Ride the Wave, Baby.

I grew up in the Bay Area, in a household where food was everything. As a Jewish family, food was our love language—we celebrated, grieved, and coped with food. It was always there, comforting and familiar. But that comfort created a complicated relationship with food. I was an uncomfortably overweight kid who hid behind humor to mask my low self-esteem. I was bullied for my size and grew up among skinny kids I couldn't relate to.

The 90’s diet culture shaped how I saw food and my body. Being "healthy" meant being small, so I chugged SlimFast shakes, lived off 100-calorie snack packs, and tried every fad diet I saw. But no matter how much I restricted, it always ended the same way—sneaking into the kitchen at night, eating everything in sight, then drowning in shame. Food became an obsession, ruling my every thought—what I could and couldn’t eat, when my next meal would be, and the anxiety of eating in front of others. It was a relentless cycle of restriction, fixation, and shame.

I was sick of feeling like shit, so I started learning about food on my own. I taught myself how to cook and began going to the gym regularly, losing about 50 pounds in high school. At that point, I was the smallest I had ever been, thinking that would fix everything. But I still hated myself.

I felt stuck. If I wasn’t starving myself, I was punishing myself in the gym, convinced that working out harder and eating less was the only way to be “healthy.” I didn’t know any better at the time, but deep down, I knew there had to be another way.

Then I found yoga. At first, I thought it would be the secret to getting skinny, like all those hot yoga moms from the burbs I grew up in. While yoga could never give me what those ladies paid good money for, I received something much more valuable.

For the first time, I turned my focus inward and slowed down enough to hear the stories I had been telling myself—the ones that kept me trapped in shame and self-destruction. The stories that told me I wasn't good enough, I was unlovable, I was incapable of achieving what I wanted for myself. Yoga gave me tools to help break the cycle. It taught me that food wasn’t the enemy, rather, my thinking was creating this unhealthy obsession. Instead of punishing myself, I learned to honor, nourish, and care for my body with compassion.

I learned to focus on building strength and using food as medicine to fuel my movement and my mind. To appreciate the discipline in showing up for myself whether it’s going for a long walk in nature, or lifting heavy shit—I learned to seek joy in this lifelong journey.

I embraced the philosophy: to be like water. To surrender to the flow of life instead of fighting against it. To trust that I am enough exactly as I am. And in that surrender, I found freedom. But by no means is this journey over. We’re just riding that wave, baby.

Now, I coach and teach from a trauma-informed lens, creating a space where others can find peace with food, their bodies, and themselves. I teach skills that enable you with the power to make choices that empower you to feel authentic and free in your body and mind. Life will always throw challenges our way, but with the right tools, we can move through them with resilience, strength, and self-compassion.

If you’re ready to let go of shame and embrace the journey, I’m here to guide you. Let’s flow together and unlock your true potential.