Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Alex Koupal. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alex, appreciate you joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

I came up with the idea for Alimental Life after having several ah hah moments over the course of about 10 years.

I had always had an affinity for psychology and biology but was never really good at math and chemistry. So I went on to get my degree in Business Marketing. I found my way into Marketing and Sales for Health and Nutrition Exhibition company and had a really great life. Ultra running, traveling the world, married to a wonderful husband and had an amazing job! On paper, my life was pretty perfect.

However, underneath it all, I was falling apart physically. I began to fall behind my peers on runs, my physical performance started to decline, wounds wouldn’t heal, I developed asthma when running, I had all sorts of infections and doctors kept treating the symptoms but I started to see patterns the doctors couldn’t see. I started to get frustrated and decided to put a folder together of all my tests, visits, imaging I was doing with my General Practitioner, Gyno and urgent care.

I started asking questions and pushing to find root causes. My GP was amazing and worked with me every step of the way, however she was at a loss. She even ordered a full body scan to screen for almost everything, in fear I may have cancer. She finally referred me over to an Endocrinologist who happened to be her husband and he was invested in my case immediately. I’m sure I was the topic of some pillow talk between them. He ran over 30 tests for various conditions and finally gave me the diagnosis of Pseudo-Cushing’s syndrome. Which is a caused by prolonged exposure to the stress hormone Cortisol. It was then that I learned that you have to advocate for your own health.

After diagnosis my endo had a heart to heart with me, he offered me a few options, to go without treatment, to take medication that would destroy my liver and kidneys by the time I was 40 (I was 30 at diagnosis) or find a Naturopath. So I choose to find a Naturopath. Through naturopathic medicine I was able to reverse Pseudo-Cushing’s through nutrition, life style changes, editing toxic people out of my life and setting boundaries with others. I was able to watch my health improve significantly over a very short period of time. I struggled for about three years with my primary care doctor, and my naturopath was able to improve my overall physical health in about six months, simply by asking me questions about my relationships! Absolutely blew my mind!!!

I was already in a career where I was emersed in the latest research and technology around nutrition, supplements and food. I knew the impact of what you put into your body had on your physical and mental health, but I had never considered the kind of energy, people, activities you expose your body to, could have such a powerful impact. It was at this point I seriously looked into becoming a Natropath. However I was already making a six figure salary, and to leave a career to go back to school, acquire a good amount of debt to make at or maybe a little above what I was making at the time, seemed like a bad idea. So I just kept moving forward for a few more years.

I later ended up in Therapy for the first time, after my husband and I drifted apart and ultimately ended in divorce. The tools and techniques I learned in therapy further improved my wellness and I started to recognize the synergies between mental health, supplementation, life editing, energy exposure, and modern medicine. Fast forward a few more years, still working in the health and nutrition industry I started working from home and realized I was struggling with the lack of human interaction, so I took on a job as a Personal Trainer at my local gym.

I wanted to train women with hormonal issues, because I really understood how to help them given my past. It was in this part time job that I discovered the power of connection during physical activity. Not only was I a catalyst to weight loss and gaining physical strength, I became a sounding board for problems. So many of my clients would joke about our personal training sessions also being therapy, and honestly, they were. I learned that there’s something exponentially powerful about processing emotions with physical activity.

Fast forward again a few years, and I was able to reverse my own infertility through holistic medicine and have a child. Hypnotherapy and mindfulness practices saw me through a year and a half of a tragic series of untimely deaths in our family, my 17yr old step-son, my mother-in-law, my favorite aunt, my best friend from grade school, my grandmother and later my father. During this time, I learned so much about grief, life and death, and the connection between the mind, body and spirit. This period of my life, completely changed my mindset on what really matters and what’s important.

I continued in my career selling exhibit space for health and nutrition tradeshows, I had moved into a new role working on a team based out of Europe, and I was absolutely blown away by the shift in culture. Having been in sales for some time, I was use to being on the highs and lows of chasing the numbers. Use to being terrified about losing my job every quarter my numbers came in below excellent. However this European team instead, would cheer you on when you had a bad quarter. Assure me that my job wasn’t going to be pulled out from under me. They embraced a healthy work life balance and made me see how toxic our American workaholic lifestyle really is. It was with my European colleagues that I learned the term Burnout. I had never heard of it as a medical term. I just through it was something people complained about, but sucked it up and pushed through. However in Europe, burnout is a real thing. You can actually get time off and medical leave for burnout. I watched the parallels between overall health and lifestyle of my European colleagues vs. my American ones, and it created a great deal of conflict for me. Everything I grew up believing about work ethic, late nights and overtime, was all so harmful to our health. This is when I learned that most Americans are exhausted, sick and out of shape because of our burnout culture.

I thought I was invincible to Burnout until it happened to me. Covid hit, events were postponed, stress levels began to rise, layoffs happened and others left. Leaving our team in a position of survival. We were all burnout, but couldn’t take time off in fear of letting our colleagues down. I knew I was experiencing burnout but refused to believe it. However my body finally told me enough is enough. I started experiencing sudden bouts of debilitating vertigo, that would last days on end. Backpain that was excruciating and wouldn’t let me get out of bed or pick up my infant daughter.

Finally after pushing through WAY too long, I got on intermittent disability. It was so hard to do. I was such a proud person, how could I be ‘disabled’. I wasn’t a wimp, I always pushed through. However this time I couldn’t do it any longer. Again, through persistent self advocation I was able to find the root cause of my vertigo. I wasn’t going to accept that vertigo was here to stay, I demanded a referral to and ENT and pushed for a full panel of tests. He found a mass in my sphenoidal sinus, removed it and I no longer have vertigo!

