Marissa Vicario is an award-winning, board certified integrative health and nutrition coach, blogger, and women’s health and lifestyle expert. She is the founder of Marissa’s Well-being and Health. She is passionate about teaching women to trust themselves to make nutritious, slimming, and energizing choices without resorting to fad diets and all juice cleanses. Her tips, recipes, and expertise have been featured on the Dr. Oz Show, New York Times Entrepreneur magazine, Glamour, and Next Generation TV among many other women’s lifestyle publications.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• • In this episode you’ll learn how Marissa self published her book instead of going through the typical publishing model! She gives tips on how you can do the same!

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Tell us a little bit about you, Marissa Vicario, and what you do.

I am a certified integrative health and nutrition coach, and I coach women. I have a private practice where I coach women both one-on-one and help them navigate the world of nutrition and change their relationship with food.  I also have group programs that I run. On top of that I am a women’s health and lifestyle expert so I do a lot of media around advice and tips and tricks. I do some writing on nutrition and wellness topics and do corporate lectures. Recently, there is a big uptake in companies wanting to offer wellness programming for their employees. Many of these companies hire me. I come in and give a talk whether it’s at a conference or a lunch. I help with some workshops and events locally around the city, different retailers like Lululemon, and other locations that share my vision.

How did you get your start?

I have been always interested in fitness. I have been exercising since I was 17 years old. As I got older, I started to make the connection between nutrition and fitness. I wanted to learn more about how I could support my active lifestyle with a healthier diet. I started talking to people about the foods that I was eating.  People were interested and I loved talking about it. I decided that I wanted to pursue that passion and decided to go back to school and get certified as a health coach. From there I started my business.

How did you get your start your business?

I started by going to corporate health fairs. I met a chiropractor who was putting on corporate health fairs and that’s how I got my entrance into some businesses who were interested in bringing on speakers. As I got more experience doing that, people found me on LinkedIn. I was invited to speak, and I pro-actively reached out to different companies and offered my services.

Can you tell us a little bit what made you want to write a book?

My book is called Your Holistically Hot Transformation: Embrace a Healthier Lifestyle Free of Dieting, Confusion and Self-Judgment. I’ve always wanted to write a book. My background is in journalism. I went to journalism school for my undergrad, and I always loved writing. I knew I wanted to write a book, but didn’t know what I would write a book on.  I found this passion of mine and then I knew I wanted to write a book on health and wellness.

A couple years ago I received an email from a publisher that was doing a writing workshop in Florida.  If you attended the workshop, you had 6 months to submit your book proposal. There was a contest with 3 winners. The first place winner would get a publishing deal from this publisher. I thought, “I have to go there.” I went to the conference. I wrote my proposal, and I sent it into this contest. I didn’t win, and I was a little bit devastated.  As I was preparing to get an agent, I got another opportunity to be a part of a course that would help me self-publish.

How did you figure out how to self-publish?

I used a course on self-publishing that help walked me through the steps. I had no idea where to start except to actually write the manuscript. The process was laid out in this course, and that was super helpful.

Who your ideal reader and how did you figure it out?

First of all, I looked at myself ten years ago, and said, “That’s her.” My ideal reader is an urban professional, has done the partying thing, been out and about, it’s starting to wear on her, and she realizes there is something more out there. There is something out there and I want better for myself. I want to treat my body better. I don’t want to eat this way and drink this way anymore. My reader is someone who has tried every diet and workout but still isn’t seeing the results. Somebody who wants to sort of go back to basics and reset and take a gentler approach. New moms are coming to me all the time saying, “I want to set an example for my family. Now that I have kids, I really want to be healthier and set an example for my kids that we can have a healthy relationship with food and this is how we eat in our family.”

Marissa Vicario is an award-winning, board certified integrative health and nutrition coach, blogger, and women’s health and lifestyle expert. She is the founder of Marissa’s Well-being and Health. She wants to help women live a healthier, more balanced lifestyle free of dieting, deprivation, and calorie-counting.

Find Marissa!
Website: mwahonline.com
Instagram: @marissavicario 
Twitter: @marissavicario 
Facebook: Marissa’s Well-being and Health
Book: Your Holistically Hot Transformation: Embrace a Healthier Lifestyle Free of Dieting, Confusion and Self-Judgment.

This podcast was sponsored by Kit Life!

You Foodies in particular will love the meal planning features and nutrition and fitness add-ons .  Kitlife has these unique daily tracker stickers you can use to customize your day. There’s even a social media sticker that can help you manage your efforts to build your brand. For photos, reviews and more information check out kitlife.net and become a #kitgirl today!

And as a special promo for Blissful Bites Podcast listeners if you enter my name – Nicole Culver in the comments section at check-out Team KIT will add in a set of adorable snail –mail postcards just for fun. This variety pack of 10 postcards are so cute – and they are themed for the Holidays too – so you can send some love to friends and family near or far!