Her Next Chapters
This podcast is for moms with an empty nest on the horizon who are reclaiming & redefining their identity outside of motherhood, which might include a job search. On this show we’ll have raw conversations about our ever-changing roles as moms, hear from women who restarted their careers, and share tactical tips for a successful job search after a career break.
Her Next Chapters
107. Career Pivots & Food Freedom: Aimee Gindin on Leaving the C-Suite to Found The Full Plate
What if your most aligned work sits at the crossroads of what you’ve done and what you’re drawn to now? Aimee Gindin’s career is a masterclass in the "winding path," featuring significant pivots from crisis counseling and a pre-med detour at Harvard to a 14-year climb up the marketing corporate ladder.
At age 40, Aimee walked away from the C-suite to build a career rooted in empathy and human connection. In this conversation, we deconstruct how she leveraged transferable skills, strategic volunteering and self-trust to reinvent herself multiple times, eventually finding her "nexus" in weight-inclusive health and intuitive eating.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
- The "Why" Behind the Pivot: How to recognize when you are chasing status instead of satisfaction.
- Strategic Volunteering: How Aimee used an unpaid internship to land her first marketing role with zero prior experience.
- Overcoming Imposter Syndrome: How a coach's powerful question—"How dare you not share your gifts?"—sparked Aimee's entrepreneurial leap.
- Intuitive Eating 101: A research-backed look at why 95% of diets fail and how to rebuild trust with your body.
- Building Community: Inside The Full Plate, a space for food neutrality, myth-busting, and weight-inclusive provider directories.
About Our Guest: Aimee Gindin is an intuitive eating counselor, certified nutrition coach, and former mental health therapist. She is the founder of The Full Plate, a community designed to help individuals make peace with food and their bodies through a weight-neutral lens.
Connect with Aimee:
The Full Plate Newsletter & Full-plate-nutrition.com
LinkedIn.com/in/aimee-gindin
The Pathfinder, by Nicholas Lore - a book on choosing careers that changed Aimee's life. (Note: This is an affiliate link, which helps support the show!)
This conversation explores midlife career reinvention, transferable skills, and how intuitive eating and weight-inclusive care can reshape both personal health and professional purpose.
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Hi, and welcome to Her Next Chapters Podcast. I'm your host, Christina Kohl. I'm a mom of three and soon to be an empty nester. I'm also a certified HR pro who restarted my career after being a stay-at-home mom for over a decade. I created this podcast to connect with moms who have an empty nest on the horizon and are wanting to redefine their identity outside of motherhood, which might include a job search. On this show, we'll have long conversations about our ever-changing roles as moms. We'll hear from women who restarted their careers and share tips for a job search after a career break. So if that's you, you're in the right place, friend. Let's get started. Hi everyone, welcome to this week's episode of Her Next Chapters. I am excited to share that we have a special guest with us today. Aimee Gindin is joining us, and Aimee is an intuitive eating counselor. She's a certified nutrition coach, a former mental health therapist, and founder of The Full Plate, a community for people who want to make peace with food and their bodies. And I can't wait to dig into this conversation and learn about Aimee's multiple career pivots and also what she's doing now with helping people with nutrition and being healthy. Aimee, welcome to the podcast.
Aimee Ginden:Thank you for having me.
Christina Kohl:Yes, welcome to the podcast. And if we can just start, what I love to talk to people about is their career pivots, particularly people that are, you know, mid-career, midlife, and you've got some really significant pivots in your career. So if you can kind of tell us like the beginnings, like, you know, how you got how your career started and kind of some of the evolutions. And I love hearing the the how and the why, the why first, like why did you make the changes and the how? So if we can just kind of open up with that, I think that would be a great place to start.
