With ten locations, dozens of employees, and an ever-increasing product line, Nutrition by Tanya
has grown into a household name. But few know the face behind the brand, the woman who wrote her own story long before the first TAP cookie found its way into the kosher kitchen.
Tanya Krasnov Rosen, the daughter of Edward and Mira (née Finkelman), grew up in the Neve Yaakov and Ramot neighborhoods of Yerushalayim. “My mother grew up in Stalinist Russia, watching her own mother close the shutters before lighting the candles Friday night,” she says. “She would often tell us stories of her father covertly obtaining matzah. My grandparents’ dream was to immigrate to Israel, where they could proudly be Jewish without any fear.”
When the gates of immigration cracked open in 1976, the Finkelman family relocated, but poverty haunted them. Tanya’s mother remembers the joy in the household when they were able to get a pickle—a single pickle. They would split it into quarters for the four siblings to share.
“Whenever my kids fight over some luxury, I remind them that their grandmother split a pickle four ways,” Tanya says, shaking her head. “With the plenty that surrounds them, my kids have no idea what deprivation means. I teach them the difference between needs and wants. When they were as young as two, they would correct themselves if they said they needed something, only to realize they simply wanted it.”
Tanya’s parents met at Bar-Ilan University and married, and she was their first child. “Our home was not a religious one. While my mother had grown up religious, she’d begun viewing it as hampering her progress in life,” Tanya recounts painfully. Her Moscow-born father was and still is an atheist, living proof that Stalin had done a good job eradicating Judaism in Russia. Although they were not frum by any measure, Tanya remembers her family’s candle-lighting and the occasional Seder.
“You can imagine that with my atheist father, there was lots of drama whenever religion was involved,” she says drily. “Although my mother had left it behind, deep within her, she still wanted to hold on in some form, a desire that only increased as she grew older. I had frum cousins, so that lifestyle wasn’t foreign to me.”
When she was ten, Tanya, her parents, and her brother, like many Israelis of Russian origin, relocated to the United States in search of the vaunted American dream. Tanya doesn’t remember feeling poor while she lived in Israel, but in the face of American consumerism, the reality hit hard.
“Money was very tight even though my parents worked very, very hard. My father found employment as an electrician, and my mom did office work. Dinner very often consisted solely of pasta and potatoes. As a kid, that didn’t mean much, but with an adult’s perspective, I understand that proteins were expensive.”
Tanya says it was hashgachah pratis that she was enrolled in a yeshivah and not in public school. “There was this rumor going around among fellow Russian immigrants that Jewish kids were being beaten up in public school and that they’d fare better in a yeshivah. That’s how I ended up in Be’er Hagolah.”
Tanya marvels at the way a small, whispered warning set the path for so many children to reconnect with Yiddishkeit, shaping lives in ways no one could have predicted.
Be’er Hagolah, a Brooklyn-based kiruv school, was a soft landing pad for Tanya. Many of the students in her class were in the same situation; they were Russian or Israeli immigrants of varying religious levels. Alongside other new kids, Tanya did not feel like an outsider, just one of the many girls who were struggling to learn the language and acclimate.
At Be’er Hagolah, Tanya observed as teachers led by example, immersing the girls in the warmth of frum life. She loved the Shabbos meals and the sense of community, though she didn’t take to Yiddishkeit right away. School and home were two very distinct worlds, and they did not mix.
School provided a steady, grounding environment for Tanya while her family moved from place to place. They lived in four different apartments in Boro Park before eventually settling in Brighton Beach, a neighborhood known for its large Russian-speaking community. Tanya says, however, that they didn’t know a soul there at that time.
“I never thought too deeply about that aspect of my childhood until someone suggested we sell our Flatbush home for a huge one in Toms River,” she reflects. “There’s that knee-jerk ‘no’ that I answer with. There’s no way I’m giving up my terra firma. I’ve put down roots for myself and our family, and I don’t want to put them through the upheaval of constant relocations.”
