Mindful Chat with Victoria Evans Intuitive Eating Coach

Victoria Evans began her career in the corporate world with a prominent Fortune 500 company in the beauty industry in Montreal. During this time, her challenges related to eating disorders, mental health,  extreme dieting, and overexercising became a catalyst for creating a solution to an issue millions of women deal with today. As a successful Intuitive Eating Coach, she is disrupting the wellness industry through her fundamentally science-based approach. Victoria helps countless women heal their relationship with food by optimizing their mindset for happier and healthier lifestyles. She is Canadian but currently resides in Bali, Indonesia while providing solutions to women through her online coaching programs.

Instagram:  @victoriaevansofficial
Website
https://www.victoriaevansofficial.com/

About :

What started out as a 12-week weight loss guaranteed plan from a famous Instagram influencer, quickly got out of hand. I lost 75pounds in a matter of weeks. I was sick and unhealthy yet praised and promoted as the poster child of her program. I went from invisible to inspiration overnight but the cost was almost my life.
In my own recovery from extreme dieting, anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating, I saw where our society had let us down and how the support and education available for women was severely lacking.
As a result, I became the coach that I myself needed in my recovery. I take my first hand experience and unique science-based approach and
teach women how to stop healthier toxic relationship with food and their body so that they can be free to live their life purpose.

Dr. Damaris G. is an Integrative Doctor of Nurse Practice Family Nurse Practioner Mom, Veteran,. BC Family Nurse Practioner & Holistic Integrative health, Studies Functional Medicine
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Transcript

Damaris Grossmann: 0:23

Welcome to mindfully integrative podcast with your host, Dr. Damaris G. mindfully integrative is a podcast discussing ways toward mindfully incorporating Integrative Health into our lives. This podcast will have informative resources, fun topics, interviews, and discussions relatable for today with a true mindful perspective in a mind body holistic life approach. Hi, how are you? This is Dr. Damaris Grossmann. I am mindfully integrative shell. And thank you for joining in on the podcast. So today we have an amazing guest. She is Victoria Evans, and she's an intuitive eating coach. And she has so much science based plethora of information. And you really need to meet her and I'm newly have met her and checked her out on her website. And she has so much wonderful information for you. And she's another mindful, intuitive person. So I can't wait for you guys to dive in into learning more about her. So hi, how are you? Victoria?

Victoria Evans: 1:28

Hi, I'm doing well. Thanks so much for having me on today,

Damaris Grossmann: 1:31

of course. So as I asked people, what is like a small fun fact about that people may not be able to find online or, or maybe something quick that you've never really discussed. Maybe it's in your book or something.

Victoria Evans: 1:45

Okay, fun fact would be I actually quit my fancy fortune 500 job with 26 cents my bank account and bought a one way ticket and moved to Bali. And I lived there for two years. So that's a fun fact.

Damaris Grossmann: 1:59

Oh, that's really cool, though. Yeah. How amazing was that?

Victoria Evans: 2:04

It was absolutely incredible. It was the toughest years of my life, the best years of my life. I learned so much about myself, I grew an incredible business there. And it was it was a wild adventure. And I'm so glad that I just felt that fear and did it anyways, you know, took that leap and bought that ticket. And here I am now a few years later, and it's just been incredible.

Damaris Grossmann: 2:26

Oh, that's so great have were you like what kind of work were you doing out there? Were you starting your business with your intuitive eating? Or were you doing other things?

Victoria Evans: 2:37

Yeah, so I was doing the work that I do now. So an intuitive eating coach, I was just getting things off the ground there and just starting to get everything kind of in motion. And when I was working at my corporate job, I was doing beta clients, so free clients to go through my program to test it out. I just got to this point, and like, you know what I want to live, I want to really just go out there and see the world. And so yeah, I quit my job, I had no money, no savings, very much jumped out of the parish or jumped on the plane kind of built the parachute on the way down, you know, figured it out. And yeah, all worked out.