Speaker 1:Sure, I'd be happy to. I um I actually started off as a film major in college. I wanted to be a Hollywood film director, like the next Wes Anderson. I was a very creative kid. I was in theater and made videos, and I got like the first digital camera when those things were popular. Um, and so I just couldn't picture myself doing anything that wasn't creative. And so I went to school for film and I got to college and quickly realized that this was never gonna pay the bills for me. And that while I had some innate talent, there were people who were way further along than I was and in such a competitive space, I recognized that this was not gonna be my future. Um, so I as a freshman had to take a lot of different prerequisite classes, and one of them was Psychology 101, and I didn't know anything about it. And I sat in a lecture with over 500 students, and I completely fell in love with it. It was every question that I had ever asked about humanity just was somehow being answered in this class. And I thought I need to do something with this. I'd always been really curious about people and what makes them behave the way that they behave and say the things that they say. And um I also came from a household growing up with some mental illness on my parents' part. And so learning about psychology was scratching a lot of itches for me. And so I became a psychology major. And then I knew that I wouldn't really be able to do anything with that. So I had to go to graduate school to do something else. Um, and so I got a master's in counseling, thinking that I would be either a guidance counselor or I'd work at a practice somewhere. And I again I loved graduate school. I loved studying psychology. But I can remember standing at my master's graduation and thinking, crap, I don't I don't want to do this for a living. I don't want to work one-on-one with people. What am I doing? Um, and I didn't really discover that until I um I had, you know, these required internships and supervisions in in graduate school. So I thought, like, well, this is what I went to school for. I gotta get a job. And I ended up working at a psychiatric emergency room for three years, um, and also at a 24-7 crisis center. And I was it was fascinating clinically. Um, but it was really hard work for very little money. Um, I worked these double shifts from 3 p.m. to 7 a.m., was so sleep deprived and exhausted all the time, and was living paycheck to paycheck with a master's required position. And um I knew that I couldn't do that long term. So I looked around me at the emergency room and I thought, okay, like who's who's got a better lifestyle? Who's got more leadership opportunities? Who is in charge here? How can I do more of that? How can I, you know, make more money and have more leadership? And the answer that came up to me was, oh, the physicians. I'll just go be a doctor. So I um switched. I stopped and I signed up for a pre-med post back program at Harvard University. I had always wanted to move to Boston. I was living in Pittsburgh at the time. And I started this program, and I was like, okay, I know I'm 27 years old at the time, and I'm just gonna I'm gonna go be a medical.
Christina Kohl:So you didn't just think about it. You actually enrolled at Harvard and moved to Boston.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not at medical school, but at a pre-med postdoc, which is a two-year program for people who need the prerequisites, the biologies and the physics and the chemistries, right in order to get into medical school.
Christina Kohl:Okay, so this is like a good how how map that out for me. Two years for that plus medical school plus residents. We're talking like maybe a decade long of investment. Okay.
Speaker 1:Yes. And the reason I chose Harvard was because if you could get A's in that program, you had a 90% chance of getting into medical school versus the general population applying to medical school like less than 20%. So I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna work my took us off and get go be a doctor. And, you know, this is where I feel like career counseling would have been super helpful for me because so much of my career was making decisions based on things that weren't necessarily factors that mattered, like status or um, you know, certain amount of money, those types of things. So I was in that program, as you can imagine. I'm not a medical doctor. I was in that program for about a year, and then thought I don't want to be in school for another 10 years. I had met my now husband and we got serious pretty quickly. I didn't want to leave Boston. The idea of moving around for medical school and residency and trying to have children. All of those things as women that we have to consider as part of our careers came up for me. And I I stopped after after a year and I was completely lost. Completely like just I don't know who I am. I know I don't want to be a clinician, I don't want to do the work that it would take to be a doctor. And nobody wants me as a doctor if I don't want to put in the work. Um, and so I nannyed for two years for three crazy kids just to pay the bills. And um I read while I was nannying, I read a career counseling book called The Pathfinder, which was life-changing for me. It had all of these self-assessments in there. You asked, you answered all these questions about yourself, your level of extroversion versus introversion, the types of problems you like to solve, etc. And over and over and over again, the same three results kept coming up for me: healthcare, been there, done that, psychology, been there, done that, and marketing. And I was like, Well, I don't know anything about marketing. But serendipitously, the two parents of the family that I nannyed for were both marketing executives. But so like life is planned out for you and you're just a marionette.