While going through surgery and procedures for back pain, I got laid off. That’s when I decided, it’s time for a change. I have so much knowledge, experiences and information I want to share with the world. No one should have to suffer the things I’ve had to suffer through.

I met with my therapist and told her I was considering becoming a councilor or therapist or naturopath and what my fears were about school and debt. She started to ask probing questions and got me thinking what it was I really wanted to do. What message or gift did I want to instill on the people I would work with. How did I want to work with people. So I began telling her my vision of holistic healing, combining workouts with therapy, and nutrition with mental health, and all the tools and techniques I’ve learned over the years about life editing and boundaries. I wanted to inspire others to have amazing successful careers. Help others to become financially independent and find their life path. We started putting all these things together to look at careers, and the only option that would give me the freedom to do all of this, was Coaching.

It was a really hard sell too, I HATED the idea of being a Life Coach. I personally found life coaches annoying with their toxic positivity and inspirational quotes. Blah, but as I did my research, talked to other doctors, therapist etc. There was a common theme, they all highly supported what I wanted to do, to get people to actively engage in their own lives. To take clients for walks outdoors as we talk about their depression. To meet my clients at their home, to help them go through the boxes of their late mothers things and process grief. To meet my body insecure client at the mall and shop for clothes with her. To have a boxing session with an angry young man, the sit with him after to find the root of his anger and help him set boundaries and take control of his future. To help the recently laid off mother start up her own business from home and sit with her in her living room with her three young children, putting together a business plan and charting out how she can improve her credit score so she can buy a home. To work with the client as a whole person, and not focus on just one aspect of their lives. A truly holistic approach to bettering people.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a Life Path and Small Business Coach and recently been focused on Teenagers. I meet my clients where they feel comfortable and I use a hands-on active engagement coaching style to get connect quicker and get results faster.

I like to get my hands dirty with my clients and stack tasks. If you are dealing with depression, I would meet you at your front door. We would go for a walk and do some small talk. check in on goals you had set in our previous session and talk about what’s gone on since I last seen you. This would get you outside in to the sun, walking around to release endorphins and boost mood. In the small talk, you might suggest a goal for today would be to make dinner for your family, but you don’t have the energy to go to the store. So we jump in the car together and go grocery shopping. As we are shopping we would just talk, connect and interact. Laugh and create a positive experience to ease future anxiety about shopping. As we walk the store you might have questions about food labels or kinds of foods that might help boost energy. I could teach you what ingredients to watch for and how to read nutrition labels. I might bring up resources you could look into about b-vitamins, genetic testing related to frequent depression that you might want to ask your doctor about. We might discuss what triggered your depression, and I could point you to books, videos, worksheets that you might want to explore. I could even provide a referral for a therapist, psychologist and even hypnotherapist to help you move past the depression. We would talk about what makes you happy and how to have more of those moments. If you loved painting, then we would schedule our next session somewhere that we could paint and talk. I always try to incorporate physical movement while we are talking and end our session with a goal setting, some action items to compete before our next session. If you need additional accountability, for example 6am phone calls for a few days to ensure you’re getting up. I’ll do that too! I tailor my coaching to my clients needs and try to maximize impact in the shortest period of time.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

The best source of new clients has been referral networking groups.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I remember this pivot clearly…

When I began my coaching journey, I was heart set on helping women. Women who were overwhelmed, over extended and were suffering from societal pressures to be a boss bitch and the perfect mom, husband, best friend etc. Having had history of my own with hormone imbalance, chronic illness, and first hand experience watching middle aged women struggle with weight loss. I was determined to empower women and help them live healthier and happier lives. After the first year of coaching, I was doing ok, but I was finding it challenging to get new clients.

The pivot came abruptly and unexpectedly. I was at lunch with a friend and fellow small business owner. We were sharing ideas and began talking about marketing and new business development. I shared with him that I had just taken on an intern, who was a teen from my neighborhood and that she would be able to alleviate some of the day in day out tasks I was struggling to keep up with. As we talked further, the topic of pets came up and I mentioned that I had another young entrepreneur who cleaned my trashcans and chicken coop every other week. We continued to talk about networking groups and I casually mentioned the phenomenal young man who babysat my daughter weekly and what days I’d be available to go to these networking meetings. He then jokingly said “Wow, you have a whole teen labor force behind you!” He wasn’t wrong.

Then he said something that I didn’t expect… he said, “Would you consider working with Teens?” I paused, and a wave of emotions ran over me. I loved mentoring youth, but I had never considered it as a source of income. I had volunteered for years doing outreach with homeless kids, took kids and young adults under my wing to help them launch businesses, get amazing jobs, etc. However I wasn’t sure how to respond to his question. I hesitantly said “yea, but I’m not sure the liability behind it all, and it scares me.” To which he replied “You should look into it, when you talk about teens, there’s this glow to you. You light up and I can tell that’s where you passion is.”

That next morning, I called a liability lawyer, a pediatric therapist, my therapist, my daughter’s pediatrician and other coaches to see what I needed to do, to be able to coach minors and work effectively with their parents as well.

Since I’ve added 13+ to my client base, I’ve been able to grow my client base rapidly. I’ve had some of the most amazing opportunities, and I’ve been able to impact whole families in a positive way.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.alimentallife.com
• Instagram: @alimentallife
• Facebook: facebook.com/alimentallife
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/71662631/admin/

Image Credits
Jacque O Photography – Photos of me Alex Koupal – All other photos