Damaris Grossmann: 3:08

What was the best part about living in Bali,

Victoria Evans: 3:12

um, I got to meet a lot of incredible people who had a very different perspective on life and what it means to be successful. I think often in the western kind of world, you get sucked into this very, what it means to be successful as having, you know, the career and the job and all these kind of different accolades, right. And there it was having a really balanced lifestyle and going and moving your body and into meditation and yoga and eating foods that made you feel amazing. And so you know, is you going for beach walks, and then doing a call and then going to meditate and going, like dances. And it was just such an interesting way to live that I didn't even know was possible.

Damaris Grossmann: 3:51

I'm so glad you brought that up what it is to be successful, and what it really is to be successful. And I think that you, we haven't even gone into like full things. But when it is to be successful, I wish I more and more people and that's why I love having more and more people on this show is that you're stating success does not mean that you have to have the big car, the fancy job and you're stating it, it's about balance, right?

Victoria Evans: 4:17

Absolutely. And, you know, for my entire life as it kind of relates to my story, I thought success meant having a very particular body type. Right, I thought it was having the ABS and the cut arms and looking very petite and beautiful. And you know, lo and behold, you know, after I struggled with my body and battled multiple eating disorders for several years, I got to this way and I had this what was deemed, you know, the perfect body with the ABS and you know, the little cuts in your, your hips a little you know, and all of that and looking in the mirror and you know, I had the success of having that body and I had never been so unhappy or so unhealthy and so obsessive around food in my entire life. And so, you know, from there, I really had to redefine what success what happiness happiness what you know, truly living meant to me and realizing it wasn't going to come in a body size. It wasn't going to come in, you know, having a certain status of career or money in the bank account or certain partner or, you know, a certain plot of real estate and so really up leveling my entire life, uprooting it and moving to Bali and really again, redefining what it meant to be successful and being mindful I'm in touch with myself and my body. And so it's been such an incredible journey. But you know, I think so many of us we define success by the wrong metrics. And the reason that we define success the way we do is because we think we're going to feel a certain way about ourselves when we get there. But there's never going to be enough external accolades, enough external achievements, to change how you feel internally. And the only reason you want those external things is because you think you'll feel better about yourself when you do and that's not just how it works. So

Damaris Grossmann: 5:50

I love what you said there. The fact that you're looking for this external like acclamations, and things don't like affirmations, when it's a lot of internal. Now, as you were saying, you know, you have a story about how you've wanting to become successful and change your path. So you you traveled across the world to find this path. And you obviously, answers came, and then you traveled back home. And you are you know where you are now and but you've still been working on on your project. Now. Tell me what happened. As you transitioned back home and or and you were working? Tell me the story of what kind of got you into this, like traveling there and the little bit of your disgusted just briefly.

Victoria Evans: 6:41

Yeah. So I started this work. As I was finishing leaving my corporate jobs, I kind of started doing this coaching work simultaneously. But basically what had happened was I was trying to recover from anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, exercise, addiction, body dysmorphia, all the things right. And I was really struggling to recover in the system that there was in place, basically, I was going to counseling and therapy and talking to psychologists couple times a week. And I just, it wasn't clicking for me. I'm someone who's very rational, very logical, very science based. I like to understand the why behind what I'm doing. If you don't give me the why reasoning, I don't really want to do it, because I don't understand. And so for me, I really had to take this responsibility and this ownership in my healing journey by doing a lot of the research and uncovering a lot of you know, the whys and the What's going on? And why do I feel the way I feel? And why do I think these things about myself and really just going so deep, and, you know, just pulling together just massive amounts of information and putting together a program for myself that ultimately allowed me to heal and learn to become an intuitive eater. But I did so through pulling together so many different mediums, it was very holistic. So it was yes is very sinespace, understanding what's happening in my body on a biological level, but also huge amount of, you know, emotional intelligence, a whole a lot of understanding, you know, trauma within our body and shifting limiting beliefs. And you know, how to regulate our nervous system. So taking this very kind of interesting, holistic approach that no one else is taking. And then I started recently, kind of, again, putting together this kind of a program to save my own life, and started to actually talk about it on social media a little bit, just be like, Hey, this is kind of what I'm doing. Other people started to kind of take notice. And they started to go through my program. I know, they said, Can I go through it just to try it out? I was like, course, like, I have no idea that's gonna work for you. But you're welcome to try what I've tried. So I had these beta clients go through, worked amazing for them. They're very rational science based. And then a little while after that, yeah, I quit my job officially and started getting paying clients and move to Bali. And so that's kind of the long short of it.

