It has been 24 years since Heidi Feldman, BA 89, started her Montreal-based business Keeping It Off! | Photo courtesy: Heidi Feldman
Yet, after a semester in the University of Calgary’s bachelor of social work program, she decided it was not for her.
“I knew that if I came back to Montreal and got into the field, I’d start off in youth protection,” she recalls — which would mean dealing with troubled youth. “And I would have had a very, very hard time separating myself from that.”
Instead, Feldman returned to Montreal and took on an administrative job at a pharmaceutical company, at least for a while. In the meantime, she was making changes to her body, too. She lost 40 pounds and managed to keep it off for two years.
It was actually this change that led to her ultimate career change. “When people see that you’ve lost weight, they always come up and say, ‘Oh my goodness, how did you do it?’” Feldman says.
Family and friends saw that she was good at motivating others in their weight-loss efforts, and encouraged her to start a business in weight-loss consulting.
That was in 1993. Two years later, Feldman was seeing 100 individual clients in private, one-on-one sessions, and had two contracts with corporations to provide regular office visits to motivate their staff members on weight loss.
It’s all in the head
Feldman attributes her success in part to the psychological training she received at Concordia. Recognizing that her clients have stressors and helping them manage those is a big part of her job.
“Most people don’t even recognize the behind-the-scenes things that are happening in their head that push them towards food,” she says. “Psychology has helped me really get into people’s heads to figure out what pushes them to overeat and do self-sabotaging.”
Keeping It Off! — Feldman’s business — has never had any other employees. “I’m a one-woman show,” she says.
She believes the personal experience is important to her clients. “Most people know what to do, but they have a very hard time staying disciplined,” she says.
That has not stopped Feldman from trying to broadcast her message more widely. Her column on weight loss appears about once a month in The Suburban, a Montreal community newspaper.
Feldman’s decision to start a column was a spontaneous one: she received a copy at her home one day and thought, “I’ve always wanted to write a column for a newspaper. And I just made a phone call,” she says. “My approach is how to get people to stay disciplined when they’re in challenging situations.”
When asked how busy students can maintain a healthy lifestyle, Feldman says she encourages students who frequently eat at restaurants to be “mindful, so you’re not just ordering something you always feel like having — you’re ordering what you feel would be the healthiest of choices. Whatever restaurant you’re in, there’s always a healthy choice.”
Feldman also recommends that students bring food to campus. “It’s about being organized and making sure that you have the proper food on hand,” she says.
She remembers her own time as a student at Concordia fondly. “I really enjoyed knowing that I had the choice of two campuses, and I did attend both,” Feldman says. “I never had any issues throughout my years there. It was only positive for me.”