Financial strain continued to stalk her family, an inherited burden they could not seem to escape. Tanya’s father did his utmost to obtain gainful employment, even driving an ambulette, while her mother juggled several jobs, assisting newly arrived immigrants with their documents. Tanya remembers her mother bringing home stacks of papers to translate, laboring over her work at the kitchen table until late into the night.
Tanya was a child of the ’90s, an era of theme parks and summer getaways—except that in her house, vacations didn’t exist. She remembers a solitary outing, a drive to Niagara Falls in a broken car. Still, she and her siblings were never resentful. She learned quickly that if she wanted to go out for pizza with her friends, she’d have to earn her own pocket change, and she began babysitting for Boro Park families or taking out special-needs kids to give their parents some respite. She would walk back home after dark or wait for her parents to pick her up.
“When it came to child care, I was absolutely clueless,” Tanya confesses. For her first babysitting gig, she was charged with a household full of kids, including a small baby.
“If the baby cries, give her a pacifier,” the mother said over her shoulder before leaving. Tanya nodded, praying the baby wouldn’t cry.
She did cry. Now, what was a pacifier? In a panic, she called her mother, who was still struggling with English but surmised that a pacifier was the round plastic thing you stuck into a baby’s mouth if she cried.
Still, Tanya’s earnings were paltry. “I so badly wanted to join my friends when they went ice skating, but the fee, ten dollars, was beyond what my parents could afford. I invented some excuse and spent the evening crying in bed.”
As a mother raising her own children in relative comfort, Tanya struggled to achieve a middle ground with them. “My first instinct was to give my children everything, as if I could fix that teenager who couldn’t go ice skating. But of course, I realized very quickly that although in the short run that might make them happy, I wasn’t doing them any favors. It took time to find that mindful middle. I’ll suggest that the child use their summer job money, or wait for Chanukah or a birthday to ask for something they’re pining for.”
In the summer after eighth grade, Tanya was offered the opportunity to attend Camp Bais Yaakov. Her mother, seeing it as another formative experience for her American daughter, assented, although her father was in the dark regarding the religious nature of the camp. Incredibly, her teacher, Miss Faiga Rochel Heilpern, pulled together some money and went shopping with her. Tanya waxes nostalgic. “Remember those Biz skirts?”
Though she came from a different background than most of the other campers, Tanya thrived at Camp Bais Yaakov. She was captivated by the Shabbosos, the easy friendships, the wholesomeness of the girls. There was never any cognitive dissonance between school and home, though. Why would there be? Camp wasn’t home.
Heading into twelfth grade, Tanya wasn’t interested in attending seminary. She preferred to go to college and get a head start in life. That changed when Shoshana, a ninth-grader with whom she was very close, was run over by a drunk off-duty cop in Monsey. Shoshana had been walking back from a babysitting job with two friends when it happened. Tragically, she passed away in the hospital a few days later.
“I was very close to Shoshana. We’d been in G.O. together, and though three years separated us, we’d clicked. The tragedy shook me up terribly. Shoshana had always been so growth-oriented, spiritually striving, and it really got me thinking.”
Shoshana’s passing upended Tanya’s well-laid plans, and she struggled to determine her next step. A part of her wanted to honor Shoshana’s memory and head for Neve in Yerushalayim, but she’d already applied for college and set her heart on it. Elisheva Pearlman, Tanya’s teacher and the current CEO of Anelis Marketing Group, offered her solid advice, telling her to do a year of college—“Just to get it out of my system,” Tanya explains wryly—and then head to Neve.
“Boy, was I in for a reality check when I got to college,” Tanya says with a smile, remembering those days. “Brooklyn College was huge, teeming with masses of students hurrying from one class to another, all looking vaguely harried. I was just another Social Security number.”
Coming from a school where she had been showered with warmth to a place where no one knew she existed was jarring for her. The year she’d imagined would chart a course toward her life’s mission was empty, devoid of any purpose. Disillusioned, Tanya finished the year, completing her prerequisites so that it wouldn’t be a total waste. A college degree would wait.
She was off to Neve.
With her mother’s support—and over her father’s protests—she boarded a plane to Israel, the airfare paid with money that Elisheva Pearlman raised for her. As far as the tuition at Neve, the school’s scholarship model relies on trust; students are expected to repay the tuition when they can. Tanya kept that promise years later, paying down her debt with gratitude.
