Eating Free is an empathy-driven, personalised coaching programme that supports anyone facing challenges with food, eating and their weight. 

It offers a sustainable approach to food and eating, grounded in the lived experience and lasting recovery of its founder and lead coach—someone who personally overcame her eating difficulties.

At Eating Free, you will find a safe, compassionate space to heal your relationship with food, your body and yourself. Our coaching programmes are tailored to your unique needs and circumstances. 

Eating Free is for anyone over the age of 21 who is tired of their eating struggles and wants to heal their relationship with food and their body. 

The programme offers a supportive and non-judgmental environment to empower you to nourish yourself and build a life free of eating struggles.

Eating Free is not a diet, but rather a sustainable approach to eating and self-care that:

• Helps you reconnect with your body
• Encourages mindful eating.
• Avoids quick-fix diets and calorie counting, rather guiding food choices with a focus on nutrition, enjoyment and health.
• Helps build trust in your body.
• Supports reaching your natural healthy weight—whether that means gaining or losing weight, or just staying the same. 

You can choose from three coaching options:

Option 1 – “Build and Sustain Your Eating Free Journey.”

• This is an 8-week programme, with one 40-minute coaching session per week.

Not at all.

If you feel that your relationship with food is holding you back from living fully or feeling happy, you’re welcome here.

Eating Free coaching is for anyone who wants to build a healthier, more empowered approach to eating—whether or not you’ve received a formal diagnosis.

Our coaching is rooted in lived experience—your coach has personally overcome eating and food struggles and now offers compassionate, practical guidance to help you find peace with food and yourself.

If you have been diagnosed with an eating disorder, we can support you too.

If you are living with diabetes, you are also welcome. Our lead coach lives a wonderful productive life – and lives with diabetes.

Eating Free coaching can complement medical or therapeutic care you may already be receiving. And if we feel you need medical or professional support beyond coaching, we’ll guide you in that direction.

Absolutely. 

Receiving guidance and coaching from someone who knows what you are going through can make all the difference to your motivation to recover from your eating disorder.

Your coach will walk with you on your journey towards breaking out of negative eating disorder cycles and learning to eat and live in a positive way. 

Eating Free coaching can complement medical or therapeutic care you may already be receiving. And if we feel you need medical or professional support beyond coaching, we’ll guide you in that direction.

Eating challenges—especially binge eating and eating disorders—can seriously affect your health. If your physical or mental health is at risk, we will recommend you seek medical care. Once your health is stable, Eating Free will be ready to support your journey to food freedom and self-trust.

We offer coaching:

Online to clients across South Africa and internationally.

In person in Johannesburg and Pretoria, Gauteng.

You will work with the founder and lead coach of Eating Free, Alexandra van Essche, who brings her personal experience of overcoming eating difficulties and learning to eat joyfully to her coaching.

Her approach is informed by a deep understanding of eating challenges and what it takes to overcome them.

Coaching sessions are supportive, non-judgmental and grounded in empathy.

In future, clients who have sustained their Eating Free journey may be invited to become coaches themselves, provided they meet certain requirements.

This will help expand the peer support network and build a cohort of coaches who provide empathy and lived experience to anyone struggling.

Lived experience support sees people who have mastered similar challenges or life experiences connect with those that are still battling to offer compassionate support backed by effective strategies and accurate information, empowering them to end their eating and weight difficulties. 

You can start by booking a FREE 15-minute consultation. This gives you a chance to ask questions, share what you are going through, and see if the programme feels like the right fit for you. Book your free consultation now.

Eating Free coaching understands how overwhelming daily life can feel when you’re struggling with food, your body, or eating difficulties—including eating disorders.

We’re here to help you move away from quick-fix solutions that rarely bring peace or lasting change. That can be hard to accept—but it’s a vital first step in creating real, sustainable transformation.

Through one-on-one support, we help you build a nourishing, trusting relationship with food and with your body—so you can learn to eat and live again without regret, shame or guilt.

Every step of the programme is tailored to your unique needs and your life—making it not only practical but truly empowering.

The Eating Free Coaching Programme helps clients find a better way to eat and live in order to achieve lasting change, and sustainable healthy weight loss – or weight gain – in the longer-term.

Eating Free is not a weight loss programme – weight loss diets seldom bring about weight loss that you can sustain in the long-term. 

Your Coach will support you with taking your attention away from the weight you may want to lose and work with you to build a life free from food and weight anxiety. 

Eating Free does not prescribe foods, portions or calorie limits.

Instead, it helps you understand what your body needs throughout the day and supports you with learning how to choose foods and eat with care.

Eating Free is about trusting yourself, believing in yourself and instilling a strong will to end the food and weight struggle.

It is not about restriction. It is about empowerment and lasting change. 

Your natural weight is the range your body settles into and maintains when you nourish it well, move regularly and enjoy activities that don’t involve food or cooking. 

You do not need a scale to know you are at your natural weight—you will feel it in how comfortable you feel in your body.

Eating Free is about building a better way to eat and live and leaving eating habits that don’t support you, your happiness or your health behind.

Clients on the Eating Free programme can start to introduce more positive approaches to food and eating in their homes, meaning everyone benefits. 

Your Eating Free coach will support you with this process. 

Food freedom means being able to enjoy food without guilt, shame or fear.

It’s about having a peaceful, healthy relationship with food—where eating is a way to nourish your body and bring enjoyment, not a response to stress, overwhelm or emotional discomfort.

Movement is encouraged as part of self-care—not as a punishment or weight loss tool.

Whether it is walking, swimming, gardening, dancing, yogo or spending some time in the gym, choose what brings you joy. 

Movement supports your physical and mental wellbeing, but how you move is up to you.

Managing diabetes can increase stress around eating and concerns about weight, often leaving you feeling alone in your battle.

Your coach understands this firsthand, living well with diabetes herself.

She recovered from her eating challenges and now helps others do the same—offering guidance grounded in empathy and lived experience.

You can enjoy a peaceful relationship with food and enjoy good diabetes control as well. 

Yes. Eating Free supports recovery from eating disorders. 

Your coach, fully recovered herself, will guide you in creating a life where food and eating no longer causes regret, fear or guilt.

Eating Free Coaching is right for anyone who is struggling with food, eating and their weight, as well as anyone battling with an eating disorder, and wants to end this battle.

Our coaching also supports people who live with diabetes and feel overwhelmed by managing their diabetes, as well as eating and weight worries.

Eating Free focuses on the importance of looking after yourself while learning to eat in a way that does not make you feel stressed or unhappy. It provides you with the tools and guidance you need to end your eating and weight worries. 

Eating Free is designed to complement any support you may need or be receiving from a healthcare professional. 

Coaching is affordable. Please visit our Coaching tab for more detail on Eating Free’s coaching options, prices and plans.

If you need support but find Eating Free’s coaching fees challenging, please reach out. We can work out a price that fits your current financial situation

Contact us via: 

• Email: info@eatingfree.co.za 
• WhatsApp: + 27 (0)82 3211 167