Christina Kohl:Yeah, okay, so you tapped into that network.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I met with them and I and they knew that I wasn't, you know, I didn't want to be a nanny forever. I was pretty upfront with them about it, and they gave me great advice. They said, just find an internship, even if it's unpaid, find a part-time internship, see if you like it. And so that's what I did. I went on Craigslist when Craigslist was a thing, and um linked up with a woman who was starting a marketing agency and told her the situation, and she took a chance on me. And I ended up really liking it. I it scrapped the itch from when I was a really creative kid and was involved very creatively with things, but also it's like the psychology of people in business, right? So there's still like a big psychological aspect to it. So I was in marketing for 12 or 13 years and worked my way up. I worked at various companies and worked my way up to uh chief marketing officer of a public company.
Christina Kohl:Okay. So then that's a huge pivot. I want to step back just a minute. How did you land that first job? You said it was Craigslist. Was it paid? Was it part-time? Was it like tell us a little bit more about that? Because a lot of the listeners are in career pivots or maybe career reinvention or coming back from you know being a stay-at-home mom for a decade or whatever. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about that. That first entry where you had zero experience or training or education.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I, you know, I think, and I imagine you give the suffice a lot that you're never starting from nothing, right? Like I had years of work. I mean, I've had a job since I was nine, babysitting, right? So every single thing that you do gives you experience and knowledge and leverage that you can then apply to the next thing. So even though I was a baby to the business world and a baby to marketing, I worked with patients, which is similar to working with clients in many ways. I, you know, had to answer emails and show up on time and, you know, navigate managing up with a boss. Like I still had a lot of experiences that were translatable. So this part-time opportunity, it was unpaid for about four months. And then I was brought on as the first full-time employee. And um, so I'm a big believer that if you are a critical thinker and you enjoy prob problem solving, you can just do almost anything, truly. I mean, anything that doesn't require tons and tons of technical education. So, you know, I think that that mindset can take you into any direction that you want to go into. And so for me, you know, I read I I think I read marketing for dummies, and I just dove in and researched. And, you know, today it's 10 times easier than it was back in 2011 because we've got Chat GPT and we've got extensive Google searching, and you can get a lot of answers right at your fingertips in a way that I wasn't able to have back then, or none of us were able to have. So I really think it's just a matter of being curious and being willing to think critically and solve the problems in front of you.
Christina Kohl:Thank you for going into that detail. And I'm sitting here going ding ding-ding. Um, because I do. I teach um strategic volunteering, which is what you did. You volunteered because you weren't getting paid for those four months. Yes, it was an internship, but you're doing the thing for free that you wanted to be able to learn and get paid for. Um, and I'm just gonna put a plug in uh for listeners if you haven't been listening to me in the past. Um, catchafire.org is a great um website to go to to get volunteer matched for professional level um opportunities. And it could be marketing, could be event planning, could be HR, it could be IT, it could be web design, could be anything that nonprofits need help with. And in exchange, you're getting experience, you're getting references, um, you're getting an expanded network. And you also try it on because you might have done that project for the four months and went, this isn't it either. Um, but for you, it grew into a full-time job and then a full-time career. So take us back to where where you were. You said that you had a few different opportunities, you were a chief marketing officer, and then what happened? That was like you said, 14 years worth of marketing, is that right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, 14 years.
Christina Kohl:So it's a pretty significant track of your career was spent in marketing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I still was caught in the trap of title and status and money, though. I mean, ever since the pre-med postback program, there was something attractive and sexy about being at the top of your game. And I would make decisions based on that more so than well, how do you actually like spending your time?
