We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nichole Aramapakul a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Nichole thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

One of the biggest risks I took was in 2010, when I decided to completely change my relationship with food by embracing intuitive eating. Up to that point, emotional eating had been my coping mechanism. Turning to food during tough times felt comforting but left me feeling trapped in a cycle of restriction, self-judgment, and guilt. When I first heard about intuitive eating, I was deeply skeptical. Could there really be another way to live and eat that didn’t involve numbing, restricting, or policing myself with food?

It felt risky to even consider letting go of the familiar habits I relied on for a sense of control, but I knew that if I wanted to truly heal, I needed to approach food—and myself—differently. I wanted desperately to break free from the diet culture mindset, from weight obsession and negative self-talk. However, it didn’t happen overnight. Unraveling years of conditioning and rebuilding my relationship with food was a slow, challenging process. Each step involved shedding harmful patterns of emotional eating and allowing myself to listen to my body’s true needs.

Of course, the journey wasn’t without setbacks. I came to realize that simply relying on insight and intuition wasn’t always enough; I needed actionable strategies to manage real-time urges and moments of temptation. When I couldn’t find the exact tools I needed, I decided to create them myself. Over time, these tools became central to my own recovery and later formed the foundation of my coaching approach.

In the end, taking this risk allowed me to experience a healthier, more compassionate relationship with myself, and it led to a new purpose—helping others discover their own paths to intuitive eating and freedom from emotional eating.

Nichole, 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?

About Me and My Journey to Intuitive Eating Coaching
My story begins at 10 years old, when I went on my first diet. Growing up, weight and dieting were always part of the conversation; food became my closest companion and emotional escape. Raised by a single mom, I was a latchkey kid of the eighties, often alone after school. Food was my comfort, an emotional lifeline, and, eventually, my struggle. As I grew older, the comfort of snacks transformed into the harsh control of calorie-counting, meal-skipping, and an overwhelming sense of not-enoughness. This cycle of overeating, restricting, and self-judgment kept me trapped in an exhausting loop for over two decades.

Then, in 2010, I stumbled upon intuitive eating. To be honest, I was skeptical. Could there really be a way to live and eat that didn’t involve restriction or judgment? I was deeply doubtful but equally desperate for a change. Healing didn’t happen overnight; I had to peel back layers of conditioning, one by one. Slowly, I learned to see food not as a comfort or an enemy but as a nourishing part of life. I had setbacks along the way and soon realized that I needed practical tools to manage urges and build lasting change. When I couldn’t find the exact strategies I needed, I created them myself, and they became the foundation of my coaching.

What I Do and Who I Help
Today, I work as an intuitive eating coach, helping others escape cycles of emotional eating, bingeing, and restrictive dieting. My one-on-one coaching services, Nourish Academy, provide a structured, supportive framework that enables clients to heal their relationship with food and reclaim their natural body wisdom. Together, we work on establishing new coping mechanisms and building sustainable eating practices that align with each person’s values and overall well-being. My clients discover what it feels like to have pleasure and peace around food, without the guilt or anxiety they may have felt in the past.

What Sets Me Apart
What makes my coaching approach unique is my deep relatability and compassion. I am every woman or person who has felt trapped in a cycle of emotional eating, who has struggled to find peace with food, and who knows what it’s like to carry shame around body image. For so many of us, these struggles have been used to undermine our self-worth or criticize our appearance. I know how damaging that can be because I’ve lived it.

In my practice, I create a safe, judgment-free space where clients can feel seen and understood, where they can finally take off their armor and start to heal alongside someone who truly gets it. Unlike quick-fix programs that focus solely on weight loss, my Nourish Academy approach centers on root-cause healing and empowers clients to reconnect with their inner wisdom instead of following the diet culture’s restrictive rules.

Healing doesn’t happen overnight, and I won’t promise instant results. What I do offer is real, lasting change by teaching others to use the exact roadmap and strategies that I still practice myself. I’m proud to say I’m living proof that it’s possible to overcome these struggles and find peace with food and with ourselves. My clients value my realistic, grounded approach that goes beyond food and body—it’s about transforming how we see ourselves, fostering authenticity, and reclaiming self-compassion.

What I’m Most Proud Of
The work I do isn’t just a job; it’s a calling. I’m most proud of guiding people who feel trapped in pain and frustration around food to find freedom. Many of my clients start out feeling hopeless and disconnected from themselves, just as I once did. But through our work together, they learn that everything they need for healing is already within them. The more they lean into their own intuition and body wisdom, the more they experience profound transformation. Helping someone feel better about themselves in this struggle is a win for me, and a beautiful step on the journey to freedom.

To anyone who’s ready to change, know this: healing from emotional eating, bingeing, or the myth of perfection is possible. I’m here to walk with you on this path, as we all help one another find our way back to ourselves. As Ram Dass says, “We’re all just walking each other home.”

Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?

Other than training and knowledge, I believe success in my field is rooted in understanding the power of aligning your personality with your purpose. When we bring our authentic selves to our work, we create the highest expression of what we have to offer. Often, this alignment draws from our own struggles and setbacks because those are the very experiences that shape us and allow us to relate to others in meaningful ways.

In this work, I lean on a core belief that there are people who will uniquely benefit from learning from me—not just because of what I know, but because of the way I communicate, connect, and understand. My personality, combined with genuine empathy and my unique perspective, is what sets me apart from others in my field. Just as I have been guided by mentors whose stories and approaches resonated deeply with me, I strive to be that source of understanding and support for others. Keeping this in mind fuels my commitment to my work and reminds me that my role goes beyond providing knowledge—I’m here to create a space for transformation, support, and connection.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson I had to unlearn was that I couldn’t trust myself—that the answers I needed were somewhere “out there,” in rules, diets, or others’ guidance, rather than within me. Growing up, I learned to rely on external sources to dictate how I should eat, look, and even feel. I felt that my own instincts—whether it was hunger, intuition, or even personal desires—weren’t valid or trustworthy. It was as if I needed constant monitoring and judgment from outside myself to be “good enough.”

This mindset wasn’t just about food or body image, but it deeply impacted those areas. My journey with intuitive eating forced me to confront this belief head-on. At first, trusting my own hunger cues or letting go of food restrictions felt radical and even dangerous because I had been so conditioned to believe that self-control came from outside policing. But slowly, I realized that my body and intuition had valuable wisdom. Learning to listen to my own instincts wasn’t just empowering—it was a complete unlearning of the idea that I needed constant external validation to be okay.

Now, I see that the true answers come from within, and while knowledge and support are essential, my intuition and body wisdom are trustworthy guides. Embracing this has transformed my life and my approach to helping others find peace with food and themselves.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.nicholearamapakul.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/feed_your_truth