Your Body is Your Life Partner

Not Your Life’s Project.

Add me to the waiting list!

What if you could…

Step over the threshold of midlife and see elderhood as a time to emerge as your truest self.

Focus on nourishing yourself for vitality and worry less about your body’s size and shape.

Approach midlife and beyond as a time to break free from old beliefs about your body.

Few things will bring more empowerment and ease into your life than learning to trust yourself and your body.

Do food and exercise rules have you feeling confused and overwhelmed?

Is aging bringing up fear of your body changing, becoming irrelevant, and anxiety about your health?

Have you tried Intuitive Eating and want the support of a group of women your age?

Are you in recovery from disordered eating or chronic dieting and feel health anxieties and “anti-aging” messages pulling you back to old habits?

As women in midlife and older, we waste far too much of our precious time and energy worrying about our weight and following restrictive rules.

It’s time to devote ourselves to what makes us feel genuinely alive!

Few things are more empowering than learning to trust yourself and your body.

Now is the perfect time to dedicate yourself to developing a healthier relationship with your body-a relationship of respect, care, and even appreciation.

Now is the time to let go of the distraction of dieting so you can focus on what really matters.

Now is the time to nourish and care for yourself so that you are able to feel more vitality and ease.

Now is the time to create space for connection, pleasure and freedom.

Aging with Vitality and Body Liberation

An 8-week group coaching program to help you embrace aging with body liberation.

A unique program where concepts are translated into accessible practices for your daily life. This powerful process encourages you to use your whole-brain for whole-hearted transformation.

The Aging with Vitality and Body Liberation Recipe

1ST INGREDIENT

Dismantling limiting body & diet beliefs

Untangling yourself from your outdated beliefs about aging and diet/wellness mess.

2ND INGREDIENT

Caring instead of Controlling

1 - nourishment
2 - playful movement
3 - regulating your nervous system

3RD INGREDIENT

Small, accessible practices

From dismantling rhetoric that no longer serves you to developing new self care practices.

Special Sauce:

A community of inspiring women your age who are ready to uncomplicate their relationship with food, eating, and their bodies, just like you!

Here’s what to expect when you join Aging with Vitality and Body Liberation Group Coaching:

  • Process worksheets that stir up your curiosity and create awareness 

  • Content relating to caring for yourself so that you may meet your unique goals as you age, in the areas of

    • dismantling outdated beliefs about aging

    • shifting from diet culture rule set to self-care mind set

    • nourishing your body to support vital function and energy without harmful deprivation and restriction

    • healing body shame stories to create a more respectful relationship with your body as your life partner

    • Movement as a way to play and find joy

    • regulation of your nervous system to cultivate skills that manage the stress that affects your eating and well-being

  • Weekly 90-minute virtual group coaching sessions with Deb that include processing each week’s content in addition to practices that support embodying these concepts

  • Connection and community with like-minded women who relate to your experiences and share your interest in healing your relationship with food, eating, and your body in this chapter of your life

  • Access to a private community that allows for connection and support between sessions

  • Question and Discovery sessions with Deb each week where your questions that bubble up are discussed and practices are explored further.

What will you be learning each week?

  • We will explore how we learned to look “at” our bodies and how aging may complicate our body stories. We will also discuss, and try on, practices to shift out of our body-criticism patterns and begin to experience living in our bodies through our senses and somatic practices. We will start to recognize and challenge outdated beliefs about aging.

  • We will explore the role of Ageism and the Body Hierarchy within our culture along with our experience, and how we have internalized these messages. We will further explore the understandable pull toward trying to control our body as a way to belong, feel safe, and remain “relevant”.

  • We will discuss a shift in mindset that supports moving away from controlling our bodies’ size and shape toward prioritizing our vitality, sustained energy, and well-being. This process creates awareness of moment-to-moment choice points in our daily lives. We will create practices for breaking free from habitual diet mentality to choices based on compassionate curiosity of our wants and needs.

  • We will discuss the essential nature of learning to regulate our nervous systems and, therefore, our ability to connect with our bodies. This process allows us to receive information about our appetite, improves the function of our brain and gut, and promotes healthy sleep habits. Practice, Practice, Practice

  • We will explore what happens when moving our bodies is no longer about altering/controlling our size and shape and instead becomes about what feels our unique needs and concerns as aging women. This week’s class also includes a mini Gentle, Accessible movement sequence.

  • We will discuss restoring the connection to our bodies’ wisdom and cues to meet our bodies’ need for nourishment. We will focus on the importance of Satisfaction, Pleasure, and the concept of “Balance,” -a vision we are reclaiming from diet culture. We will also discuss the nuances and barriers to noticing and trusting our bodies and strategies for mend broken trust in our relationship with our bodies.

  • We will turn to the most up-to-date nutritional research to help you separate the hype from what is real about food and eating in midlife +

  • We will discuss cultivating awareness of our barriers to caring for our bodies and how we can support our momentum toward intentional changes. The essential nature of self-compassion as we navigate life's tough spots continues to be a part of our process.

