and belly and found that my abs were still there. I had been diagnosed with sleep apnea a few years ago but I found I no longer needed the CPAP machine after just 8 weeks on the diet. I have now phased off and still enjoy helping to taste test all the new recipes that Karen is creating… I still get an occasional night out with the guys with no fear of feeling crappy or gaining the weight back. I am now very aware of what I choose to eat so that I can still enjoy those fun days.

Breanna – Certified Ideal Protein Coach since 2014

I had never heard of Ideal Protein until Karen came over one day and was raving about it in my kitchen. I was pretty skeptical, but at 154 pounds I still had quite a bit of baby weight that I hadn’t been able to shed. Karen’s enthusiasm convinced me to give it a try. I expected that, if I was lucky, I might lose 10 pounds.

I began the Ideal Protein program and managed to lose almost 30 pounds in 12 weeks by strictly following the protocol, even though baking two birthday cakes for my young daughters! The Ideal Protein method really helped me stay on track and succeed. I finished the program in the spring of 2012 and am still maintaining my goal weight.

Since then I have learned even more about the Ideal Protein method, attending workshops and becoming a Coach by completing three levels of advanced training. The more I’ve learned, the more it makes sense. Karen’s personal approach is also amazing. There’s never a hard sell or pressure to move product, she really is all about promoting health and wellness for her clients and finding the best options for them. She certainly helped me and now I find it a lot easier to keep up with my daughters than I did.

Lisa – Registered Nurse, Certified Ideal Protein Coach since 2016

“Every pound has a story.”- My name is Lisa and this is my story

Hi, I am a 48 year old woman, spouse, mother, daughter, sister, friend, full-time employee, volunteer, R.N. – and I am an emotional eater. Just as I have many different life roles food has played many different roles in my life- celebration, comfort, relaxation, stress reliever, and boredom distractor. Up until my 30s I didn’t give my weight a second thought because it appeared that I could eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, in whatever quantity I wanted and still have a healthy weight. My lifestyle was active with school and athletics and my body seemed to be able to manage the food I was eating and keep my weight in a healthy range. And then came the world of work and children! With pregnancies and raising children there was no boredom but as a mother there were new reasons to celebrate, seek comfort and relaxation, and a heck of a lot more stressors as a working mother. These common life stages can bring significant changes to a woman’s physical and mental health and how we manage these changes can wreak havoc with our weight. With my first pregnancy there was so much to celebrate and as I over indulged I didn’t give it a second thought as I had never before been challenged by my weight. Oh, but this time was different! I was breastfeeding and kept waiting for the baby weight to just peacefully, melt away into the night without any effort just like the books said- oh was I led astray. With the change in pace and focus in my new lifestyle as a working mom the weight never fully came off and there appeared to be an exponential effect year over year. As I watched the scale continue to rise in my post-childbearing decade this was a time when I wanted the math to be wrong, but it was right and I couldn’t hide from the numbers.

I no longer felt comfortable in my physical body and it didn’t seem to fit with me. How did I ever get to this place? My education had given me the knowledge about nutrition and activity that should have kept me on the right path. But these tools weren’t working for me because for the first time I was needing something different- an approach that would lose weight. For many years I tried different weight loss approaches on my own but with limited success. My hectic children and work focused lifestyle was fertile ground for emotional eating. The Ideal Protein weight loss protocol offered at LillyPad gave me a new tool to lose weight. The LillyPad services to support lifestyle change helped me to successfully follow the protocol and are helping me to keep the weight off.

I now feel better about my health but know that my weight management story is not complete. My journey to manage my weight is but a part of my wonderful life that continues on with the many roles I play, and the highs and lows some to be expected and others coming from left field. My present life chapter could be titled, “Making it through middle age and perimenopause with grace.”

“Every pound has a story” is my mantra. This thought helps keep me centered and aware that there are many reasons other than hunger and nutrition that lead me to eat, and it motivates me to do better for myself.

If you are seeking to take your life story in a healthier direction then I would invite you to explore what LillyPad has to offer.