The process you go through is the exact same. Same material, same tools and same rhythm of learning, experimenting and then reflecting with me.

The differences are in price and number of sessions. However, the value, i.e. food freedom, is the same. I always tell clients interested in both to think about how you will learn best and of course, what fits best with your budget.

In Truce with Food: Bespoke, you get all the materials plus 12 private sessions and email support in between sessions.

In Truce with Food: The Group experience, you get all materials, 14 group sessions and 24/7 online support from me and others in our private group membership site. The group is usually around 10-15 people so you get plenty of individualized attention and support. There is also a Truce with Food group + 3 private session option you can choose when you register for the Truce with Food group or you can choose the 3 private sessions during the program.

I’ve found people in the group progress quite fast as you’ll learn from others as much as you learn from me and from practicing belonging to a group, especially for many of us who have been “othered” in our life. Finding “your people” is a healing experience in and of itself.

Part of why I started the Insatiable Membership community was because Truce with Food group participants wanted to stay connected after the official program was over as these relationships were integral to their growth, commitment and accelerated learning.

Oh, I love this question! It gives me a chance to geek out on radical healing and change. Let me answer under the premise that there is a range of training and expertise for health and life coaches. So my answer is based on each discipline’s general philosophy.

Diets, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and most other health coaches, focus on the food. Rather than tell you to chew 20 times or don’t bring trigger foods into the house, Truce with Food focuses on you. How do you become the person who doesn’t have to white-knuckle food? Because white-knuckling rarely works.

Traditional health and life coaching isn’t actually root-cause resolution to change. It’s more of an accountability model that helps you with the issue you want to change.

Traditional coaching is great for people trying to start new habits, who are new to the power of nutrition, and who need ideas on how to be more self-compassionate.

But if you’re trying to stop a habit like fighting food and your body, traditional coaching can alleviate the symptoms like Tylenol for a migraine, but you’re not addressing the migraine or food battle causes.

For example, an emotional eating health coach might tell you to feel your feelings and help you recognize that you eat when you are lonely. They’ll support you to generate ideas of what you can do when you feel lonely like call a friend. But you aren’t falling off track with your eating because you didn’t call your friend.

In Truce with Food, we get to the root of why you feel lonely in the first place. What is your story, patterns and behaviors that are making you feel alone and what are new choices so you feel connected to yourself and the world around you? The self-awareness and skills you develop will make you self-sufficient and in choice (which feels like control) for the rest of your life, not just with your current loneliness challenge.

And to stop falling off track with your eating, it’s not enough to feel your feelings. In Truce with Food, we take a developmental coaching approach where we identify the story generating a profound amount of your uncomfortable feelings, like loneliness or uncertainty, and help you step out of it and make new choices. These new choices not only prevent a profound amount of discomfort in the long-run, but they satisfy your true needs and wants.

This is so radically different than how coaching has been done since its inception. Google’s head of Learning and Development recently called developmental coaching the “future of coaching.” I’ve been using this coaching approach for seven years and I can tell you it provides a radical path to change and results you can only get when you address the root issues.

The number one thing I look for is exhaustion. Have you tried enough solutions like therapy or Weight Watchers, gone through the roller coaster of “yes, this time will be different” and come down and realize, nope, it’s not? My weight is still weighing me down.

With the exhaustion, there’s usually a simultaneous fear and excitement at the idea of embarking on your own unique Truce with Food. Many of my clients say my approach resonates. And they’re up for the internal challenge.

This program is not girlfriend advice to buy flowers or steps to upgrade your life – although you will. It just won’t be all puppies and rainbows like some coaches promise…and then tell you “you’re blocked by self-limiting beliefs” when that doesn’t work.

Being comfortable won’t get anyone the results they really want, like freedom and sovereignty with their body. Like anything meaningful in life, this will be challenging and rewarding. But it’s not about willpower or discipline but rather, the challenge to stay open, curious and experimental.

It can be a side-effect of going through Truce with Food. Our culture tends to put the cart before the horse, thinking life will begin once we lose weight. But, we need to put life first to effectively approach weight loss.

However, I do acknowledge that your weight is weighing you down. I’m not going to tell you you shouldn’t want to lose weight. However, we focus on what foods and emotional shifts will best support you to eat in alignment with your weight loss goal.

As a result, you feel empowered instead of defeated. And, after Truce with Food, you know what foods and tools will best work for you for a customized approach rather than feeling overwhelmed with so many choices. It’s why clients who still want to lose more weight post-Truce with Food will say, “I still have more weight to lose but I know it will happen without me worrying about it anymore.”

Truce with Food takes the stance that one serving of your favorite foods, once in awhile, is no big deal. What we transform are the reasons you eat two, three or four servings of your favorite food. When you legitimately heal your relationship with food, you no longer are caught in the extremes of all or nothing. Yes you can eat your favorite foods again – and without guilt or fear that one piece of cake will turn into two, three or a week of bad eating.

Life today is one constant busy season. Especially for those who tend to gravitate towards Truce With Food. However, your life is your classroom. In other words, you’ll be experimenting with meals you’re already eating and new ways of being in your life. It’s not “separate” from your life.

And this program is designed for the on-the-go lifestyle. It does require about 2.5 hours every two weeks for maximum benefit. Ninety minutes for the lesson and coaching exercise and 60 minutes for our private call. In the long run, this process actually creates time for you by learning the foods to give you more energy and clarity and learning how to put less on your “plate” yet get more life results.

If you have an FSA or HSA account, most likely. Clients have used their HSA/FSA credit cards and I’ve written dozens of receipts for participants’ FSA anda HSA accounts. Most plans reimburse for any type of nutritional counseling and coaching. I recommend checking with your plan specifically for an exact answer. I’m happy to write you receipt.

I totally get it. You trust me, not yourself. So many programs promise to be different and yet underneath, they’re all different ways to cut calories or give you a formula (often not based on research) that creates more restriction, which only leads to rebellion.

This is a process you can’t fail if you devote yourself to trying and learning how to understand your out of alignment eating, which is what Truce with Food gives you the awareness and tools to do.

It doesn’t require willpower in the traditional sense. In fact, imperfection is built into the material and expected. We call that “research” in Truce with Food. Most science and life breakthroughs happen when we learn from what isn’t working.

Having said that, this process is challenging. It’s not for everyone. But the challenge is the willingness to be a beginner and continue to show up when you’re new (i.e., not the best) at building a new skill set. This can be uncomfortable for perfectionists and those with an all-or-nothing mindset. It’s about being devoted to yourself.

Many clients express that it’s “uncomfortable in the most freeing way.” That might seem paradoxical. But paradox is truth. Once you can be with your emotions, you feel powerful and free. You get the kind of results that make you willing to become devoted to challenging yourself. Our emotions control us whether we understand them or not. So to finally have choices other than eat in discomfort, is life-changing liberation.

If you can commit to showing up when you feel imperfect, this process will work for you. There’s not a formula for success or failure here. This process meets everyone exactly where they are in their self-awareness and lifestyle. It’s the opposite of having a bunch of rules to follow that only fuel the battle and a sense of failure.

For more insight from my clients about their own fears around this, check out this video. The fourth question is when I ask them about their fear of failing at Truce with Food.