Neve Yerushalayim sits on a quiet hill in the Har Nof neighborhood of Yerushalayim, a cluster of white stone buildings glowing under the relentless Middle Eastern sun. Tanya discovered an atmosphere of growth and inspiration, minus any external pressure. “If you wanted to change, you did because you were changing and not because your friend was,” she says. “The class dress code was very lax, and we were allowed to be out at any hour. But over time we conformed naturally, dressing with tznius and transforming ourselves, mitzvah by mitzvah.”
Tanya had always appreciated a life of purpose, and the meaning that Yiddishkeit ascribed to every tiny detail resonated with her. The year at Brooklyn College had schooled her well. She knew from experience what a life without meaning and deep family relationships can look like.
“I always knew there was more to life than amassing stuff and doing fun things,” she says, “and I found that missing piece at Neve. Even the small things pulled me. A family meal without TV fosters connection. It’s not just a group of people sitting around a table shoveling food into their mouths as they mindlessly watch someone on the screen.”
The first thing Tanya undertook was being shomeres negiah. With growth coming in uneven steps, she attended a social event dressed as she usually was. Yelling to be heard over the music, she explained to other attendees that she was shomeres negiah, and they responded with confused amusement.
“Well, if you’re shomeres, you shouldn’t be dressed like that,” one of them said pointedly.
Back at Neve, Tanya puzzled over the comment. That night, she committed to dressing modestly. When her plane winged her westward over the Atlantic in June, she was fully committed to a life of Torah and mitzvos. She had informed her mother of her transformation, and although her mother was supportive, she worried that Tanya might come home with a different personality or that she would shun her parents. Neither of those fears came to pass.
Mira purchased pots and pans for her daughter and obtained kosher food for her. Shabbos didn’t pose much of a hurdle since Tanya usually spent it away. Though she knew that Yiddishkeit was her new life no matter what, having a father to whom religion was anathema was a challenge. It was also discomfiting for her to spend time with friends who hadn’t been on the same journey and who thought she’d gone off the deep end.
“I wasn’t available on Friday nights any longer, and when we went out to eat, I’d just sip some water,” Tanya says. “We were still friends, good friends, but our lives were on different tracks.”
When it was time to begin dating, shadchanim kept suggesting men of a similar background. Ultimately, fellow Camp Bais Yaakov camper Malka Winer—who, Tanya says, became the sister she’d never had—set her up with her husband, Ruko (Aron) Rosen. That summer in camp had been formative in more ways than one.
Ruko had come from Kiev to Brooklyn at the age of 12. In another plot twist of hashgachah pratis, the frum superintendent of the building where Ruko’s parents lived insisted they put their son in a yeshivah. Although they were not religious, the Rosens enrolled Ruko in Yeshivas R’tzahd in Canarsie, which eventually set him on the path toward full observance. Though they are not frum themselves, her in-laws have always accepted Ruko and Tanya’s choices with open hearts.
“Thankfully, my dad loves my husband, though he’s not shy about vocalizing his opposition to the life we chose. But Ruko, and later on the grandkids, softened the edges around the comments,” Tanya smiles.
Tanya returned to college, majoring in psychology and nutrition. She planned on attending law school, fulfilling a dream of her parents. Though they were still limited financially, they paid for some courses she needed to apply for law school.
Tanya was in graduate school and expecting her first child when she suddenly got a crash course in what it means for your own body to rewrite the rules. Gaining 50 pounds in pregnancy had never been in the plan, and her struggle to lose weight deepened her appreciation for nutrition. Drawing on her own experiences, she believed she could help others.
“I’d already applied to law schools at that point, but I dropped it and pivoted to nutrition. I’d gotten married while finishing my bachelor’s and gave birth to two children while getting my master’s degree, all the while working part time as a personal trainer,” Tanya says. “It was a lot! My husband had just finished his degree in physical therapy when we married, so thankfully, we didn’t have to worry so much about having an income.”