Damaris Grossmann: 8:55

Wow, that's that sounds amazing. Did you want to stay in Bali, when you were there? Did you not want to come back.

Victoria Evans: 9:02

So the first year I was there was amazing, because every few months, I had to leave because of my visa. And so I was able to every 60 days, I had to go to a different country. So there would be Vietnam or Thailand or wherever. So I was able to kind of get a lot of traveling within there. Then the last year was during the pandemic, a lot of it and a large portion of it. So I was very much stuck on a very small island. A lot of tourists had left. And so it was not always the safest at times. I still people are amazing. And I really enjoyed it. But I was feeling like it was time to go home. And

Damaris Grossmann: 9:36

so yeah, this was another transition. Wow. I mean, that definitely sounds like a lot. I mean, you've been so through your I mean, your story. Definitely. You're you're talking about anorexia, bulimia, and then, you know, you became to the point where you knew that you needed to help heal people and help you know, guide them in the right direction. Would you be able to share you don't have to give names or anything, a story of a client of yours that you know, was very happy with the result or or something that they went through that you know, you helped them kind of get get past.

Victoria Evans: 10:14

So yeah, I'm comfortable sharing this person, because she's spoken on my podcast multiple times about her story and she shared her name is Dr. Lauren board. And she's actually a psychologist. And she's someone who came to me struggling with she was on keto for a long time, and lost a ton of weight, and then started to kind of slowly transition out of it, and was bingeing on a lot of food and was really struggling in her relationship with food, she felt very out of control, very chaotic. And she knew what was happening, she thought it was like a willpower problem. So it was a motivation problem, she didn't understand that, you know, our bodies, what we think is self sabotage is actually self protection. And so through our work together, you know, learning what was actually happening in her body, making sure she was getting an adequate amount of food throughout the day, and not just eating nothing all day. And then you know, binge eating all night, right? understanding, like a lot of the time that we want to restrict or change our body shape or look a certain way, you know, when I say, when we say we want to lose weight, what we really mean is we want to feel like loved and connected and safe within our own body. So finding other ways to recreate a feeling of safety that are on body, and regulate our nervous system without the use of food, as you know, more of a maladaptive coping mechanism is so empowering and understanding kind of the why I feel out of control when I eat certain foods and why I want to shrink myself and really giving that kind of information. And she just soaked it up like a sponge. And it was awesome. And so fun. And I have just the best time with my clients because we really connect because I've been there, you know, it's very different than working with like a therapist or a counselor, which is amazing. And, you know, I think that can be a great tool or an add on or, you know, one or the other, whatever. But I know for myself, there was never a deep level of connection because I didn't feel like I truly understood where I was at and what I've gone through. And so with coaching, it's so empowering to have that empathy of being like, yeah, I've been there and it sucks. And I know what it's like and just hold space for them. And then also give them the tools and the information economy through that. So yeah, Lauren was an incredible, incredible clients. And thankfully, I've worked with dozens and dozens of clients over the past few years. But she was one of my first clients, and we're still good friends to this day, and we talk on our podcasts and do lots of different things. So

Damaris Grossmann: 12:27

yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, I think that you, you bring up a good point about, you know, someone believes that they need to restrict their foods and then lowering their connection or, or kind of the decrease of foods, but then they're really losing connection within their body. And then they're restricting themselves and they shouldn't be, and really just understanding I mean, you you probably go into depth way more in the I do also myself and talking about the gut in the brain connection. I mean, the microbiome in itself and the neurotransmitters that are you know, throughout it, it's it's crazy how we just don't understand that our emotions and stress are part of this, you know, right. I mean, you know, obviously probably go into that great detail.

