My Life as an Eating Psychology Coach: Alexandria Marcus

What made you want to become an Eating Psychology Coach?

I can now see that my whole life prepared me to become an Eating Psychology Coach, and the moment it crystallized for me involved Oprah. Yes, you heard that, the Big “O.” I appeared on her show with my teacher Geneen Roth (author of Women, Food & God) to share my own journey about how I transformed my own relationship with food and body. In that experience of speaking with Oprah, I realized that if I can help her (it is Oprah after all!) that I could probably help many other women. I discovered a path of loving my body that involved compassion, love and kindness and I never turned back.

What do you love about being an Eating Psychology Coach?

I love helping women develop a life-affirming relationship with, food, their body and most importantly themselves. Each day, I get to work with women who are fed up (literally!) with the conventional approach to health and wellness that keeps them stuck and are looking for another way.

I especially love helping women learn how their body is sharing hidden messages through their excess weight and eating challenges and how to decode this important inner wisdom. I am interested in helping women connect with what they truly hungry for beyond food – like feeling lit up with your career, satisfied with your relationships, increased love and acceptance of yourself, and more.

What does your practice look like?

I work with women of all ages – 20s to 70s – who struggle with weight and body issues, and are ready to find a deeper, healing pathway. I offer individual sessions as well as Skype/phone sessions to clients from around the world. I also lead a popular class for women called “Beyond Weight Loss” where I offer a non-diet approach of diving into issues around weight, food and body image in a supportive community.

How did your education at the Institute prepare you to work successfully with clients?

This Training gave me an incredibly strong foundation to help me to facilitate transformations with my clients to be more fully expressed in the world. The depth of the Institute’s training continues to astound me and provides me with practical ways to work with people and coach them on physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual levels.

One of my clients recently shared that our work together released her from wasting so much of energy worrying about food and her weight and she now feels much freer and accepting of herself.

What was your favorite aspect of the Training?

I completed this Training when it was an in-person training before it went virtual. The curriculum was one of my favorite aspects because they’ve taken complex material and integrated into a thoughtful, inspiring offering. I really enjoyed the live weekends where we would take a deep dive into this juicy material.

The Institute in many ways is swimming up stream around a culture of nutrition that poses a very different conversation. The dominant nutrition paradigm is about fixing people that are “broken” and that results in 97-99% of people who lose weight gaining it back in one year. It’s very profitable for weight loss companies but not for those of us who feel frustrated that we don’t get the results we want. I have to ask, how can you fix someone who’s already innately whole? There’s so much power in holding space for a deeper conversation.

How has being an Eating Psychology Coach impacted your professional life/financial well-being?

Being an Eating Psychology Coach has really helped me offer a unique perspective and differentiate myself from other health coaches. This Training helped me create a comprehensive program and helped bring together various areas of my business for a clear focused offering.

How has being an Eating Psychology Coach impacted you personally?

This work affects my entire life every single day. I teach what I need to learn and my business is one of my greatest spiritual practices. Every single client that walks through my door is here to teach me, to gift me, and to help me grow both personal and professionally. And for that, I have grown and evolved leaps and bounds thanks to all these incredible women in my programs.

What do you see for yourself in your future as an Eating Psychology Coach – where is your work evolving towards?

My dream is to build this movement called “HEARTfood – What are you really hungry for?” I would like women around the world to name and claim their deeper hungers and bring them into the world to live more heart-centered, passionate, authentic lives. My vision is to help women use this conflicting relationship with food and their body as a doorway to their fullest expression in their life. I envision a world where we come together around our deeper life hungers instead of complaining about the size of our thighs.

I look forward to taking my in person classes online to expand the reach of my work. I often get requests from women around the world for my classes because there are only so many women that can fit in one room! I am also looking forward to hosting more workshops and destination retreats.

Why would you recommend the Training to others?

I highly recommend this training to anyone who wants to join an innovative, cutting-edge conversation around nutrition, health and wellness. It will not only help support you to heal the next level of your own relationship with food and body but provide a strong foundation to build a business and work with many different kinds of clients. I don’t know any other nutrition program out there that holds this deep of a holistic viewpoint that looks to heal the whole person: physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

Anything else you’d like to share?

The Institute is creating a whole new conversation that many people are craving for in our world. Their platform helps take these conversations to a whole, new deeper level, and I am so grateful to be part of this community and movement.

NAME: Alexandria Marcus, HLC, Certified Eating Psychology Coach
BUSINESS: HEARTfood, What are you really hungry for?
WEBSITE: www.MyHEARTFood.com

BIO: Alexandria Marcus runs a business called HEARTfood based in San Francisco. She works with women who want to make peace with food, peace with their body, and truly love who they are, inside and out, on a daily basis. She supports her clients through one-on-one coaching, groups and HEARTfood community building.