Tarelova was founded by Helena Marsh, a London-based specialist in behavioural nutrition with a particular focus on the intersection of food psychology, stress response, and habitual eating patterns.
Her work begins from a straightforward observation: most people who struggle with stress eating are not lacking in information about food. They are lacking a reliable method for reading their own appetite signals in real time.
Helena's engagement with food psychology began during postgraduate research into the relationship between cognitive load and dietary choice — specifically, how the experience of pressure shapes what people reach for, and how habituation can consolidate that pattern over time.
Her formation includes extensive engagement with published nutritional research in the domains of stress management nutrition, intuitive eating frameworks, and the behavioural economics of food selection under constrained conditions. She draws consistently on published research in food psychology and appetite science, translated into structured inquiry rather than prescriptive instruction.
Before founding Tarelova, she worked as a programme coordinator at a London-based wellness education institution, developing content on behavioural nutrition and facilitating group inquiry sessions for individuals navigating high-pressure professional environments.
The founding of Tarelova in 2012 reflected a specific observation: that existing resources on eating and stress were either too medically framed, too prescriptive, or not practically structured for sustained self-observation. Tarelova was designed to occupy the space between.
Programme and inquiry framework established in London, initial cohort of twelve participants.
Small-group workshop series launched in response to interest from professional wellness networks.
Twelve-week online format released, extending reach to individuals outside London.
The Tarelova model does not begin with food rules. It begins with the question of what the appetite is communicating. Before any habit change is possible, the pattern must be visible — and visibility requires structured, non-judgmental observation over time.
The programme draws on published nutritional research in stress management nutrition, food and mood science, and the behavioural dimensions of eating under pressure. Methods are adapted from validated inquiry approaches and structured food-mood tracking literature.
Restriction is not a method within the Tarelova framework. The aim is expanded awareness of appetite signals, not contraction of food choice. Participants learn to respond more deliberately to hunger — physical or emotional — without assigning moral weight to specific foods.
The twelve-week structure of the core programme reflects evidence from behavioural nutrition literature: sustained observation over weeks, rather than intensive short interventions, produces more durable awareness shifts. The framework is designed accordingly.
Helena approaches emotional hunger as a communication channel, not a failure of self-control. The signal — whether it is stress eating, nervous eating, or appetite amplification under pressure — contains information about what the body and mind are experiencing.
The work of Tarelova is to develop the capacity to read that signal with precision — to distinguish emotional appetite from physical appetite, and to expand the available responses beyond the automatic reach for comfort food.
This is not a framework about eating less. It is a framework about understanding more.