You would never guess that Rachel Stevenson once weighed almost 280 pounds.
But since she began her weight-loss journey in 2009, she has lost and kept off more than 120 pounds.
Now, helping others learn how to lose weight and eat healthier is the passion and profession of the Phoenixville-based motivational speaker and nutrition counselor.
Stevenson, 34, offers a number of services through her company, Reshaping Nutrition. She works one-on-one with a number of clients to help them lose weight, and hosts grocery-store tours, cooking demos, food-tasting parties, lunch-and-learns with large corporations and more.
Her upbeat, positive personality is just one of the reasons this nutritionist stands apart from the rest — as do her heartfelt interest in seeing her clients succeed and her ability to turn cooking into an enjoyable, easy-to-do activity.
Not to mention some of the accolades she has received recently — such as the Small Business Star of the Year Award from the Perkiomen Valley Chamber of Commerce and Lifestyle Change Award from the American Heart Association, both last year.
But life was not always so sunny for the Rockville, Md., native and nutrition wasn’t even her first, or second, choice for a career.
Stevenson began with an associate’s degree in advertising art from Montgomery College in Rockville, then decided to pursue a bachelor’s in computer animation from the University of Maryland.
Upon graduating, she soon wound up in sales with Marriott Hotels International after a brief stint selling furniture. She excelled at her job, but happiness was elusive.
“I was good at my job but I just hated what I was doing,” said Stevenson. “It was an unhealthy work environment. I was stressed and eating too much. I was really heavy at that time.”
Shortly before Stevenson took the job at Marriott, she began dating her now ex-husband, again. The couple had been together on and off since high school.
“It was a very unhealthy relationship,” said Stevenson. “It was a very addictive, enabling relationship. He was very heavy as well.”
Eventually, the couple decided that they were either going to get married or stay separated for good. They married but it lasted only a few years. During the interim, Stevenson and her ex-husband moved to Phoenixville in 2006, and she went on to work in corporate sales at Staples.
“I don’t want to say it was the wrong choice to get married to my ex-husband,” said Stevenson. “Because it led me to my now-wife.”
A week after Stevenson split from her ex-husband in February 2007, she went to a gay bar called Frank Jeffries (now PJ Ryan’s, and not gay) on Bridge Street in downtown Phoenixville to figure things out. As fate would have it, Stevenson met her wife, Fay, there that night.
“It was meant to be because she had stopped frequenting that bar but she just happened to be there that night, and so was I,” said Stevenson.
The two moved in together that October and celebrated their eighth anniversary last week. They got married in November 2013 in Maryland.
“I was going through so many things when we met: the divorce, dealing with that transition at work, living in a different state where I didn’t know many people at all,” said Stevenson. “But Fay was the best thing to happen to me.”
Fay was supportive of Stevenson in her weight-loss efforts and, as their relationship flourished, Stevenson began to figure out who she was and what she wanted to do career-wise.
Around that time, the couple saw the movie “Julia and Julia,” starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. Stevenson said she admired how Adams’ character blogged about her cooking.
Within a couple days, Stevenson started her own weight-loss blog, Reshaping Rachel, which chronicled her weight-loss journey over the next 18 months.
Other than the emotional and physical benefits of looking and feeling her best, Stevenson knew she had to start getting her health in order when her cousin was diagnosed with diabetes right around his 30th birthday.
“It scared the heck out of me,” said Stevenson. “My cousin was the fourth person in my family to be diagnosed with diabetes. My mother, father and older sister have it as well.”
In 2010, after losing close to 100 pounds, Stevenson went back to school at West Chester University to study nutrition.
She had lost and gained weight a few times in the past, but this time around, the biggest factor in keeping the weight off, she said, was learning how to cook.
“I knew nothing about cooking,” said Stevenson. “I basically taught myself. I started experimenting with new foods at the grocery story and took it from there.”
Stevenson then took the Reshaping Rachel blog and turned it into her business, Reshaping Nutrition.
She learned to add more healthy things to her meals instead of solely taking bad ones away. She now takes the same approach with her clients.
“We add healthy things instead of removing the unhealthy foods you love cold turkey,” said Stevenson. “I give you the skills — cooking, recipes, etc. — then we start looking at the unhealthy ones, which typically become less important to a client as time goes on.”
Thus, cooking demos are a large part of Stevenson’s business. She started off volunteering to lead them at a few local nonprofits but now teaches them all over Phoenixville and the surrounding area: at YMCAs, food banks, shelters, elementary schools, community centers, grocery stores, corporations and private events.