Victoria Evans: 13:12

Oh, massively. So like 90% of our serotonin serotonin receptors are found in the gut, right? I know

Damaris Grossmann: 13:18

exactly. That bring you and I know that but other people on this podcast may not know that. Yeah,

Victoria Evans: 13:22

yeah, exactly. It's so it's so interesting, once you understand that, and how stress impacts your body and stress impacts your eating levels, and even just eating in a state of stress, right, we're not able to properly absorb foods, we're kicking out Yeah, cortisol and all these things our body or can't properly absorb the nutrients, like it's just so many different things like how you're eating, you know, if you're eating super quickly, and chaotically, that's going to literally impact how you digest that food, how your body holds that weight. So just like simple things like that, that we never really think about, you know, we're so quick to be running from one thing to the next and over the keyboard shuttling you know, lunch in our mouth, right. And this in itself, if you know, food takes like 1520 minutes to hit our stomach. Which means if I'm eating at 200 miles an hour, super, super quickly, I can't feel food actually hit my stomach when I feel full. And so oftentimes, we eat way past that level of comfortable fullness, just because we've eaten so quickly. And so learning to be more mindful, like whether that be taking a few deep breaths and I'll see I have lots of tools. But you know, even just putting yourself into a more parasympathetic state before you eat so that rest digest and heal by triggering your vagus nerve, right, taking a longer inhale than x or sorry, taking a longer exhale, that inhale will put you into that parasympathetic state. And you know, being able to slow down your eating time and allow food to hit your stomach, right and then you'll feel more full and then you start to build more trust with yourself, right, if every time I eat, I'm eating way past a level of comfortable fullness, then that feels like a distrust of yourself in your body. So even just like a simple thing of slowing down and being able to better honor your fullness cues, so empowering.

Damaris Grossmann: 14:56

I love I love what you state there. I also you know, um, you probably talked to people about like when they're eating I mean, I tried to tell people you know, it's, it's, it takes about 20 bytes at a minimum just to you know, break up the enzymes in the mouth, you know, from enzymes, you know, from one mouth all the way down to the stomach 15 minutes just to get to the stomach, and people aren't even like chewing our food long enough. So the amounts of how Quickly, I think our world is full of this, like instant gratification and where we do it even with our eating right. And I just think that they're all connected in it in its own way. And I like wish more and more. And I'm hoping that one person on this call or on this video will see and be able to understand that like, mindful eating isn't just like a thought. In the end, though, and thinking about what you put in your body is, you know, it's a combination, it's not just what paid it's how you eat it too. You know, you can eat healthy, you get salads all day long. But if you're not mindfully doing it, like you still will, the weight will still

Victoria Evans: 15:59

stay. Yeah, and it's, you know, if you are someone who eats quickly, you're probably someone who dries quickly, and you're walking quickly, right, that feeling of like, go go, go, go, go rushing rushing is usually pretty simultaneous across the board. And, you know, being mindful and allowing your body to get out of that stress response out of that sympathetic state. Like, it's so important for your health, if we're always acting, as you know, our brain is always thinking we're being attacked by a lion, essentially, right, and that kind of fight flight or downstate, right, it's really preventing you from connecting to your body, and it's preventing you from actually being happy. Because if we're in a constant defensive state, if we're constantly fleeing and fighting, and all of that kind of thing, we're constantly that high level of stress, we can't actually be present. And in order for us to feel happy and joyful that it requires being present, right, happiness is right now, not like in the future. And so we have to practice being that level of mindfulness. And that looks like you know, eating a little bit slower, maybe giving yourself a bit more time to get to somewhere and taking a few more breaths throughout the day, right? It's all interconnected is taking those moments and those pauses to slow down and check in with yourself. And that's just going to have incredible benefits across every area of your life.

Damaris Grossmann: 17:09

I couldn't agree with you more, could not agree with you more. So do you have one of your intuitive eating tips, mindful way that you can share with the audience that you'd like to discuss? I know you put a few but if you have one thing or one about before that, how about a book or quote that you usually like to say to people?