Nearly 19 years ago, Nutrition by Tanya was not a plan or even a goal. It began with some exercise classes in a basement, along with part-time nutrition counseling. When circumstances necessitated that they move, Tanya rented a storefront on Avenue F in Kensington. The rent was $3,000 a month, a veritable fortune.
“I had no idea how I was going to pay it, but I’m a bit fearless like that,” she admits. “I relied on figuring it out somehow, and we did. I added more classes and began reselling some products I thought my clients would find useful.”
Tanya also offered in-home nutrition counseling. “Today, when a doctor comes to swab noses and throats at your home, it doesn’t sound so out of left field, but at that time, home visits were novel,” she says. “It was all very enlightening. I’d get to see my clients up close, interacting with their families. I had majored in psychology, and that knowledge gave me a lot of insight into how people might interact with food.”
It was also very, very draining. “It was nonstop. Find parking. Schlep the scale. Speak to the client. Back into the car. When you’re in your twenties, though, everything is possible, even the snarled Brooklyn traffic,” Tanya says about those early days.
“We grew where the demand was. When we noticed clients were traveling in or calling in from a particular area, we pinpointed our target community. During one crazy month, February 2017, we opened three locations at once! That was far, far too much. But generally, we opened a new location every year or two. The ‘Girl on a Diet’ column, which was published in AmiLiving, popularized my approach as well.”
Today, Nutrition by Tanya has ten locations, 45 employees, dozens of products, and a number of wellness and beauty services. For those who don’t have a NbT location near them, Tanya offers counseling by phone. “We’ve had women call from Iowa, Utah, Belgium, and other European cities, some of which I never knew had a Jewish presence,” she exclaims, still incredulous.
Did she have some locations that didn’t work out? “Sure,” she admits easily. “We’ve had a few that went bust—Crown Heights, the Upper West Side, Staten Island. These things happen. Our biggest mistake was not conducting adequate market research.”
Professionally, Tanya keeps the balls in the air by delegating well. “Each department has its own manager, and I visit each location about once a month. I’ve built each team to work well together, and I trust them implicitly,” she explains. “Although I’ve delegated the marketing, product development, and other jobs, I see myself as the glue that keeps the million moving parts of this company together.”
Tanya still sees clients, and it’s the part of her work that lights her up the most. While her skilled counselors could easily step in, she loves watching transformation happen. Her sessions carry a higher rate, drawing clients who value her expertise most.
She’s also adamant about creating clear communication channels. “I’ve currently got 127 separate WhatsApp messaging chats just for work, each addressing a different department. Each group is focused solely on its own sphere of influence. This creates accountability and enables the work to get done.”
Like most solopreneurs, Tanya struggles with the reality that the day consists of no more than 24 hours. She’s learned that it’s okay to roll things over to the next day, and sometimes—gasp!—even to the next week.
The best piece of advice she received, and the biggest game-changer for her, was to turn off her notifications. “All the clients have my number, and I welcome their questions, kvetching, and venting. If my phone would ping-ping-ping all day, I wouldn’t have a life. How would I be able to focus on the client in front of me? I set aside times to catch up on my messages, and those who need to reach me urgently know they can call.”
She has also made afternoons a device-free time zone. “Be completely present, no matter what you are doing,” she stresses. “It hurts my heart to see moms scrolling mindlessly at the bus stop. You’re with your kids; give them your everything.”
When she discusses work-life balance, she sighs. “It took me time to realize that there will never be a day when the balance will be perfect—and that’s not a bug in the system, but a feature. Say we’re launching a new product or location, and I’m super busy. My day will probably look like 70 percent work and 30 percent the kids. But the beauty of being self-employed is that I can choose days when I’m 90 percent home and devote just 10 percent to the business.”
Tanya believes strongly that when it comes to time with children, quality matters more than quantity. “I have five children, baruch Hashem, and four of them are girls. I have a date with each kid once a week. It could mean a drive for a Slurpee and back, but nobody’s interrupting them. For the girls,” she says with a grin, “they have the time to just talk, talk, talk.