Initially, Stevenson thought that most of her business might center on coaching and consulting with weight-loss clients but, after a surge in popularity following some of her first few cooking demos, she focuses on those.
“At my first group class at the civic center, we had 40 people attend,” she said. “They normally might have 10 show up.”
Stevenson attributed the popularity of her classes to the pre-marketing of her blog before she opened her business, including more than 1,100 “likes” on Facebook.
“And all the places I was volunteering at were excited to have me on board in a business setting as well,” she added.
Clients also admire the fact that Stevenson has gone through the same struggle they are dealing with. They want to learn from someone who has lost more than 100 pounds and kept it off, Stevenson said.
Stevenson is not a registered dietician, which would enable her to do clinical work and prescribe medication, and she doesn’t want to be.
“I tried going that route — working in the hospitals with patients and dealing with medications — but I found out pretty quickly that wasn’t the right path for me.”
Instead, Stevenson is hoping to partner with a registered dietician to retain those types of clients in her business.
Unlike some of her competitors, Stevenson emphasizes that she takes the stress away from the weight.
“That’s why I don’t call it reshaping your weight,” says Stevenson. “I don’t want people focusing on a number on the scale. I want them focusing on cooking healthier, staying motivated, etc.”
While Stevenson does weigh her clients each week, she notes that success is not determined by how many pounds you lose.
“We measure success in other ways,” Stevenson said. “Did you learn a new recipe? Are you buying smaller pants? Are you thinking more positive? Things like that.”
It comes as no surprise to Stevenson that most of her clients don’t know how to cook.
“I think people are so into this fast food, quick and easy things,” she said. “It’s so easy for people to get pre-made food. They don’t even know what to do with a vegetable when they see one.”
Stevenson says she really focuses on educating her clients, from nutritional info to how to cut and prepare food to recipes.
For both her low-income clients and her weight-loss clients — who are often too busy to prepare complex recipes — the key is quick, easy and simple.
“I try and keep my recipes to around five ingredients,” Stevenson said. “I want to do something where I know that they are going to make it.”
Her signature recipes include a peach and mango salsa, butternut squash soup and a tofu-based chocolate mousse.
At her cooking demo on the day of our interview, Stevenson prepared a black and fava bean dip with avocado.
The demo took place at a local shelter, which didn’t have a ton of kitchen equipment, so Stevenson’s recipe du jour was perfect for the unique constraints of that location.
The shelter is reliant for the most part on what it receives from food banks. Stevenson said this particular recipe was designed to utilize ingredients that the shelter would most likely have, like black beans and certain common spices.
That day, the shelter happened to have some ripe avocados, so it was a double win for Stevenson — she taught them a recipe she knows they will be able to use again because they have the ingredients already.
She also introduced them to some ingredients most of the attendees haven’t heard of or used before, like fava beans and green onion, still inexpensive enough for them to incorporate into future recipes.
“Often, the low-income population I work with can be tough to motivate,” said Stevenson.
It’s true. When the demo began, the attendees seemed unconvinced that anything tasty could come from the listed ingredients but, by the end of the class, when they actually tried the finished snack — and found it delicious — it was evident Stevenson won them over.
When Stevenson isn’t driving from demo to demo all over Phoenixville, she is likely working on her second unofficial job organizing the local LGBT social scene.
Stevenson created a group called the Phoenixville LGBTea Dance in order to try and recreate the social scene in which she met her wife Fay.
“When Frank Jeffries closed, there was no place for us to go,” she said.
Stevenson came to know the general manager of a bar called The Fenix through chamber of commerce events and approached him with her concerns.
“I told him we did not have anywhere to go, and asked him if we could host an event there once a month on a Sunday when they were normally closed,” said Stevenson.
The manager agreed, and promised to continue the events if Stevenson could bring a crowd.
“The first month in January we had 50 people, then the next two times we had 90,” she said. “That is just about max capacity for that bar. It’s great.”
Stevenson said the events draw people of all ages and have been a huge success — so much so that the LGBTea Dance on June 7 will become a charity fundraiser for LGBT youth in the area.
“We’re thinking about turning the tea dance group into a nonprofit,” Stevenson said. “The entire community is on board with the upcoming fundraiser, so we think it would be a great opportunity.”
For more information on Stevenson and Reshaping Nutrition, visit www.reshapingnutrition.com. To learn more about the LGBTea Dance, head to www.meetup.com/LGBTeaDances/.