Christina Kohl:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And there were jobs within marketing that I really enjoyed, but as I climbed higher and higher on the ladder, I enjoyed my jobs less and less. And it became less about getting to do the fun creative campaigns and more about hiring and firing and managing a budget and negotiating with other department heads and setting boundaries and pushing back and corporate politics and all the things that you have to do as an executive. And so the summer that I turned 40 was a big existential moment for me, as I think any decade changes for people. And I just thought I don't want to do this anymore. And we were, my husband and I were very fortunate at that point to be in a position where one of us could take an entrepreneurial risk as long as the other person was still working and caring about healthcare and all the important benefits that our family needs. Um and I thought, you know, I actually I had a coach at the time that I was working one-on-one with, and I had a lot of self-doubt, and and her reframe was so powerful for me. And she said, you know, and I'm like, well, why me? Why would anyone, why would anyone care about what I have to say or what I want to do? And she said, Well, how dare you not share your gifts with the world? And it was such a like lightning strike moment for me. And I thought, wow, like if that's not the meaning of life, I don't know what else.
Christina Kohl:I'm I'm okay. On camera, I'm like, oh my gosh, my job, you know, like I'm relating to that because I was felt the same way like when I first started coaching. I'm like, who am I to do this? I mean, that that resonates so much. Like, I'm I'm just me and I'm whatever. And then I'm like, who are you not to? I had that same thing. Like, if you could help one person, then go do it. Like, it's you know, with my with my experience that I've had. So that's um kind of a uh a North Star, if you will. Um, and yeah, so I love hearing that from someone. And now I've got goosebumps. Um, so you had that coaching of who are you not to, like, how dare you not use your gifts and your experience. So what was on what did that look like when was this, first of all? You said you were 40, but like how how long ago? Two years ago. So just a couple years ago. So that's probably when I started cat when you caught my eye on LinkedIn because you were doing all those really fun videos. I'm like, oh my gosh, this is hysterical. Um, so yeah, if you could tell us like kind of um what you how you originally launched your your entrepreneurial journey. Like, tell us about that. Because you've had a couple of pivots there as well, because I've been able to see those in real time.
Speaker 1:So whenever I talk about my career path, people are like, you're a little bit crazy, aren't you? And I'm like, I think I'm just curious. I think I'm just a curious person. Um, so I I left my job and I was really trying to focus on like what are the things that I know that I love to do. And I know that I loved public speaking, I love thought leadership, I love writing. And so I thought that I would write a book and do public speaking. I didn't even know what it was gonna be about, but that was that was my loose plan when I left corporate. And I announced my LLC on LinkedIn, and this guy who I had connected with when I worked in marketing years ago reached out. He was a first-time CEO. He saw that I had been in the C-suite, he knew I used to be a therapist, and he said, Will you be my executive coach? And I was like, What? I hadn't planned on that at all. I thought I was going in a completely different direction. And I'm like, Well, I I know I don't love the one on one stuff, but maybe this is a sign from the universe that I should do this. And so I um started working with him. We're actually still working together two years later, which is wild. Um and so I thought, okay, I guess I guess.
Christina Kohl:When you have a client show up at your door saying, This is what I need and what I know you can offer help, it it's that makes that makes complete and with your background in counseling, that's probably makes you a really insightful coach to the listening skills that you've learned there. And counseling and coaching are obviously their parallel professions, not necessarily the same. Like it's a different, you know, level of medical intervention type of thing for counseling, but there's a lot of parallels in coaching, so it does make sense. Um, and you said he's still a client today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he is still a client today. I definitely enjoy working with him. And you know, it just it isn't the thing that I left corporate for, though, if I'm being totally honest. And the work pays some bills and is lovely. Um, but it's still it still wasn't the thing. And I had to get really quiet with myself and stop trying this and trying that and trying all of these things and really get honest. And I asked myself if money was not a factor and you could just do anything, what would it be? And it was really hard for me to come to that answer because I had been surviving for decades independently, and so to say intuitive eating counseling just felt truly irresponsible to me because there isn't I mean certainly I have figured out some revenue models for my community, but at the time I was like, how am I gonna make a living doing this? And so I took a step back and I said, you know what? I'm I'm just gonna start a newsletter. Well, first I I got educated, I got certified as a nutrition coach and certified as an intuitive eating counselor. But I started off just with a newsletter. I'm just gonna put something out there every Sunday. And if it helps someone, it helps someone.
