Rivka has been teaching and counseling in the Boston area for over a decade. She founded the non-diet program Have Your Cake and Eat It Too! A Gentle Approach to Food, Your Body and Yourself. She also teaches mindfulness and meditation workshops and courses, from which emerged her popular audio program, Creating Calm in Your Life.

She works with individuals and couples in her private practice in Medford (near Davis Square, accessible by T).

Rivka’s compassionate approach is rooted in the 10-year journey she undertook to transform her complex relationship with food and body image. Empowered by her own profound change, she was moved to help others facing similar struggles.

I have freed myself from the binds of dieting, compulsive overeating, and body hatred, and I want to help others gain this same freedom. It is possible to live freely in a world of food that we love and to respect and nurture our bodies and ourselves each and every day. — Rivka Simmons

Rivka is a founding member of the Greater Boston Collaborative for Body Image and Eating Disorders and a professional member of the Massachusetts Eating Disorder Association. She created and co-hosted the local cable show “Living a Diet-Free Life” and wrote “A Gentle Approach to Food and Body,” an advice column that ran in several Boston-area newspapers.

In her spare time, Rivka writes and cares for dogs.