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

Hi Katrina, thanks for joining us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

In 2015, I left my pediatric medical practice of 10+ years to become an entrepreneur! I had zero business background or knowledge but I had solved a personal problem and knew that others like me needed the same help. I had struggled with gaining and losing weight, again and again, for a few decades. I had tried all the different diets, without lasting success. Becoming an expert in the human body as a doctor actually made my overeating worse!

It wasn’t until I found life coaching that I was able to stop overeating, lose weight permanently, and experience peace and freedom around food. I had a hunch that there were other women physicians like me who were also struggling to find the help they needed. I’ve been growing my business, Weight Loss for Busy Physicians, ever since! We now have a team of about 20 people who help us serve our amazing women physician clients.

Katrina, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m an MD pediatrician who just could not figure her overeating and weight loss issues out. I knew I was a smart and capable person but this was the one area in my life that seemed practically unsolvable. After I’d had my last child, lost the baby weight, and swore to myself that I wouldn’t gain the weight back……I promptly gained all the weight back. I was so frustrated but I wasn’t ready to give up. I realized I needed to scour the internet, looking for other weight loss options that I hadn’t tried yet. I was convinced that my unpredictable life as a doctor was partly to blame for me not being able to consistently keep the weight off!

Through a long, circuitous path, I ended up finding life coaching. By this point, I recognized that I was an emotional eater but I didn’t know what to do about it. Life coaching helped me so much that I became a master certified life and weight loss coach through The Life Coach School. I created a program that applied my coaching skills to the unique struggles that doctors face and started letting other women physicians in clinical practice know that I could help them. It took off like wildfire!

I help my clients to solve for the root of their overeating problem and weight struggle. That means understanding that permanent weight loss is about 80% mindset and only 20% what you eat or don’t eat. We reconnect to the innate signals and messages that our bodies provide us every day and we learn how to take care of our emotional needs in ways that don’t rely on food or possibly alcohol. When you know how to meet your emotional needs, then eating becomes mostly for nutrition with some occasional extra pleasure from time to time. We create the experience of peace and freedom around food which means being able to be around all of your favorite or “trigger” foods and not really care too much either way, whether you eat them or not. When you experience this, you know that you’ve got your own back and you no longer need food or possibly alcohol to be your emotional support anymore.

I’m most proud of the results of the study we have performed that shows that our program works really well. In 2022, my book called How to Lose Weight for the Last Time was published which shares the study data and also brings my program to non-physicians for the first time!

Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?

Resilience. As an entrepreneur, you have to get used to failing and failing often. I try new things all the time that don’t work out! But as you keep trying things, you end up finding what DOES work and that’s how you keep your company going strong. The world changes, industries change, the economy changes, and buyer behavior changes. Our job is to listen to what our followers and clients need and to provide support for them. And we have to keep going, even when things aren’t working out the way we had hoped.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

My podcast has been instrumental in growing my business. The podcast, called Weight Loss for Busy Physicians, helps understandably skeptical doctors to learn more about me and what I offer. I work hard to be myself on the podcast so that potential clients grow to know and trust me. Almost every one of my clients spends at least some time checking out my podcast before joining my program, so I focus on offering free help that they can apply to their lives today which helps them to know that I truly CAN help them lose weight permanently and find freedom around food.

Contact Info:

• Website: katrinaubellmd.com
• Instagram: coachkatrinaubellmd
• Facebook: katrinaubellmd
• Other: Pinterest: katrinaubellmd
  TikTok: coachkatrinaubellmd

Image Credits
Liz Williams
Danielle Cohen