Christina Kohl:Well, I was gonna ask you if we could back up a minute there too, is like why intuitive eating? Like what was you what drew you to that? Like in your, yeah, what because there's you're at the point of like, I'm not in corporate and I'm getting quiet with myself and I can do anything. I'm taking money off the table. What led you towards intuitive eating?
Speaker 1:So I had been a chronic dieter for many, many years and struggled with my relationship with food, tried every single diet that had been out there, was constantly checking my body and my looks, determining my worth by my weight. I grew up in a household with two parents who had really challenging relationships with food, were often either starving themselves or binge eating, big emotional eaters. And I reached a point in my personal life where I just got so tired of thinking about food and my body. It was taking up so much space in my head. And I remember thinking, like, what could I do with my life if the way that I looked and the amount that I weighed and the food that I ate didn't have so much meaning every single day. I mean, I got to the point where I was like weighing my yogurt and, you know, oh, I gotta get my 10,000 subs and I only have 8,762. I need to go for that second walk. It was it was a way for me to control a part of my life when everything, when other parts of my life were not in control. And I had discovered intuitive eating the book by the two dietitians who had um founded the program in 2019 and over the course of a few years went through the book as a consumer, not as a counselor. And it really changed my life in a major way, and it unpacked a lot of things for me that made me realize that it was never really about the food. It was about the need for control, the feeling of not being worthy. And food was just the way that those things were showing up for me. And so it was such a powerful thing. And I I, when I looked at my personal life, I was always the person where people would be like, How would you build this plate, Aimee? Like, what would be the most nourishing meal? And, you know, tell me about your workout routine at the gym. Like, how are you building muscle? Like, I was always the person that people would go to for these health questions because I was so deeply passionate about it. And I would, you know, read books and follow various clinicians online. And I was like this little amateur nutritionist in a way. And so for me, it was intuitive eating was like following my passion.
Christina Kohl:Okay. So much of what you just shared, I think a lot of people, although me, can relate to of that relationship with food. And I mean, I weigh myself every morning. It's like, how could I go, how can I gain two pounds in a day? Like, what did I eat? It's just it's just part of our culture, our our and I and I part of what I part of my I can't say call it's part of our culture, but it's also something that I'm doing that it'd be nice to not be so focused on it. Um, so yeah, and now so the book, I'll make sure to um get the details on that and put it in the show notes for people who are interested um to learn more. I've I've heard of intuitive eating, but I don't really know what it is. What is intuitive eating? Because we think of paleo, we think of keto, low carb, high protein, all these programs that might work in the short term, but maybe long term not so much. Intuitive eating sounds sounds like a relief. It sounds like just by the name of it, right? Okay, I'm gonna trust my intuition and eat accordingly. There's probably more to it than that, but that's what I'm that's how I interpret it. So if you can kind of share with with me and those listening, what what is intuitive eating? And then let's talk about how you've how you've built your business and what's going on there.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. So there's over 300 peer-reviewed research studies out there that show that 95% of dieting is unsustainable, and that two-thirds of people who diet will actually gain more weight back than their starting weight. And the reason for that is all of these diets that you just labeled paleo, keto, intermittent fasting, et cetera, they are using external rules to tell you how, when, what, and how much to eat. But the research shows that your body actually knows for the most part, with some gentle nutrition principles, what it needs. There's tons of research that shows that people who listen to their hunger, their fullness, build in satisfying meals, not just very strictly quote unquote healthy meals, um, people who have other coping mechanisms for stress than just eating their feelings, those people end up being not only physically healthier on many different levels, but also their well-being and their relationship with food is a lot better. And I think we all know people who food is just easy for them, right? Like they don't they don't think about it all the time because they're not restricting themselves. And so what intuitive eating does is it's based on 10 different steps or principles, and it teaches people how to heal their relationship with food and their bodies by honoring their hunger, by listening to their fullness. So a lot of folks eat unconsciously or too quickly or mindlessly and blow right past fullness. It creates neutrality for all foods. So in diet culture, there's good foods and there's bad