We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jessica Guerrero. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jessica below.

Jessica , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard

As a health coach, I’ve ended up in this “health and wellness” sphere, and there’s one major difference I have than the majority of my peers: I don’t believe food is “good” or “bad”. I strongly believe that labeling food morally can lead to disordered eating and perpetuates food rules and fear of food.

A good example of this is some of my own experience. For many years I flitted from diet to diet, trying anything that promised weight loss. I was obsessed with the number on the scale and feared food because I was told that what I ate dictated what would happen to that number on the scale. (While it definitely has an impact, leaving it at that is a MAJOR oversimplification!)

For so long, I lived with so many foods being off limits, or listed under the category of “shouldn’t eat because it’s not good for me”. What would happen with that restrictive mindset is, I’d be “good” for awhile, not eating these things…and then there would be an event, or a holiday, or a potluck at work, and I’d feel so deprived trying to white knuckle it through the day that I’d inevitably succumb to eating this forbidden treat.

After, I’d feel like I had no willpower and I’d mentally berate myself for losing control and giving in. This would lead down one of two roads…

Road 1: major restriction following- reset the rules and be stricter than ever! I’d have an army general in my mind mentally slapping things out of my hand if I even thought about eating something “unhealthy”
Road 2: I’d say screw it. I’d feel like I had already fallen off the wagon so why not keep going down this road for now and then I’d make a *tentative* plan to start over on Monday, or the first day of the month, or January 1st.

So many people I work with get stuck in this same cycle of: start diet-break diet-binge/overeat-feel guilt- and then the cycle starts again.

I don’t believe this cycle of dieting works, and in fact I don’t think diets work for most people. And I don’t believe in labeling foods as good and bad, as it ends up giving the food a lot of unnecessary power.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Hi! My name is Jessica Guerrero, I’m nurse turned health coach and have been in the industry for more than 15 years. As I started my coaching business about 4 years ago, I noticed that most of the women I started working with struggled in their relationship with food. Since that’s something I’d also struggled with, I wanted to help.

I got my certification to be a specialist in Emotional and Binge eating, and now, I get to help women ditch the diets and find lasting food freedom, so they can spend time, money, and energy on things that truly matter to them.

I think my approach with clients truly sets me apart. I’m a bit of a rebel, and I know I strongly dislike being told what to do! The women I work with typically feel the same, and while they may have tried diet programs or food prescriptions in the past, they found they weren’t sustainable for them. Usually that’s because those programs weren’t made specifically for them, and that’s what’s different about me. I work with my clients to create sustainable plans that work with their unique life and preferences.

I’m most proud of the moments where things click for clients and they realize they can trust themselves with food. The aha moments where they realize they won’t have to count calories forever and they can feel the changes to how they feel in their body- they have more energy, more peace, and more mental space once they’re not constantly thinking and worrying about food and their body.

My program isn’t for everyone. It’s for those who are truly ready to ditch the diet culture and food rules, and put the scale away for a bit so they can explore a new way to live.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I think being an entrepreneur for any period of time is the ultimate exercise in resilience. Going out on your own is not for the faint of heart!

For me, I spent the first 13 years of my adult professional life as a nurse. And while healthcare is a business, they don’t do much in nursing school or beyond to teach us how to run a business.

So I was flying blind starting out. It was 2021, and I had just graduated with my shiny new Masters in Integrative Health and Wellness. I figured I would put up my website, tell my friends and family, and things would happen.

Unsurprisingly, I was wrong…

I had to uncover why starting a business was important to me, and then ask for help. Which is something that’s hard to do as a recovering people pleaser!

I also needed to invest in support. Another hard thing to do when you’re used to going it on your own.

After a little while, I hired a coach, and started learning the small things to try consistently to be in a serious business.

Then the tough stuff really began! Being an entrepreneur is all about putting yourself out there. So I had to learn to be comfortable talking about myself and my business- I had to work through the discomfort of taking up space.

This came with a lot of self-care and figuring out a routine that would keep my nervous system regulated so that I could feel the fear and do the scary things anyway.

Have you ever had to pivot?

When I started coaching, I felt called to help women work through burnout.

Having been in healthcare and experienced burnout multiple times myself, I felt like coaching others in similar situations would be my true vocation!

However, about a year and a half in, I started to notice a pattern that most of the clients I was coaching also struggled in their relationship with food, and I wasn’t sure how to help them. I’d had my own experience weaning myself out of diet culture, but I didn’t have an official program or evidence based tools that I used to do that.

So I decided to learn and find tools and resources that could help my clients.

While I was in a program to learn more about emotional and binge eating, I found my true passion.

I was working with a business coach at the time, who warned me not to make any rash decisions and to give it another year doing burnout coaching and maybe incorporating some of the new things before fully committing to doing something else.

While I do understand why she made that recommendation, I only lasted a few months trying to continue down a path I knew wasn’t mine any longer.

I fully pivoted to a new niche that is a much better fit for me and it felt so good to trust my instincts and make a change. That change has hugely paid off for me in my business as I experienced a tremendous amount of growth as soon as I made things official.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thisisyourlifecoaching.com/
• Instagram: @thisisyourlifehealthcoaching
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61552738102286
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-guerrero-3164b1100/