About me

Hi there! I am Elizabeth Mauro. I am a National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC) who helps women find peace with food, even when it feels impossible.

My Story

As far back as I can remember, I struggled with my relationship to food and my body. Binge eating, emotional eating, crash diets, laxatives, diet pills, and overexercising were the norm for me throughout high school and college. Caught in an all or nothing way of thinking and being, I would fluctuate between compulsive bingeing and attempting to restrict myself or overexercise to “fix” what I had done. This in turn, would only lead to more bingeing, as well as feelings of being out of control.

Instead of seeing food as nourishment and something to be enjoyed and savored, it felt like a constant battle. Filled with so much guilt and shame around food, if I ate a few cookies or a piece of pie, I felt like I had ruined everything and had to start over - so I might as well just finish the whole batch right then and there. So dramatic, I know, but if you have been a compulsive, emotional, or restrictive eater for some time, then you know exactly what I mean.

As things would work out, this is how my passion for nutrition sprouted and began to grow, even to the point where I decided to major in it at university. Yet despite being in the midst of a dietetics program and learning all about human nutrition and metabolism, I stayed stuck in the binge-restrict cycle for years.

After graduating from college in 2006, I started working in the nutrition department at a local hospital. My plan was to work for a year and then complete my dietetic internship. Around this time, I was also working at a restaurant. I met a woman there who was living a bit more off the beaten path than most people around me. She had just returned from a solo backpacking trip through Asia for a year, had lived in Peru before that, and had spent time traveling in other parts of the world as well, all by herself. Listening to her stories of travel lit a fire in me that I hadn’t felt in a long time, if ever.

Her bravery inspired me. I knew I couldn’t keep on going the way I was going because I just felt so stuck. I was finding myself more and more drawn to the adventure of taking off with a backpack and experiencing that freedom for myself. I quit my job at the hospital, put thoughts of my internship on hold, and booked a two-month backpacking trip to Europe. With a rail pass and a loose itinerary, this was the beginning of an incredible journey, as well as a transformative cycle for me.

After traveling by train for 8 weeks all over Europe, I came back with a zest for life that I hadn’t felt since I was a child. I still struggled with binge eating and my relationship with my body, but something had shifted within me:

Travel had exposed me to new perspectives and customs that I had never experienced before. It expanded my awareness and shifted my perceptions of my inner and outer worlds. It gifted me the opportunities for self reflection. And since travel can be so unpredictable, it encourages patience and requires releasing attachment to how we think things should be, which allows life to flow a bit more organically. I definitely wasn’t the same person I was 8 weeks prior.

Traveling became an indispensable tool that I used to start building the foundation I needed in order to create a healthy connection within my body. After Europe, I expanded my horizons and began my travels through South and Central America. I found myself in awe of the most lush and vibrant rainforests and mountains. I felt a wave of magic that deepened my connection to the earth - learning to appreciate the fresh food I ate and the clean air I breathed. Despite my devotion of taking in everything this mystical world could offer, I still found myself fixated on how uncomfortable I was in my body and how much I wanted to change it. I knew I was on an empowering journey and recognized that I had made small strides in cultivating a healthy relationship myself, but I realized I still had a long way to go.

I can remember being in my hostel one night after having such an incredible day in the mountains and just falling to the ground in tears because I felt like no matter what I did I would never be comfortable in my own skin. I was experiencing the trip of a lifetime, surrounded by absolute beauty, and all I could think about was how much I hated my body.

I felt totally alone and ashamed. I didn’t understand how I could have a degree in nutrition and still struggle - every single day. Back then, I didn’t have the awareness that creating and sustaining a healthy relationship with my body would take time. I also realized that I didn’thave the coping skills that I needed to do so yet. But after reading back through my journal entries, I recognize how far I had already come - even though I still had a lot of work to do. I finally had started to come to the realization that my bingeing wasn’t about food at all.

After I came back from Central and South America, I enrolled in the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and joined their last live class back in 2010. For the first time in my life, I started to really connect the dots around my relationship with food, seeing it as a mirror for my relationship with myself and with life. I remember being in the auditorium listening to Geneen Roth speak, and finding myself laughing and crying in the same breath because I could so deeply relate to what she was saying.

When I was in the height of my struggles, I had a long list of all the ways that I was going to change my body and restrict my diet. It was always about fixing and improving my body so that I could finally live my life to the fullest. I truly believed that once I lost the weight that I had gained from bingeing and “got control” over my eating, then and only then could I love and accept myself completely.

Yet, it wasn’t until I began to work towards loving and accepting myself as I was, regardless of what I ate or how much I weighed, that I was able to learn how to listen to my body and eat intuitively.

My Education & Background

I completed my B.S. in nutrition at the University of Connecticut and then later completed my health coach training through the Institute of Integrative Nutrition (IIN). As of December of 2021, I am a National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC) through the National Board for Health & Wellness Coaching (NBHWC). I completed both my Reiki I & II certifications and am currently enrolled in the Chopra Meditation Enrichment Program.

Since graduating from IIN back in 2010, my coaching practice has been focused on helping women find peace with food. Together we explore the possible roots and drivers of emotional eating, create a clear vision as to what is possible, and work towards implementing client-led, action steps that are sustainable.

In addition to one-on-one coaching, back in 2016, I joined the Student Success team at Integrative Nutrition (IIN), and am currently still supporting students and graduates enrolled in the advanced courses there in English & Spanish. I have been a course instructor and moderator for the Emotional Eating Course at IIN since it launched in 2019. This course is centered around navigating the complex and sensitive topic that is emotional eating.

I previously worked as a Community Health Educator for CHNCT for close to a decade, educating members in English & Spanish, in low income communities across Connecticut. This included teaching classes on nutrition, heart health, diabetes, etc.

Outside of work, I love to read, travel, practice yoga, pilates, CrossFit, and travel. Forever a student of languages, I am currently learning Portuguese & Sanskrit.

Hi, Im Elizabeth. I am a National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC) who helps women find peace with food, even when it feels impossible.