We were lucky to catch up with Farrah Fernandez recently and have shared our conversation below.

Farrah, appreciate you joining us today. If you had a defining moment that you feel really changed the trajectory of your career, we’d love to hear the story and details.

The defining moment in my professional career as a certified Functional Nutrition Counselor was when I stumbled upon an entirely new approach called Intuitive Eating. Prior to that, I had focused my career solely on nutrition counseling, clean eating, and root cause resolution of health issues that my clients suffered with. I was introduced to Intuitive Eating in a group program for health coaches so that we could implement the program with our own clients, but…first, we needed to experience the program just as our clients would. As I participated in the 14-day program called “Making Peace with Your Plate,” I had no idea that this would change the course of my career and my life. The power of the Intuitive Eating approach reached me at a soul-deep level as it began bringing me back in tune with my own body, instead of abiding by external food rules and external measurements of health. My relationship with food began to heal, as I relearned to trust my own body in making my food choices and eating decisions. This self-trust bled out into every area of my life and my confidence blossomed. I felt deeply that this is what my clients really needed–to heal their relationship with food and to regain the self-trust that dieting had taken from them. Because of the transformational power that my personal Intuitive Eating journey brought to my life and my health, I wanted to create and offer programs to my clients.

Farrah, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My journey to becoming a functional nutrition counselor and health coach can be traced back to my teenage years when I became obsessed with my weight and size of my body. I had severe body image issues which were intensified by the images of models in glamor magazines and media of the day. I learned that by severely restricting my food intake and calorie count, I could lose weight. However, I never could improve my opinion of my body, no matter how much weight I lost. I struggled with an undiagnosed eating disorder for the next couple of years. Although I managed to overcome the eating disorder, I still had many of the same thoughts about my body and continued to have the desire to lose weight and be thin. About a decade later, I caught onto the idea of focusing on nutrition and the effects of “clean eating” on health. This is when I got certified as a functional nutrition counselor and focused for years on “cleaning up my diet” and helping others to do the same. But after my introduction to Intuitive Eating, the course of my life and career changed completely. As my eyes were opened to the influence of Diet Culture in my life and in the lives of so many around me, I came to realize that my body image issues, eating disorder, and relationship to food with restriction, deprivation, and hyper focus on my food choices were a direct result. I could also see how negatively it was impacting my physical and emotional health, even while I ironically had been promoting health and wellness through these means. When I found the Intuitive Eating approach, I left behind dieting and food rules forever, and found healing and true health through trusting my body’s own cues. Because of the transformational power that my personal Intuitive Eating journey brought to my life and my health, I wanted to create and offer programs for my clients. I committed my life and career as a health coach to liberating my clients from Diet Culture and to helping them to regain self-trust, heal their relationship with food, and achieving body neutrality. I offer a group 14-day program called “Making Peace with Your Plate” and the VIP Undieting Your Life one-on-one coaching program for a deeper dive with me. I also offer free workshops around the community and online, appear on podcasts, and teach classes to families in their homes. This is my true passion–bringing healing, empowerment, and transformation to as many women as possible.

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

The #1 most important thing in building my coaching business is mindset. Managing my brain=managing my business. Every day I practice what I preach by doing daily self-coaching on my mindset to choose the intentional thoughts that create confidence in myself, my coaching, and my business. Confidence is key in my successful coaching business.

Have you ever had to pivot?

About 3 years ago, I went through a divorce after 17 years of marriage and 4 children. I had been a stay-at-home mom throughout most of our marriage. When we got divorced, I was starting at scratch with no recent work experience, an expired license and certification in the field of recreational therapy, living at the poverty level, and driving a broken-down old car. I also needed to find a way to refinance my house and buy my ex-husband out, which seemed an impossible task without a good-paying job. I realized that I would need to reinvent myself and my life by doing things I had never done before if I was going to create the future that I wanted for myself and my children. I gathered my courage and faced each challenge as it came, trusting in God and leaving the outcome in His hands. After submitting many applications and getting my hopes dashed in interviews that ended in rejection, my perseverance finally paid off and I got a job in a field that I had no experience in but which paid me twice as much as the job I had at the time. This enabled me to refinance my house and to buy a new car. I have excelled at my new career which gave me the security to also return to my true passion, health coaching. Life did not go anything as I had planned, but through resilience, courage, faith, optimism, and sustained effort, I came back from rock bottom and rose to heights that I had never previously imagined. I love where I now am in my life and I’m so grateful for the rough road that I navigated to bring me here which taught me invaluable lessons.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://farrahfernandez.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/farrah_the_functional_foodie/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100092576176492
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/farrah-fernandez-csm-62868b232/
• Other: [email protected]
  https://thefunctionalfoodie.myflodesk.com/healthyhabits

Image Credits

Kristie Williamson