Early life

Freston grew up in the Atlanta area. She began modeling at age 16.

Career

Kathy Freston is a New York Times best-selling author with a concentration on healthy living and conscious eating. Her books include The Quantam Wellness Cleanse: The 21 Day Essential Guide to Healing Your Body, Mind, and Spirit, Quantum Wellness: A Practical and Spiritual Guide to Health and Happiness, The One: Discovering the Secrets of Soul Mate Love, and Expect a Miracle: 7 Spiritual Steps to Finding the Right Relationship. Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dr. Dean Ornish penned the introductions for her two latest books and her work has garnered accolades from such people as Dr. Andrew Weil, Dr. Neal Barnard, Marianne Williamson and Dr. Deepak Chopra.

Freston's career path began when she left an abusive relationship and began to meditate as part of her recovery process. She began by making her own meditation cassette tapes. She stated in an interview, "Then I started creating tapes for friends and realized, Hey, this is very useful to people[sic]. I recorded CD's and those sold well." She stated that people "came to her for counseling," and so she began her career.

She has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and across Winfrey's network. Freston promotes prayer and meditation, which she says will lead to a state of "quantum wellness". She was responsible for a 21-day vegan detox plan which Winfrey began in 2008. Evangelical Christians have been critical of Freston's teachings, saying that it represents a heretical endorsement of false doctrines.

She has appeared on Ellen, The View, Good Morning America, and CBS's the Early Show. Her work has been featured notably in Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar, Self, W, and Fitness. She is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post.

Freston promotes a body/mind/spirit approach to health and happiness that includes a concentration on healthy diet, emotional introspection, spiritual practice, and loving relationships, among other tenants. Her work is focused on providing guidance for conscious and healthy living in our increasingly busy world. Freston continually cites the proven value of “leaning into” change and the benefits of “progress, not perfection.”

Marriage

She is married to television executive Tom Freston. Tom was an executive at Viacom in charge of MTV Networks until 2006. In 2007, Oprah Winfrey approached Tom to head up her start up cable network OWN. Kathy had previously been on The Oprah Winfrey Show to promote one of her books, and Winfrey suspected that Kathy could be her ally in finding a connection with Tom.

In 2007, the couple endowed a scholarship at Emerson College to promote diversity at the school.