“I advise women launching their own businesses to create boundaries. We’re naturally people-pleasers, and most of us struggle not to answer that text after hours, to resist the temptation of giving a difficult client extra leeway, or to request a deadline extension. I tell them that boundaries are a necessity for your sanity and a boon for your bottom line.”
Tanya never misses a school event, whether it is a kindergarten workshop or PTA. She remembers the one time she was forced to skip a Chanukah party, and her husband attended in her stead. “He had to wear a sticker that said, ‘I’m the Mommy of,’” she chuckles. “Otherwise, I’m always there, even if it requires some Einstein-level maneuvering.”
Sometimes a nontraditional approach work best. Tanya openly concedes that her husband is a much better cook than she is, and cleaning help eliminates the kind of work she detests. For a brief time, her husband, whom Tanya gratefully labels “a super-hands-on dad,” was home with the children, a decision they made together for the benefit of their young family. Online shopping streamlines her household management further.
Ask Tanya how it all works, and she doesn’t pause to think. “Hashem,” she says. “Logically, none of this should make sense. Time just seems to bend when I need it to.”
Beyond siyata dishamaya, Tanya credits her do-it-or-lose-it personality. “I’d much rather try something with a chance it might fail than not do it at all. Nobody enjoys losing money or seeing a venture go belly up, but it would bug me forever if I didn’t seize the opportunity. I guess where some people see risk, I see possibility.”
Tanya’s practice reaches far beyond the scale. She’s had the zechus of assisting several couples confronting infertility. “Excess weight and poor nutrition can be a hindrance, and multiple studies prove that. This isn’t just about losing a lot of weight,” she clarifies. “Unbelievably, taking concrete steps toward nutrition and wellness can enable some to become parents. This applies to both men and women.”
She grows emotional when she recounts those happy phone calls from the parents of newborns, whom she calls “my babies.”
“I’ve worked with girls whose body rhythm was thrown off due to anorexia or extreme rapid weight loss. We stay in the process together until their bodies find a natural rhythm again. There is a mother who still calls me every time her daughter, who came to me as a teen, has another baby.”
Tanya also tackles the slow-burn fallout of modern living, the kinds of health issues we don’t catch from others but from our own habits. She remembers the first time a woman emptied her pillbox on the table. Just 35, she was already on medications for hypertension, cholesterol, and diabetes, and Tanya was certain she could help her get off them.
“Thirty-five!” Tanya repeats, her voice laced with disbelief. “I reminded her that she was 35, not 85, and with her doctor’s oversight and encouragement, plus a lot of work on her part, she is medication free, baruch Hashem. She was much too young to need such hard-core medication. I know people twice her age who take none.”
This anecdote is far from an anomaly. Clients whose doctors gleefully announce that they no longer need prescribed medication are a daily occurrence in her practice. Lifestyle-induced comorbidities such as chronic fatigue, diabetes, and hypertension can all diminish or even disappear with proper nutrition. The same is true for some people who are taking psychotropic medications.
The triad of weight loss, healthy eating, and good health is far from absolute, Tanya warns. “I’d love to say that all three coincide in a happy, harmonious triangle. But sometimes they don’t. I have thin clients who eat junk, and struggling clients who eat avocados and nuts. For the ones with nutrition issues, I work through their food logs, pointing out skipped meals and suggesting better choices. If someone has hit a roadblock, we might examine portion sizes of healthy foods and eliminate the frequency of high-fat products.”
Clients with eating disorders also find their way to Tanya. She will try not to accept a client with a diagnosed eating disorder unless that person is currently working with a therapist, though some of her clients’ disordered eating will only become apparent after she has worked with them for a while. The therapist and Tanya will check in with each other, forming an alliance to assist the client. For some of these clients, the scale is verboten, and Tanya spends sessions helping them cultivate a healthy, non-threatening approach to food.
“When I see someone who is terrified to eat a carb, even a very healthy one, that can be a red flag,” she asserts. “Those are the ones on the border, and we work together toward a more balanced approach.”
