Lia is a weight loss coach, yoga teacher, and educator in the San Francisco Bay Area.
After earning a Master's in Education from Stanford University and a B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley, Lia went on to teach in public schools for many years. It was there she became acutely aware of the national epidemic of low self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-worth of teenage girls. All of the pressures and expectations placed on girls, especially during adolescence, takes a huge toll on their confidence and emotional well-being, and of course her own adolescence had been no exception. Determined to make a difference, Lia founded Strong Girls Soar, a program designed to raise the self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-worth of all girls and to empower them to feel bold, brilliant, and beautiful in their own skin.
In the creation and building of Strong Girls Soar, Lia learned through extensive research that a girl's self-image and well-being is most strongly influenced by the self-image and well-being of her own mother or mother-figure. All of the intentional work Lia put in to raising the self-confidence and body image of girls was countered by implicit and explicit messages from their mothers. Most often, mothers were completely unaware of the messages they were sending to their daughters, thinking that their own poor self-image was somehow a "secret" that they were keeping, when really the girls knew about it intensely. It was then that Lia decided to incorporate coaching not just girls but women, and mothers of girls in particular, around body image and self-confidence. She was determined to help women feel good in their own skin.
Despite struggling to manage her own weight since childhood, Lia had always had a strong self-image as an adult and wanted to help women, no matter what their bodies looked like, do the same. But then something changed: after training as a life coach with Martha Beck, and then later as a weight loss coach, she effortlessly and enthusiastically lost over 20 pounds-- weighing less in her 40's than she did in her 20's. Most importantly, she learned how to stop worrying (read: obsessing) about food and weight and start focusing on what really mattered in her life.
After earning a Master's in Education from Stanford University and a B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley, Lia went on to teach in public schools for many years. It was there she became acutely aware of the national epidemic of low self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-worth of teenage girls. All of the pressures and expectations placed on girls, especially during adolescence, takes a huge toll on their confidence and emotional well-being, and of course her own adolescence had been no exception. Determined to make a difference, Lia founded Strong Girls Soar, a program designed to raise the self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-worth of all girls and to empower them to feel bold, brilliant, and beautiful in their own skin.
In the creation and building of Strong Girls Soar, Lia learned through extensive research that a girl's self-image and well-being is most strongly influenced by the self-image and well-being of her own mother or mother-figure. All of the intentional work Lia put in to raising the self-confidence and body image of girls was countered by implicit and explicit messages from their mothers. Most often, mothers were completely unaware of the messages they were sending to their daughters, thinking that their own poor self-image was somehow a "secret" that they were keeping, when really the girls knew about it intensely. It was then that Lia decided to incorporate coaching not just girls but women, and mothers of girls in particular, around body image and self-confidence. She was determined to help women feel good in their own skin.
Despite struggling to manage her own weight since childhood, Lia had always had a strong self-image as an adult and wanted to help women, no matter what their bodies looked like, do the same. But then something changed: after training as a life coach with Martha Beck, and then later as a weight loss coach, she effortlessly and enthusiastically lost over 20 pounds-- weighing less in her 40's than she did in her 20's. Most importantly, she learned how to stop worrying (read: obsessing) about food and weight and start focusing on what really mattered in her life.
The ability to both lose weight and to NOT worry about food or weight, living effortlessly and confidently in her own skin, has been the ultimate game changer.
Nothing has been the same since.
Nothing has been the same since.
Education and Training
Education
Coach Training
Yoga and Meditation Training
- M.A. Stanford University, 2008
- UC Berkeley, Magna Cum Laude, 2005
Coach Training
- Martha Beck Institute, 2017
- Brooke Castillo (SCS), 2018
Yoga and Meditation Training
- Yoga
- 200 hour RYS Vinyasa Flow, 2014
- Perinatal Training, Jane Austen 2018
- Experience with Bikram, Ashtanga, Kundalini, Yin/Restorative, Gentle, Pre/Post Natal
- Meditation
- Trained in the Tibetan Shambhala lineage (2007)