Psychotherapy in Toronto for Eating Disorders, Food Addiction & Weight Management
Founded by a Toronto-based therapist who permanently lost 100 pounds and overcame two eating disorders - Exercise Bulimia and Binge Eating Disorder. Today, every practitioner on our team brings their own deep lived experience to your sessions, providing the true understanding and expert care you need to heal.
We help people manage their weight, overcome all forms of eating disorders*, challenge food addiction, and provide psychological support for bariatric surgery and weight loss medications.
In-person sessions in Toronto. Virtual therapy across Ontario.
Treatment with our lived experience, validated CBT and addiction principles lasts 10-12 sessions.
Covered by most extended benefits insurance plans.
*If residing in Ontario
At Aliva Psychotherapy in Toronto, we can help you:
- Gain a More Flexible Approach to Eating: Some people eat too much, and others too little. Overcome rigid thinking and find more balance in your thoughts and behaviours around food.
- Stop Black & White Thinking: Discover the root of and combat this self-destructive thinking about food and yourself.
- Reduce Food Noise & Obsessive Thoughts: Most people with eating disorders*, binge eating or food addiction constantly think about food - to the exclusion of everything else. Learn how to manage your thoughts.
- Stop Putting Your Health At Risk: Any extreme in eating, be it a restriction, purging, or binging has serious health complications. Most people wonder why they put their health at risk. We help you address this very important issue.
- Stop Shame Spirals & Eating Cycles: When you "mess-up" your eating, the shame can be so overwhelming as to trigger even more out-of-control behaviour. Learn how to move past shame spirals and eating cycles.
- Restore An Accurate Body Image: After years of ups and downs, many people are unable to truly gauge how they look to themselves and others. Through therapy, you can learn to love your body again.
Let’s psychologically address the root of what has prevented you from previous success.
Meet Our Specialists
Every therapist on our team is a Registered Psychotherapist in Ontario who has personally come through serious struggles with food, weight, or body, whether that was exercise bulimia, binge eating, anorexia, or addictive eating. We hire that way on purpose. Therapy goes differently when the person across from you has actually walked through it. Whether you’re looking for eating disorder therapy*, food addiction support, weight management, or psychological care alongside bariatric surgery or GLP-1 medications, you’ll be working with someone who has been there and has the clinical training to help you get through it.
Danielle Watson
Registered Psychotherapist,
RP
- Virtual Sessions
Specializing in Eating disorders and grounded in her own recovery journey, Danielle provides expert ongoing care.
Brian Baumal
Registered Psychotherapist, RP, CRPO#3731
- In-Person & Virtual Sessions
Expert Brian built Aliva from his own lived experience, having permanently overcome an eating disorder and sustained a 100-pound weight loss.
Julie Lewis
Registered Psychotherapist, RP, MACP. CRPO#11014
- Virtual Sessions
Managing your weight or overcoming an eating disorder* or a food addiction will likely be the hardest thing you will ever do.
Unlike most therapists, Aliva has learned a lot by walking the same path you are now.
Our lived experience allows us to truly say “We get it”.
With this experience, we create an affable approach to therapy that gets at the root cause of your issues with food and body. And that is how you know this time will be different!
Aliva Psychotherapy
With Psychotherapy, We Address Many of the Root Causes of Your Food & Body Issues
Whether you have an eating disorder*, are trying to manage your weight or a food addiction, or get the most out of bariatric surgery or weight loss medications, Aliva Psychotherapy in Toronto can help you with:
Weight Management
All Forms of Eating Disorders*
Food Addiction
Supporting Bariatric Surgery & Weight Loss Medications
Therapy for weight management, eating disorders*, and food addiction issues – minus the shame, embarrassment, or fear—online sessions across Ontario. Serving downtown Toronto in-person or online.
Who we are
Why Work With Aliva Psychotherapy
Issues with food and body are serious. At Aliva, the first thing we do is just listen because few people truly understand eating issues, including other therapists. Our therapy is approachable, affable and effective. It may even put a smile on your face.