Victoria Evans: 17:32

Okay, I have so many quotes, but Okay, the first one I'd say is will never be free by implementing control. Right? Every by

Damaris Grossmann: 17:42

by implementing control. Yeah. So

Victoria Evans: 17:45

if you're trying to add layers of control into your life, I can only eat at this time of the day, I can only eat these certain foods, you're never gonna feel freedom. Right? It's through healing relationship with food, which is what I love to do, you know, and I work with people, that's when you have a sense of freedom when eating becomes easy and effortless instead of rigid and rules and control. Another one I would say is that restriction creates rebellion. And allowance creates space for choice. When you're restricting things and making them off limits, your brain is going to have this rebellious, I have to have this kind of mentality. Right? It's like me telling you don't think about pink elephants. Yeah, we think about pink. Yeah. So it's the same thing with food, if you know there's an abundance of it, if I know I'm always allowed to have something, it loses its novelty, all of a sudden, that allows that permission loses it removes it, the feeling of I have to have it. And that kind of, you know, overwhelming, even that kind of almost an addictive feeling, I have to get that thing. So leaning in and literally telling yourself, I give myself permission to eat this food, do I feel like eating this food, or I give myself permission to take a little bit of a rest. And then later on, you likely want to move your body, right, but it's not telling yourself I should and I have to and I can't and I shouldn't I should and all those layers of you know judgment that you place on yourself, that leads to often the opposite of behavior of what you want. So giving yourself allowance, giving yourself permission. And then when you kind of remove again, all those shoulds insurance accounts, whatever. What's left is your ability to be more intuitive and connected to yourself.

Damaris Grossmann: 19:11

I love that. I love what he's saying. And I I'd say give the audience an idea of a mindful way. But I feel like you have one. But if you'd like to share anything extra, please do. Yes,

Victoria Evans: 19:24

I have one. I'm excited. So this is one of my favorite things. It's so super simple. But basically, this is what I started doing really early on in my journey, just to help me get more present more in touch with my body. So get your phone, go to your alarms on your phone on your clock, where it says alarms when you set a new alarm, I want you to hit the X button where it says alarm and I want you to change it to the words how am I feeling? Oh, I

Damaris Grossmann: 19:51

love that. So I go to my alarm. I don't think I have that. So I go to my alarms right? Yep, create a new alarm. Create a new alarm. Got it.

Victoria Evans: 20:00

Change the label to something that resonates so maybe it's breathe How am I feeling? Or what do I need right now any of those kinds of things put it to silent you don't want to scare ourselves apart. a heart attack. Okay. Um, and then yeah, and then said that if at any time throughout the day I you set like five or six you know, I mean, especially earlier on now, kind of practice being more mindful. You know? more consistently firing on those pathways my brain to slow down remind myself of that. So becomes easier over time to be more mindful. But it's a great practice to just break up your day a little bit, kind of get out of the autopilot and just practice you know, checking in with yourself.

Damaris Grossmann: 20:37

So I put in mine, I put breathe, be joyful and be kind to myself. Yes, so good. Go. I love it. I picked it in two there. It's on mine. I'm going to do it right now. So I really appreciate you being on the show. Is there any additional information that people can reach out and connect with you or something additional that you want to add?

Victoria Evans: 21:02

Yeah, so I would love for you guys could send me a message on Instagram. Let me know you've listened to this. If you have any questions or anything, please. Yes, any message there. So that is at Victoria Evans official. If you want to learn more about me how to work with me that's on my website, www dot Viktoria Evans official.com, forward slash programs, and I have lots of different things there and resources. So love you checked it out. But yeah, that's it for me.

Damaris Grossmann: 21:27

Thank you so much for joining in. And oh, it was such a pleasure meeting you. And I look forward to us having another chat again. And you know, in the future, and then maybe in our future conference or summit. I'd love to have you on so it's great having you and thanks guys for joining in on mindfully integrative show and podcast. And if you have any other questions, reach out, and all the other things will be in the shownotes Thanks and have a wonderful day or whatever time it is, and make sure you have a mindful way each and every day. Thanks for listening to mindfully integrative with Dr. Damaris G. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss an episode. If you enjoyed our show, support us by leaving a mindful review on Apple podcasts or your favorite streaming site. If you would like to be a guest of our show or interview, email us at info at Damaris maria.com if you want to learn more about the resources mentioned in the podcast, you can find those in the show notes to connect mindfully with Dr. Damaris G reacher@www.de Maris, maria.com or connect via social media links. We appreciate your time connecting here with us. May your strength and peace within bring you more balance every day. No ma stay