Skip to content

Women In Wellness: Tatiana Boncompagni On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Celebrate the victories. I need to remind myself constantly of what I have accomplished with Eat Sunny rather than focus totally on what I have yet to do. To do this, I sometimes bring up old emails I wrote when I was first trying to get funding for the company. I realize that I actually delivered on a lot of the things I said I would be able to do. That’s something!

As a part of my series about the women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Tatiana Boncompagni.

Tatiana is the founder of Eat Sunny, a healthy meal delivery service based on the principles of the Mediterranean Diet. She’s a veteran health and wellness writer, a certified health coach and personal trainer and a mom of three. She is also an ambassador for Joy Bites, a no-sugar added chocolate bar from Russell Stover.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?

I was born in South Dakota and grew up all over the US before going to college in DC. I started my career as a journalist and wrote mostly about fashion, health and beauty before taking a job at SELF magazine. There I was made the food editor and realized that I actually knew a lot about cooking. After SELF I started a business with a friend selling nutrition and fitness books to women online — I wanted to help women get more joy from their bodies and also help them see how strong they were. I think when we make changes to our lifestyle, like working out and eating nutritiously, it impacts everything — our careers and our relationships. My passion is helping people see that yes, they can change their lives. Now, with Eat Sunny, I am focused on helping my clients by providing them with healthy food. Many people want to eat healthy they just don’t have the time to cook for themselves or maybe they don’t know how to cook. I’m a mom in addition to being an entrepreneur, and I’m a single mom, so I can empathize and relate to customers who are on a budget and don’t have a lot of time. My mission is to make healthy eating accessible. We also make food that is well balanced, satisfying and delicious. I don’t believe in deprivation or restriction.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?

When I was laid off from my job at SELF magazine I was devastated. I loved my work there so much and I felt like our editorial staff was like a family. The magazine went from print and digital to digital only — so almost all of the entire print team was let go in a day. I was sad, but I also felt like it was an opportunity for re-direction. I had been working on an article about female wellness entrepreneurs — we were calling it something like ‘the guru next door’ — and interviewing all those women made me realize I wanted to be one step closer to the people I was helping. In other words, not just writing about people who were helping others get healthy, but being someone who did that. And that’s when I decided to start the business creating ebooks that ultimately put me on the path to launching Eat Sunny.

Can you share a story about the biggest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

The biggest mistake I ever made was not taking an unpaid internship with a TV network when I moved to New York. I thought I was too old to do an unpaid gig. But had I taken an internship it would have led to a job. Now I know to keep an open mind. Sometimes you don’t make a ton of money doing a job but it can open doors to bigger things. Long story short: do the call, take the meeting, be smart about your time but see the big picture, too.

Let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?

I want to make it easier for people to eat healthy, but also to show them a new, more self-loving way to think about food and nourishing their bodies. Our meals are made with lots of antioxidant rich vegetables, fibers rich ancient grains, healthy sources of fat like nuts and olive oil, ethically sourced animal protein (or plant protein). We are so thoughtful about our ingredients and how we build a meal. I want to show people that you don’t have to cut carbs or go 100 percent vegan to improve your well-being. The idea is that you can eat in a way that is sustainable, that you can do for the long term. And we can prevent all kinds of diseases and prolong our lives that way. Oh, and your skin really glows, too!

Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing? Please give an example or story for each.

  1. Lift weights. Lifting weights and building muscle mass helps prevent sarcopenia, which is the natural loss of muscle mass that happens as we age. This can be completely reversed simply by engaging in resistance exercise 2–3 times a week.
  2. Stop drinking so much alcohol. Alcohol dependency is so common. But drinking taxes the liver, floods the body with sugar and causes inflammation. Reduce the amount of alcohol you are consuming and you will immediately see changes in sleep, skin, bloating and weight.
  3. Eat enough protein with every meal. Not too much. Enough. We serve about 4–6 oz with each meal at Eat Sunny. For an average woman, that is an ideal amount. Protein keeps you satisfied, burns calories being broken down into energy the body can use and provides amino acids that are essential for maintaining muscle and tissue.
  4. Reach for low sugar or no sugar snacks. We reduce the amount of sugar we use in our snacks at Eat Sunny so that the snacks taste less sweet and are better for your system in that they won’t cause blood sugar to spike. I also love Russell Stover Joy Bites chocolate bars because they have no sugar added and they satisfy my sweet tooth.
  5. Walk as much as possible. Exercise is so important but it doesn’t have to be at a gym. More than exercise, movement and not being sedentary is what is critical to our health.

If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?

I would love to have people really pay attention to what they are saying to themselves when they eat. I’d like to also outlaw the word “clean” when it comes to eating. Food is not “clean” or “dirty” and we are not “bad” when we eat foods that are high in calories or whatever. That kind of negative self-talk is so harmful. Let’s focus on getting the most nutrition and pleasure from our food, not on beating ourselves up for enjoying a cookie. It’s okay to want and eat a piece of chocolate. Maybe just choose a chocolate that isn’t full of a bunch of bad stuff, like the Joy Bites bars. That’s why I love them so much. They are no-sugar-added and don’t contain any colorings or weird preservatives.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?

  1. When giving criticism, start by pointing out the good things someone brings to the table. It’s important to let people know their worth before explaining the ways you think they can improve their work.
  2. You can’t be all things to all people. I want to serve everyone but the truth is our meal plan is not ideal for people who have allergies to nuts or can’t eat any onions or garlic. I had to learn to be okay with the fact that our meals weren’t going to be ideal for everyone.
  3. Focus on the solution, not the problem. Mistakes are how we get better. They happen — but they should also be used as a road map to making your service better.
  4. Celebrate the victories. I need to remind myself constantly of what I have accomplished with Eat Sunny rather than focus totally on what I have yet to do. To do this, I sometimes bring up old emails I wrote when I was first trying to get funding for the company. I realize that I actually delivered on a lot of the things I said I would be able to do. That’s something!
  5. Take time off. As a founder and entrepreneur the work is never fully done. But you can easily get burned out if you don’t take time away. You also need that for a shift in perspective that can lead to more creative problem solving.

Sustainability, veganism, mental health and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?

Mental health. I think people don’t fully appreciate the role food can play in supporting your mental health. Having balanced blood sugar and eating enough pro and pre biotic rich foods to support gut health (which is where a lot of serotonin is made) is so key. And so is consuming foods containing Omega 3 fatty acids — they can help prevent depression. Yes, food is so powerful!

What is the best way our readers can follow you online?

Go to @tatiboncompagni on Instagram.

Thank you for these fantastic insights!

Women In Wellness: Tatiana Boncompagni On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.