I am Mery Viñas, psychologist and health coach, expert in the Psychology of Eating.
I am here to help women have a better relationship with food, lower stress levels (as well as emotional eating), for them to be able to enjoy eating and live without restrictions.
I strongly believe that no one deserves to spend their life dealing with different types of diets. No one deserves a life full of restrictions. Thoughts of “I should eat this” or “I should not eat this” are destructive. No one deserves having emotions buried between food that will afterwards bring guilt.
I believe that only by taking care of ourselves we will be able to heal our relationship with food and accept the present that surrounds us. Losing (or gaining) weight should not be the final goal, but a consequence of that whole process, which is only achieved when we work on our internal obstacle while we reconcile with our emotions.
I am Mery Viñas, psychologist and health coach, expert in the Psychology of Eating.
I am here to help women have a better relationship with food, lower stress levels (as well as emotional eating), for them to be able to enjoy eating and live without restrictions.
I strongly believe that no one deserves to spend their life dealing with different types of diets. No one deserves a life full of restrictions. Thoughts of “I should eat this” or “I should not eat this” are destructive. No one deserves having emotions buried between food that will afterwards bring guilt.
I believe that only by taking care of ourselves we will be able to heal our relationship with food and accept the present that surrounds us. Losing (or gaining) weight should not be the final goal, but a consequence of that whole process, which is only achieved when we work on our internal obstacle while we reconcile with our emotions.
My mission is to partner with women to help them improve their relationship with food by working on self-understanding. The result: Learn to manage stress and emotional eating, and to enjoy nourishment and a life without restrictions.
Eating should always be a pleasure!
But who am I to talk about all this?
Although I have always of a small figure, during my teen years I was on extreme diets (weeks of eating only pineapple and chicken). I was an anxious eater. I had periods of eating everything and periods of heavily restricted eating that lasted for years. It wasn’t until many years later that I got to understand the reason why. I didn’t want a “perfect” body, I was instead covering what my mind, emotions, and body were telling me about myself and my self-confidence. The first and last obstacle was me. I had chosen not to love myself. Today, I can see that I needed to be loved by others before I could love myself. Hiding was my strategy to seek refuge and get relief.
Oftentimes there is no need to go that far, we only need to realize how society overuses “perfect”: the perfect food, the perfect mom, the perfect work… Even when knowing that none of these exist. If there was a perfect diet, wouldn’t everyone follow it? We also live in a world that has normalized chronic stress and fast-paced life where being occupied and multitasking is the norm.
It is not possible to change habits while stressed.
Women have fought hard to be able to have many of the rights and freedom that we have today. However, there is still a long road ahead of us. We need to break the chains and stereotypes. We need to be emotionally freed. Suppressing our emotions leads us to seek relief elsewhere. And often, food is the vehicle used to feel freed. We can’t wait for the society to change. Each of us needs to start by changing the paradigm.
That is why I approach women in this space. I explain what doesn’t allow us to live a life being happy with our image, our eating habits and, in the end, with ourselves.
Life should be way easier and much more interesting than spending our days counting calories and stepping on the scale.
Be less strict with yourself and enjoy more!
If you want to know how I partner with women throughout their process of learning to enjoy eating and life, you can continue reading
Here you can find a bit more about my professional career.
This can also be found at my LinkedIn
I am a psychologist with a degree from Barcelona University, Spain, although I’ve always thought of myself as a psychologist even before getting my degree (friends have always told me so).
I am a coach certified by the ICF (International Coach Federation), where I found my calling.
I have a Masters in Personal Development and Leadership by Borja Vilaseca. This training literally changed my life, allowing me to be brave and to be what I am today.
I am a NLP Practitioner, because using the mind and language through models are vital to change patterns and create new habits.
I have been trained a in several courses on Mindfulness (MBSR-esMindfulness Institute) and Mindful Eating (Mireia Hurtado), an essential tool to improve the relationship between stress and eating.
Currently in the process of being certified in Mind Body Eating Coach by Institute for the Psychology of Eating in Colorado, a training that allows me to learn more about the connection between mind, emotion, and body, and the relationships with eating.
For more than 8 years I have been being trained in Eneagram in California by Russ Hudson, Ginger Lapid-Bogda, Uranio Paes, Beatrice Chestnut, and my mentor Gema de la Rosa in order to keep learning about myself, as well as being able to understand human beings’ motivations and personalities from a different point of view.
Other parts of myself
Because we all need to honor our past, here you will learn other interesting facts about me:
After studying psychology, I received a Masters in Business Communication, which led me to work in Communication and HR for 10 years. Also, I have always had an interest in journalism.
In 2013, I left everything behind in order to focus exclusively on coaching and business training, which led me to Health Coaching and the Psychology of Eating.
I was born in Madrid, Spain, and moved to Barcelona, Spain, when I was 9. I currently live in Silicon Valley, home of technology and personal growth.
Being a mom is the most thrilling and challenging role I could have ever imagined. I discover new sides of myself that I would like to improve every single day.