At Aliva Psychotherapy, we don’t give “tips”; we dive deep to uncover the psychological barriers preventing you from seeing results. From fear to procrastination, we’ve seen it all, and we’re here to help you laugh, cry, and work your way through the toughest food challenges.
If you’ve hit your lowest point with your struggles, or are sick and tired of endless cycles, we offer compassionate guidance and support. Let’s turn your past attempts into valuable lessons, and make this time different together.
We would like to show you how therapy with Aliva can be the most powerful, fun experience you’ve ever had.
Aliva was founded by Brian Baumal, RP, after he permanently lost 100 pounds and recovered from exercise bulimia and binge eating. He’s now Chair of the Sugar and Food Addiction Professionals Network and has been featured on The Food Junkies Podcast and The Kick Sugar Coach Podcast. Danielle Watson, RP joined the team grounded in her own recovery.
Every therapist who works here has done their own recovery with food, weight, or body. That’s the foundation under everything that happens in session.
How Your Recovery Begins
Free Discovery Call (30 min)
Start with a low-pressure conversation to share your story and explore whether our approach feels like the right fit for you.
Matching You with the Right Expert.
We use this initial talk to understand your unique needs so we can match you with the specialist on our team best suited to support your journey.
Starting Your Targeted Treatment.
Once you are matched with your specialist, you will begin a targeted therapy journey focused on the root causes of your struggle. While every journey is unique, our evidence-based approach typically helps clients achieve lasting freedom within 10–12 sessions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you treat all forms of eating disorders, including anorexia, bulimia and binge-eating disorder?
Absolutely we do!!
It is important to note that we know any eating disorder has the potential to be serious and life-threatening. If you are inquiring about an eating disorder of any kind, please note that we will not discuss weight management at all as a part of your treatment. Within all our treatment, we do not promote unsustainable diets, or diet culture. On a daily basis, we actually fight against all the toxic messages diet culture promotes. We are also very aware that any change in a person’s relationship with food has the potential to lead to a full-blown eating disorder. We monitor this very carefully. Every person we treat is assessed for eating disorders in their past and for thoughts that could lead to an eating disorder in the future.
Do you help support weight loss medications and/or bariatric surgery?
Yes. Many patients using these methods of weight management realize that they need to get to the root of their issues with food, or these interventions will not effectively work. Moreover, these methods do not necessarily produce the amount of weight someone may need to lose. We take a neutral stand on these treatments and support a patient’s choice regarding these options, and we defer all decisions about these weight loss measures to the patient and/or their medical doctors.
Are your fees covered by insurance?
Our fees are not covered by OHIP. However, most extended insurance providers, like the ones offered through your employer, do cover our services. It is best if you contact your provider directly to ask. We can send through a sample Invoice so your insurer can be definitive about whether our services are covered.
What happens in the first session?
Can I work with you if I don't live in Ontario?
Yes! We may be able to provide teletherapy in your province, even if you reside outside of Ontario. Please contact us to see whether we can support you.
Do you work with teens or children?
At this time we do not work with teens or children. However, we are on the lookout to bring on therapists who specialize in this area!
Do you offer video and/or in-person sessions?
Yes, we offer both options. You can choose which one you prefer and change the type of session within 24 hours.
Do you support a particular kind of diet or eating plan?
Absolutely not!!!!! We know that diets do not work long-term and that they have a severely negative impact on your relationship with food. We also believe that people have been told so many times about how to eat and what to eat. We feel that part of the therapy process is for you to determine your own relationship with food (within medical parameters, should you have an existing condition that needs to be managed through specific kinds of foods).
What happens in the first session?
Have more questions?
Aliva Psychotherapy
How To Get Started
Take the first step toward living freely as you. Get started with Aliva Psychotherapy in Toronto.
Please email, call us, or send an inquiry via our contact form to request an appointment. We will be in touch within 24 business hours.
Have a question before booking? Send us a message below.