foods. But when you don't place a moral value on food or yourself, and all food becomes neutral, then the Oreos or the potato chips or the ice cream doesn't hold that much power over you anymore because you can have it if you want it. There are no strict rules and guidelines around it. And so what it does is it teaches people to build plates based on what's gonna taste good and what's gonna feel good. A lot of early pushback from people is oh, well, if I ate intuitively, I would just eat ice cream all day. But then how would you feel in your body if you ate ice cream all day? And then, you know, maybe you would do that for a day, and then you probably what wouldn't want to look at ice cream for another month, right? And so it's a whole systematic process for teaching people how to trust themselves around food, how to get in touch with their bodies and know that we are biological creatures. Our bodies know what we need. We just have been taught through diet culture to ignore our hunger, to ignore our fullness and track externally. So it's it's a way to get back in touch with ourselves and and build trust in ourselves. And it takes time, you know, it can take years for people to build up that trust. But the nice thing is because it's not a diet, there is no perfect way to eat. There is no pressure. Like with keto, it's like, all right, I have to eat these things, but then I went overboard at the party and ate a bunch of chips, and now I've failed and I have to start over. There is no starting over with intuitive eating, right? It's just about using those opportunities as learnings to figure out what did I need more of in that moment.
Christina Kohl:Um, okay, so tell us a little bit how you made the pivot from being an executive leadership coach. So let's if we can talk about some of those steps of how you reinvented yourself in this past year or so, I guess it's been.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's been about a year. Um well, I started by dipping a toe in. I started by just having a Sunday newsletter. And the marketer and me thought, let's test demand first. Let's not just, you know, you're known, Aimee, for jumping face first into things and sometimes landing and sometimes, you know, have a face full of dirt. And so, you know, why don't we tiptoe into this and see what how people are responding to this message? So I started off with a newsletter that I have been putting out. I just did my 26th issue. Very exciting. Um, and it has grown tremendously. Um, and so it was really validating for me to see that people wanted to learn more. They were really resonating with being tired of the restriction and then overeating, and then being tired of whether they had a good day or a bad day based on what the scale set in the morning. I think it was a welcome relief for a lot of people and not just women, but men too. A lot of men struggle with body image and food. And so that was the first step in is to see like, does anyone really care about this message? You know, in parallel, I couldn't bring myself to be doing the sales and the proposals and all the things that it takes to get executives to work with me. And it was like my energy just wasn't there. And I was putting in like a little bit here and there, but not really. And when I allowed myself to dive fully into intuitive eating and nutrition, it was like boom. Like it was like, I want to, this is how I want to be spending all of my time. Let's go. And I haven't felt that way in my career ever. I mean, truly ever. I mean, I feel like everything that I had done up until this point, I had been scratching some of the itch, right? Like counseling was really helpful because I really love being in service of people and helping them discover things about themselves and have those aha moments. And marketing was great for creativity and understanding how people behave, especially online. And then this is like, like you said, it's like the nexus of all the things that I'm passionate about and I like doing. So I had been running the newsletter for a couple of months and decided I want to do something, but I don't I want to do something scalable and big. I don't want to do one-on-one intuitive eating counseling. And I did some one-on-one because I felt like I needed the experience of really going deep with people. Um, but I knew that that's not what I wanted to do as my full career. And so I had this idea around building an online community because it takes a lot of marketing to do that. It takes a lot of um business strategy. I've got channel partnerships going right now and brand sponsorships and lots of things that I had done when I was in business for 13, 14 years. But at the same time, I get to run these really wonderful workshops with people and, you know, talk about our childhood and how our parents talked about our bodies and treated and took food away and, you know, all the things that have sort of molded us in our relationship with food. And so, um, yeah. And so the community felt like such a great way to take all of my different skill sets and put that into one place. So I hired a community development director in July, and then I hired uh like a more technical marketer uh just even a month ago, because I know where my gaps are and I know uh what I can do and and where someone is gonna be better than me. And we're doing this thing, and fingers crossed.