Meet Deb

I’m excited that you are here! I’m Deb Benfield and I’ve helped hundreds of women heal their relationship with food, eating, and their bodies in my more than 35-year career as a Dietitian and Coach specializing in treating eating disorders. My work is trauma-informed and rooted in practices that support embodiment, body respect, and the firm belief that you are the expert of your body. When I turned 60, I turned my attention to understanding what choices support vitality and well-being in aging. My recent programs weave together the most up-to-date research in nutrition, body therapies, and behavioral science for Aging, through an anti-diet, body respect and pro-aging lens. My clients will tell you that I have a compassionate and empowering presence. I am fierce in my invitation to divest from the body hierarchy of our ageist diet and wellness culture.

What Participants Like You Are Saying

Before I joined the AVBL group with Deb, I was considering another diet plan and also felt a deep sense of exhaustion due to years, decades, of tinkering with my diet and exercise addiction. Coming now into menopause, I feel a strong pull toward healing and seeing diet/wellness culture for what it is. 

Based on my work in the group, I actually took a whole week off from exercise (working out) in favor of gentle walking, yoga, and kayaking on a river (mainly floating), so I could really listen to my body as a companion [a wonderful term that I learned in the program]. I have noticed that I'm less sore and achy, and my face looks less stressed out/tense. I realized that taking these breaks is essential for my physical and emotional health.

The most significant result of my experience in the AVBL Group with Deb is my deeper sense of trust in my body.  Ever since I can remember, I have automatically tried to adjust or correlate my eating to my exercise (how much to do to burn off whatever I ate). This "voice" is still there, but I am allowing other parts of me to gently emerge. I am excited and curious to learn more and be guided by these gentler parts of me.

-Amy Nolan

I got my money's worth within the first two sessions, and I've been recommending this program to all of my friends. When I signed up, I thought I had a pretty good hold on body liberation and pro-aging. But after the program, I feel so much more free. Deb has created a process to help me befriend my body in a real way throughout the rest of my life. I have a new understanding of what my body really needs, what is just hype I can ignore, and even how to support my children in creating healthy relationships with their bodies. Deb is a trustworthy expert, and she's one of a kind. 

-Annie Schuessler

I am beginning to develop some good practices to help me become more body/self-aware and self-compassionate.  I am becoming so much more aware of ageism in our culture and even within me. The practices and boundary setting are helping me stop trying to “control” my body and instead care for myself.

-Martha Hoey

I feel that I have made steps toward healing my long-standing struggle with body image.  The practices I learned have made a huge difference in accepting myself as I am. I feel heard and understood and know that I am not alone.

-Judith Berger

Before joining the program, I felt stuck in grief about the changes in my body, knowing that I did not want to continue dieting and following food rules, but not knowing how to move forward.

I’ve made many significant changes because of this program. Still, the most significant change is that I check with my instincts and wisdom before seeking answers from external sources about my care and well-being.

Now, I have so much more confidence in my right to care for myself. To show up in this body. To claim what is rightfully mine. To be full of myself.

My creative work as a photographer has really blossomed. All that time I used to spend on maintaining my body shape and size is now freed up for me to work deeply. The more I get to know myself, the more authentic my art becomes. 

-Donna Hopkins

Before we started, I couldn’t see that I would ever be friends with my body or have freedom around eating – having already done so much work but something has really clicked – I feel like I am beginning to really make friends with my body and I’m enjoying eating a greater variety of foods, feel so much freer around food and have so much more enjoyment with no judgment.

-Claire Pugh

I can’t say enough about this wonderful woman and this amazing group! If you want to change your relationship with food and have tried everything else, give this a chance. You won’t regret it. I am making great strides in healing my disordered eating and my relationship with my body. She is a kind, warm, nonjudgmental, caring person who genuinely cares for her clients and wants to see them escape the bondage of diet culture. She has changed my life infinitely for the better.

— Shanon Gaddis

Before the program, I felt besieged by messages that I needed to “fix” my changing body. I was already well into rejecting diet culture, but I still felt bad about myself. Deb’s program opened new approaches to me, and I have begun to develop an attuned and compassionate relationship with my body. I am learning to pay attention to and respond to my hunger cues and ground myself in a mindfulness practice. Deb is a wise and patient teacher and has created an environment for rich conversations and heartfelt sharing with my amazing classmates.

-Christina H.

What do I receive as a participant?

  • 8 virtual weekly 90-minute coaching sessions with Deb and the recording

  • 8 virtual weekly 60-minute question and discovery sessions with Deb and the recording

  • Some modules will include pre-work, some modules will include homework, and all will include content to support each module.

  • Access to this inspiring group of women via a private community forum for the length of the program.

  • Group Coaching sessions will take place on Tuesdays at 12:00 pm EST via Zoom. 

  • Question and Discovery sessions will occur on Friday at 12:00 pm EST via Zoom.

  • Dates for the Next Cohort:

    • Early Bird Registration is open from November 21st to December 1st.

    • Early Birds receive a $200 discount!

    • Registration closes December 9th.

    • The group program runs from January 7th to February 25th.

    • Group size is small to encourage access to the group process.

      Join the waiting list to receive details and be the first in line!

  • Investment- $1095 (can be paid in 4 monthly payments with no additional fee)

FAQs

  • What is the refund policy for this group coaching program?

This is an “I’m all in!” program. No refunds will be offered.

  • Can I use my health insurance policy to pay for this?

I am not your individual Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist, therefore, you cannot use your health insurance for payment.

You may however use your FSA or HSA card for payment.