She grows thoughtful in assessing the landscape of eating disorders. “I can’t say I’ve seen a definitive rise in eating disorders, no. But with the advent of social media, people are discussing their weight and body image a whole lot more. When I was in school, we didn’t have this whole dieting culture. Now people tell their friends what they ate, and parents bring young children to me. We’re a lot more body aware, and like everything, that cuts two ways.”
For Tanya, there is no such concept as putting a child on a diet. If it doesn’t come from the child herself, she argues, it will inevitably backfire. She urges parents to tread carefully and use positive language. Parents can foist their own insecurities on their children, and a child will remember a derogatory comment forever. A negative body image can last a lifetime and can take years, if not decades, to undo.
“Traditionally, nutrition counseling has been so adversarial,” Tanya says. “You walk into an office, and it’s a confessional for your dieting ‘sins,’ with the nutritionist playing the part of the disappointed authority figure. Food is very personal, and I want clients to feel safe sharing this deeply personal part of their lives. My approach is all about openness and positivity.”
There is one thing that upsets her, though. “I cannot stand by when parents tear down their kids in front of me because of their weight.”
Tanya remains nonjudgmental and respectful of her client’s choices. “If my client wants to eat six slices of pizza, there is no way I can stop that. I’m not the food police. I can, however, suggest that she eat them sitting down, add a salad, and regroup to make better choices from that point forward.
“On the flip side, if someone whom others may perceive as thin wants to diet, she’s going to diet anyway. I provide a safe space for that to happen, so long as weight and BMI ranges remain healthy.”
This thought process extends to the newest obesity wonder drugs, Ozempic and Mounjaro. “I’m open with my clients who ask if the shots have side effects or rebound weight-gain effects,” she comments. (The answers are yes and yes.) “But it is not my job to lecture or impose my views on them. Some clients see me because they want to feel better while taking the shots, or they’d like to manage their weight after they come off it. Ditto for clients who underwent weight-loss surgery.”
Tanya is transparent about the impact of weight-loss drugs on the industry. “Yes, fewer people are coming in for nutrition counseling, but for many who don’t want the injectables, or for those whose medical conditions preclude them, nutrition counseling remains their best option.”
Weight-loss drugs have also dealt Tanya an additional challenge. “Clients see the neighbor next door dropping weight effortlessly, and they expect it to happen as fast for them, too,” she explains. “But fast and easy is not long term.”
As a nutrition counselor, Tanya is privy to many details about her clients’ lives, and she harnesses this information to spread good. One wealthy client’s contribution enabled another client in financial straits to bring in Yom Tov. She’s connected people who need employment and set up those facing similar challenges to support each other.
Her ethos manifests during her hiring process as well. Over the years, she has hired scores of young women who needed a supportive environment to grow in, including Be’er Hagolah alumnae. “My clients are fantastic,” Tanya says enthusiastically, “and I don’t have to do a thing. These girls just watch. The frum women do their magic just by being themselves, and the girls change via osmosis.”
One of Tanya’s most popular ventures has nothing to do with nutrition. After she was publicly shamed during a painful personal episode, someone reached out to her and asked for a brachah. Tanya was utterly astonished when that brachah came true.
“From there, crazy things began happening,” she says with awe in her voice. “I’d request anyone who had been publicly shamed to reach out to me, and I connected them with those in dire need of a yeshuah.”
Perhaps the most remarkable story involved a very ill woman who had received devastating news from a doctor. Tanya connected her with someone who gave her a brachah, and only hours later, the doctor called back and informed the woman that there was a different option, a path forward, some more hope.
“I call myself the Embarrassed Brachah Broker,” Tanya laughs. “A bit cumbersome of a name, but I love it.”
Tanya is deeply grateful to Be’er Hagolah, the institution that shaped her. She directs five percent of her food sales to the school, and she returns to her alma mater to speak with students, both frum and not-yet-frum. “I want these girls to see that a frum life is vibrant and enriching, not a box where you have to stuff your personality in and hope it fits. I show them that you can wear nice clothes, have a meaningful career, and contribute to the community in your own personal style.”
She pauses reflectively. “Be’er Hagolah, in a sense, was my first business coach. It taught me how to meet people where they are.” ●
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