Christina Kohl:Doors are open, right? I mean, for the full plate in the community. I'm in the starter plate. Um so you've opened up for for no cost for people to kind of dip their toes in. Um so tell us a little bit more about the community. So you'll how it functions, what people gain from it. I mean, I've got my personal experience, but would love to hear from you.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, you know, when you look at the nutrition counseling and intuitive eating counseling landscape, 80 to 90 percent of what exists today is one-on-one work. And then there are some folks who do groups. So you can join an intuitive eating coaching group, and it will run from anywhere from you know, six weeks to four months or something like that. And it's the same group, and you follow all the way through, and then that's it. And the value of the community is that 90% of your life happens outside of these sessions, right? And so, how if you're if you're someone who wants one-on-one support, how do you get that reinforcement? And how can you be around other people who are on a similar journey and supporting this essential relearning of how you think about food in your body? And for folks who might not be ready for one-on-one support, or maybe they never will be, but they just don't have people in their everyday lives who believe that they are worthy at every size and who believe that a brownie is okay to eat without apologizing after. Um, this is a place where you can go and and really heal. So that's the vision behind it. And so when you're a community member, as you said, there's a free version which we launched, and it's really about learning and exploring. You can meet other community members. We've got live chats going every single day on we bust myths, we do um live polls, we um we have self-care Saturday, we do Foodie Friday, we have Thriving Thursday, and really just helping people see that intuitive eating can really work for you and be a support in your life. And then we have a whole resource library of um different materials that people can view for free on their own time and dive into the principles within intuitive eating that matter most to them. So if you're someone who is constantly eating past fullness, there's a handful of resources in there on how, you know, what do you do about that? How do you, how do you um pause and and kind of stop midway through and decide if you should continue eating or not, or what's going on for you psychologically that is making you continually eat past fullness. So there's this resource library and there's these great live chats. And then for folks who are ready to heal their relationship with food, they understand what intuitive eating is and they want that transformation, there is a premium membership called the balanced plate. And that's where they can sign up for monthly workshops, which I think we're actually shifting those to be coaching clinics, so less education and more group coaching so that it can be more transformative for folks. We've got a book club running. On the Intuitive Eating Book Club. We have weekly challenges so that folks can practice the different principles of intuitive eating and then report back and see how that went for them. And then we have ask me anything opportunities. So every week you can submit your questions. They can be anonymous or they can be public for the community, and I'll share my answer. And um, the other thing that I'm really excited about is I'm launching a referral directory for intuitive eating certified dietitians, therapists, and physicians who are body positive and weight inclusive. So that if you want to go one-on-one with someone, a lot of them accept health insurance, a lot of them specialize in women's health, um, PCOS, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, anxiety, you know, different eating disorders. And then you you'll be able to go in and filter by location, what specialists you want to see, um, what conditions you're looking to go deeper on. And then it really will be kind of a big, a whole continuum of care. You can have your community and then you can have your providers as well.
Christina Kohl:Amazing. And so how do people, if they want to learn more about the community or about you, like how how can they connect with you or you or even jump on your newsletter?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the newsletter URL is fullplate news.com. And if they want to learn more about the community itself, they can visit the sign-up page at joinfulplate.com. And um always around on LinkedIn if anyone wants to pop over and get after.
