Christina Hathaway’s clients know how to perform. They lead companies, manage teams, navigate constant travel, and make consequential decisions all day long.
What they cannot always do is stop for lunch.
Many begin the day with coffee, work through meals and arrive home exhausted and ravenous. One indulgent dinner turns into a weekend of feeling out of control, followed by another strict reset on Monday.
The consequences extend beyond nutrition. Inconsistent eating, chronic stress and poor recovery can gradually erode energy, clarity and confidence, affecting how someone shows up in the boardroom and at home.
“High performers often learn that their worth comes from achievement,” she says. “That drive fuels success, but when applied to nutrition, one bad day can feel like a threat to identity.”
Christina created The Mindset of Matter to break that cycle without sacrificing ambition, helping clients improve their health, confidence and performance.
The idea emerged from Christina’s work in an eating disorder outpatient program and as a Mountainside Fitness instructor, where she heard similar concerns about food and body image from people outside treatment.
“My members would talk about their emotional eating, body image and food struggles after class. Then I’d watch them push hard in the gym and still feel terrible in their bodies.”
She saw a need for something between traditional therapy and conventional fitness coaching.
“My clinical work reached people who were acutely struggling, but there was nowhere for the average person to work through the psychology behind why they couldn’t maintain their health,” she says. “So in 2019, I built that place.”
Christina is a Licensed Associate Marriage and Family Therapist, Certified Personal Trainer, Nutrition Coach, Integrative Mental Health Practitioner, and Integrative Health Practitioner. She brings more than 15 years of experience working with individuals across the fields of mental health, coaching, fitness, nutrition, and wellness.
Today, The Mindset of Matter is a private concierge wellness coaching practice for executives, founders and other high performers. Each engagement is built around the client’s actual life, including work demands, travel, stress, health data, family responsibilities and existing support team.
"The aim is not to add another obligation to an already demanding schedule. It is to create a wellness system that supports success rather than competing with it."
The relationship may include an intensive onboarding process, weekly mindset and stress check ins, access through the app and reviews of wearable trends. Christina can also create plans for the days surrounding a board meeting, keynote, negotiation or long flight.
“I may coordinate with a client’s chef, assistant, house manager or trainer to ensure their meals, travel and workouts support their goals without adding stress. My job is to teach systems that take almost no cognitive or emotional energy to execute, because my clients are already spending that energy everywhere else in their lives.”
Before changing what clients eat, Christina examines how they think, from perfectionism and people-pleasing to patterns shaped by family history.
“Clean plate expectations, childhood food scarcity or parents who dieted constantly can shape someone’s relationship with food today.”
Clients document two weeks of eating through The Mindset of Matter app using photos, written entries and general portions.
“I look at what we can add, usually more protein, more fiber, more color or a habit like eating every three to four hours.”
Simple works when it can be maintained. Eating enough throughout the day can improve energy and focus, reduce thoughts about food, curb evening overeating and leave more energy for family.
“Satisfaction is part of the plan, not an afterthought. Real flavor, meals people actually want to eat, not just meals that hit the numbers.”
Carbohydrates are not banished. Restaurant meals are not failures. Travel does not mean giving up until the client gets home.
“None of this requires not eating or being rigid. It requires knowing your options and creating a system that can be replicated wherever you travel.”
The same logic applies to movement. Instead of prescribing one ideal workout, Christina may create 15, 30 and 45 minute options. On a packed travel day, 10 minutes in a hotel room may be enough.
“We give clients options so exercise fits into their lives instead of the other way around,” she says.
Christina calls the approach radical flexibility.
“When systems are built for real life instead of a perfect version of it, clients stay consistent, and that’s what actually produces results.”
The goal is not a flawless routine. It is a resilient one that can support someone through demanding seasons without forcing them to choose between caring for their body and continuing to perform at a high level.
The Mindset of Matter app connects with Apple Watch, Oura Ring and Cronometer to track sleep, heart rate variability and cardiovascular fitness, helping Christina spot mounting stress and adjust a client’s plan before performance suffers.
Licensed medical professionals interpret lab results, which Christina uses to inform each client’s nutrition, movement and behavioral plan. She keeps wellness coaching distinct from medical care and psychotherapy, referring clients to specialists when needed.
“We take what the labs and wearables tell us and build a plan around it.”
Ultimately, Christina wants clients to stop treating every imperfect choice as proof that they have failed.
She often uses the example of Friday night nachos. One meal becomes a reason to abandon the entire weekend, followed by restriction and another promise to start over on Monday.
“You didn’t get anywhere in your body from one meal, and you won’t get back from one either,” she says.
That may be the hardest shift for people who have built their lives around achievement. It may also be the one that finally lasts.
“What you see in your mind, you see in the mirror,” Christina says. “Change the mind, and the body follows and stays changed.”
mindsetofmatter.com
“For high achievers, failure can feel like a threat to identity. Systems built for real life create the consistency that drives results.”
“My job is to create health systems that require almost no cognitive or emotional energy, because my clients are already spending that energy everywhere else.”