Mayuko Okai is an Intuitive Eating coach with over ten years of experience as a Registered Dietitian. In her past life, she was a clinical dietitian, seeing over a dozen patients a day in the hospital.

Telling sick or injured patients the foods that they couldn't have in their restrictive diets and encouraging them to down supplemental shakes 3 times a day was not my idea of helping people become healthy.

Growing up, Mayuko always sensed that her purpose was to help others find good health and happiness. Hearing about people becoming terminally ill, she felt a calling to help prevent such tragic stories. In 2009 she started her career as a Clinical Dietitian at one of the largest public hospitals in the country. But Mayuko hopes quickly crumbled as she spent her days reciting nutrition spiels to patients at their bedside. Her role didn't feel valuable or reflective of my calling.

She knew there was much more out there for her. One day, she found that listening to patients and connecting to them on an emotional level was much more appreciated than nutrition education. This stuck with her for the years to come as she stayed in healthcare, still lost in her path. She struggled feeling out of place for many years, until she found yoga. When she decided to deepen her yoga practice and took up teacher training, everything shifted. Through yoga philosophy, she faced her higher truth and decided to take her path into her own hands. In 2017 she left healthcare to pursue her passion and allowed her intuition to guide her. She then studied intuitive eating, which aligned perfectly with her beliefs on the mind-body-spirit approach to wellness.

“One day I was feeling unsettled and I rolled out my yoga mat. Standing in mountain pose, closed my eyes, and breathed. I felt instant relief and at that moment I knew that this was something I needed to study. Yoga teacher training was a magical experience, and the biggest realization I had was so simple: truth. It was loud and clear that I was not living my truth and that I needed to do something about it.”

— Mayuko Okai

Tune in on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7bZHrtjAzbksbLWNaak1NM

Tune in on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/stories-of-inspiring-joy/id1510488632

To learn more about Mayuko and her 90 Day Intuitive Eating Coaching Program visit her website www.mayukookai.com and on Instagram @mayukookai.rd and you can find her Facebook support group here

Stories of Inspiring Joy is a production of Seek The Joy Media and created by Sydney Weiss. To learn more and submit your story, click here.