Christina Kohl:And the community is through it's it's not in person. I just want to clarify because sometimes when we hear community, we think, oh, we're gonna meet you at the library and we're gonna sit around the table. Yes, it's all through an app. I'm holding up my phone, like it's all here. Um, and so and it's basically available 24-7. All those resources that you mentioned. Um, I I would say my favorite part so far is the Foodie Friday, I think it's called. Just getting new recipes. And I remember someone had asked, like, can can I adjust this for paleo? And your response was so kind. You're like, well, we don't really focus on one particular type of diet, but yes, certainly you can make whatever adjustments you want. This is a starting point for you.
Speaker 1:Um we don't do meal plans, so the recipes are all ideas, everyone has different food preferences, food tolerances. And so I always say on Foodie Friday, take it or leave it, or make the swaps that feel best for you. We've got vegetarians, you know, and it's really hard to find something for everyone. Right.
Christina Kohl:But it's yeah, you've got the gluten-free, you've got like, don't serve me coconut, I will not eat it. Um, I know some people love it, but um, so yeah, it's uh that's one of my favorite features is like just new and interesting recipes with beautiful pictures, too. Um all right. Well, Aimee, is there anything that we haven't talked about that you feel like we should before we wrap up?
Speaker 1:No, I I really appreciate you having me. And I hope that my wild and crazy career journey is helpful to folks. I think um, you know, to your point, it's really about recognizing what those transferable skills are and recognizing what you actually really love to do. And sometimes you, in my case, I had to invent my own career because it didn't exist before.
Christina Kohl:It didn't exist. Well, and I love so many parts about your your experience, but especially what you just shared about building up this community. You've invested in it, not just your time and energy, but you've you've hired a community builder or I've hired a marketing expert. I if we get the right term for that person, but you have hired help. Like you're like, I am all in. Like you it's obvious. And so that's exciting to see how see the growth, you know, and it's still so new. Um, and I'm sure it's just gonna continue to explode that that growth, you're you're on the right path, is what is what it looks like to me from the from someone on the outside. So thank you for sharing your gifts. That question earlier about who are you not to do this, right? So thank you for stepping into that and sharing what you know and um making it available to so many, so many other people.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it, Christina. And thank you for joining the community and being so supportive. And um, it's just been a pleasure being connected to you through social media and and professionally, and um I love being part of your oh, thank you.
Christina Kohl:And it's a great example of meeting people on LinkedIn. I mean, it's it is a networking platform, and I know for myself until the last couple of years, it's like scary, and people are gonna see what I post. Like, well, yeah, that's the point. But you know, um, but I've I, you know, it was a pleasure getting to know you this past year or so. And um, and yeah, thank you for being a guest on the show. I say I'm like, okay, who do I need to have on the show? I it's Aimee. I need to hear Aimee's story because you the all of those twists and turf curves to have you land right where you are today and where where you need to be, where the world needs you. Um yeah, I'm excited to dig into intuitive eating a little bit more um and learn more about it. And that book sounds like an amazing book to tap into as well, and and maybe join that book club to learn more about it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. All right. Awesome.
Christina Kohl:Okay, well, we're gonna, like I said, put everything in the show notes, the links to the full to the community, to your newsletter. So thank you for coming on and sharing your story, your career pivots, and your um I don't know how what to how I don't know how to summarize it with like what you're what you're doing now. You're my journey. Sharing your journey. I I want what I'm trying to say is your um it's like you've been awakened and you're flourishing and doing what you're supposed to do. If that makes sense.
Speaker 1:That's how it feels. I'm so glad you see that. That's really how it feels.
Christina Kohl:Yeah, that's awesome. Well, thank you so much. And everyone, thanks for listening. Thank you so much for listening today. I hope this episode hit home for you. And if you haven't already, be sure to connect with me on LinkedIn and say hello. I can personally thank you for listening. Until next time, remember that your story is immediately your own, and your next chapters are ready to begin.