Official Bio

Sheila Viers is a Health and Lifestyle Coach that is passionate about helping women break free from yo-yo dieting and self-sabotage so they can ROCK their dream body and their dream life.

She leads her #RockYourDreamBody Tribe with her signature non-diet approach, helping women nourish their way toward their physical goals, so they can build confidence, gain energy, and feel amazing in their skin.

Sheila's own healthy living journey began over a decade ago when she decided it was time to end her struggle with body image and food for good. After years of yo-yo dieting, over-exercising, and issues ranging from food sensitivities to hormonal problems, she learned how to get out of body-jail, lost 35 pounds, and now teaches women how to create this freedom and ease in their own lives through a range of programs from jumpstart to full-immersion.

Her mission extends far beyond weight loss and her unique ability to inspire women to step into their confidence and their dream life, is catching fire.

Sheila regularly writes for The Huffington Post and has been featured in many fitness, health, and business publications including Shape, Inc. Magazine, Yahoo Health, Tiny Buddha, The Rise to the Top, Entrepreneur on Fire, Experience Life Magazine, Livestrong, She Owns It, and Under30CEO. Sheila is also the former CEO and Co-founder of Live Well 360, a premium fitness bag company.

My Body Image and Food Freedom Transformation Story

In order for you to understand why I have been so passionate about teaching the non-diet approach to weight loss, I'd like to share a little about my own personal journey.

I started on the road to fat loss at the tender age of 15.

I thought that to be beautiful, I had to be skinny.

Can you relate?

I’d look in the mirror and see all of my flaws and imperfections rather than anything positive. I spent much of high school and college on a diet — you name it, I tried it.

And yet, intermixed with the diets, was a lot of emotional eating and weekend binges, which then led to Monday morning workouts being twice as long and sweaty because I felt like I had to work off my bad behavior.

It was a vicious cycle that just went on and on.

I finished college, started my career, and followed the traditional plan that I thought I was supposed to follow, but something was missing. It was if my body was the last thing I felt I needed to master, and I just couldn’t get a grip.

I was still trying so hard to lose weight, but by that time I was also having all sorts of digestive and hormonal issues too.

That was when I met a trainer who taught me all about portion control and counting calories, which was a whole new way of looking at food for me considering before that, all I ever paid attention to was how many Weight Watchers points something had or how many grams of fat was in it!

Through our work together I was able to lose about 30 pounds and get to the lowest weight I had seen since grade school.

That was such an accomplishment for me. I worked so hard to reach that goal.

But here’s the catch...

Throughout that period of my life when I was counting calories and measuring everything I ate, I didn’t do a ton of things socially with friends because most times, going out involved going to a restaurant or bar. And I was so afraid of the temptation to eat or drink something that would derail my weight loss… so I wouldn’t go.

The truth is that after I got to my weight loss goal, I was twice as scared to be in social situations because now that I got what I wanted, I was so afraid of gaining all the weight back.

This was silly, right… what kind of life is that to live long-term?

Sure you can be a hermit for a little while, but I am a foodie at my core, and I really wanted to be able to have that experience of a fun night out with friends enjoying food and not beat myself up if I chose to eat something other than what I had convinced myself were the only foods I was allowed to eat.

Not to mention I was really getting tired of grilled chicken breast and steamed broccoli, one of my typical weeknight meals!

And… I was still struggling with binge behaviors.

Walking through Whole Foods with all the samples was trouble with a capital T!

I’d end up eating things I didn’t even really like, simply because they were in front of me.

I knew that I was sabotaging myself and blocking true happiness and peace with my body. It was time to make some changes because restriction just didn’t work for me.

I was letting my life pass me by in this weird sort of self-induced prison of extremes.

I thought that getting to my goal weight would magically make me feel good about myself and cure the negative self-talk but it didn’t. In many ways, it just made it louder.

And I think a lot of women go through this, certainly this is where a lot of my clients are at when they find me.

The truth is, at some point you realize that that thing you’ve been chasing after for so long – whether it’s a number on the scale, fitting into your skinny jeans, or healing your physical ailments or imbalances – crossing that imaginary finish line isn’t going to make you happy like you thought it would.

I thought getting to that number on the scale would suddenly give me the freedom to live my life and stop obsessing over my body, but instead I ended up feeling even more fearful, sad, and deprived than before.

And that’s when I decided I was done with restriction and self-judgement. It was time to embark on a new adventure to nourish my way, both emotionally and physically, toward my goals.

How I Finally Maintained Weight Loss Without Deprivation

When people ask me to pinpoint the biggest game-changer for me on what I did that made the biggest difference, I tell them one thing for sure stands out.

It was that I was finally ready to let go of beating myself up all the time.

I was so hard on myself! I promised myself that as hard as it was going to be, I was ready to accept my body and even to love it, cellulite, stretch marks and all.

I also stumbled upon the book The Slow Down Diet by Marc David, which taught me all about the connection between our emotions and our physical body. Our emotions really do have a direct physiological affect on how well our body functions as a system (ahem… hello metabolism and digestion).

And that’s where my healthier relationship with everything from food, to fitness, to my body, began.

It didn’t happen overnight, but I eventually found my balance with my ideal weight, my hormone imbalances “fixed themselves”, my digestive issues cleared up, and overall, I became so much happier and at peace with myself.

If you would have told me 10 years ago that this was going to happen, I wouldn’t have believed you because it felt so out of reach to think I could ever get to a place where dieting, food, and weight loss wasn’t the first thing I thought about in the morning and the last thing that crossed my mind before bed. But I healed myself. And if I can, you can too.

And you know, I don’t regret the zig-zaggy path I took to get to where I am today. All of the challenges, self-sabotage, the laundry list of diets, the obsessive researching, the calorie counting — all of it was good for me because each phase was a stepping stone in this beautiful unfolding of the woman I am today.

I wouldn’t have the clarity and confidence that I do now, without all of these experiences that helped me decide what I DO want for my life.

It’s all forward progress. I know now that this journey of evolution is forever unfolding. The truth is, there is no finish line because the beauty of being human is that we always want more… we always have new goals we set for ourselves. That’s the point of being alive!

What I’ve learned and what I now teach to my clients is that this is not a journey of “when I get there then I will be happy” but rather a journey of self-discovery, adventure, and self-love. We GET to nourish our way toward our goals because it’s fun to have goals. NOT because we need to measure up to any certain expectations in order to be worthy of love or a happy life.