Today we’d like to introduce you to Eliza Kingsford.
Hi Eliza, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
As a teenager, I knew I was going to major in psychology and that passion has never changed. From a very young age, with some unfortunate trauma in my background, I was fascinated with human behavior. Why we do the things we do? How do we come who we become? These questions drove me to study psychology both in undergraduate school at CU Boulder and then again in my graduate studies at CU Denver. As I worked towards my clinical licensure, I studied eating disorders and the psychology of eating and weight related behavior. Eventually, I trained with some of the best minds in the field of eating disorders, obesity medicine and the psychology of eating. I started my career as a therapist working with traditional eating disorders, moved into the field of overweight and obesity management and eventually began training clinicians who wanted to work in this area. Over time, however, I found limitations to what my traditional education had taught me about the origins of weight related behavior and I began searching for a better, more compete way to help my clients. Eventually this led to the development of a change model that I use to this day that combines cutting edge neuroscience and nervous system theories with the traditional cognitive behavioral methods I was originally trained in. I have used this change model to help thousands of people who are looking to end their struggle with food, weight and body image issues.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Definitely not a smooth road! As a therapist who started in the field of eating disorders, I was expected to have certain beliefs about how to address a client’s desire to lose weight. The more I listened to my clients and the more experience I gained in the field, the less I gravitated towards the “traditional” viewpoints I was taught in graduate school and this presented some challenges in the early days of my career. I once got invited to speak at a large summit, and then subsequently univited when one of the other well known speakers heard I was going to share the stage because my message conflicted with her anti-diet message which was very popular at the time. But I was determined to prove that it’s possible to BOTH love, accept and appreciate your body AND have a desire to lose weight from a healthy perspective. This was a radical stance at a time when intuitive eating and health at every size were the popular narratives. Ultimately, I align with many of the principles in both intuitive eating and HAES philosophies, I just have an expanded view of them both. As a female executive in a largely male dominated parent company, I faced my share of criticism and pushback. I was once told it would be a lot better if I weren’t a mom (read: female and a caregiver) after I turned down the opportunity to open a clinical facility in another state because my husband and I didn’t want to leave Colorado! Another time, after the parent company decided to cut the entire division of our organization I was chastised for being “too emotional, it’s just business” after having to fire an entire company I’d spent years working with. I’ll never apologize for being emotional about letting someone go. We are all humans, after all. Yet another time, a mentor I looked up to told me he wouldn’t mentor me in writing because it would “take too much time to get me any good at it”. A few years later, I became published author from a major publishing company. Ultimately, I look back and am incredibly grateful for every challenge I’ve faced in my career. Each one has refined the leader and clinician I am today and, as cliche as it may sound, I truly wouldn’t change a thing.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Eliza Kingsford, Founder of The Shift Program?
I’m a psychotherapist, best-selling author, and founder of The Shift, a nervous-system program designed to help women change their relationship with food, weight, and their bodies by addressing something that has been missing from traditional weight-loss solutions: the brain and nervous system; which happen to be the drivers behind all of our behavior – not just weight related behaviors.
My approach combines psychology, applied neuroscience, nervous system theory and other evidence-based practices to help people address the deeper patterns driving their behavior—instead of simply trying harder to override them.
And I think that distinction is especially important right now. Today, we have incredibly powerful weight-loss medications that can significantly alter appetite, cravings, and food noise for many people. I’m not anti-medication at all. But medications alone still don’t address the emotional, psychological, and nervous-system patterns underneath someone’s patterns with food.
We’ve seen the impact of not addressing the deeper drivers of emotions and an over-reliance on medication before, and it didn’t lead to a happier, more resilient population.
What I’m most proud of is that my program, The Shift, isn’t really about teaching women how to lose weight. Once they come into the program, they quickly realize weight struggles are often a symptom of something deeper and more profound. Through The Shift approach, I’ve been able to help people transform their lives in a way they never thought possible. It’s incredibly rewarding work.
Women come into our world believing they lack discipline or that something is fundamentally wrong with them because they’ve spent decades succeeding in so many areas of their lives while continuing to struggle with food and weight. When they begin to understand the role their brain & nervous system have played the entire conversation changes.
That’s the work I’m best known for: bringing a more integrated, and scientifically informed understanding of human behavior into an industry that has relied far too heavily on telling people to simply eat less, move more, and try harder.
Ultimately, however, my mission is much bigger than weight loss. My goal is to make nervous system health a foundational part of what it means to be human, as ubiquitous as brushing your teeth or getting a good night’s sleep—and to give people practical tools that help them create a more flexible and resilient nervous system. I think humanity need this now more than ever
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
I think my father would describe me as stubborn and bull-headed. As a child, I’m sure that was hardest on my parents! But as an adult, I believe those same qualities have led to the success of my clinical work. It bothered me that my education felt incomplete to help clients the way I wanted to help them, so I went looking for the answers myself and dove into literature, research and fields that were newer and “fringe” at the time, but that we now consider gold standard and cutting edge. My stubbornness to serve my clients in the highest way possible continues to drive my success today.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.elizakingsford.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elizakingsford
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/askelizakingsford
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ekingsford
