Nutrition counselling for your overall health & wellbeing.
My Approach
As someone who enjoys food and cooking, and wants to help people, a career as a dietitian seemed like a good fit. But during my schooling, something just wasn’t clicking for me.
I felt discomfort in the laser focus on weight, diet, and nutrients - but I couldn’t put my finger on exactly why. I felt that something was missing. There had to be more to healthy eating than just what you are eating.
I found exactly what I was longing for when I came across the anti-diet framework of Intuitive Eating shortly after finishing my master’s degree. This framework resonated with me strongly, and was in line with my values and beliefs about nutrition.
From there I learned about other non-diet approaches, such as mindful eating . I also began learning about the wild world of diet culture and the harm it causes, as well as weight-neutral approaches to nutrition.
I now understand that what was lacking from the diet and weight-focused approaches in nutrition that I had been learning about in school was considering a person’s relationship to food, the “why” behind their eating choices, and bringing awareness to their body’s cues.
Now that I’ve embraced anti-diet and weight-inclusive approaches to nutrition, I couldn’t imagine practicing any other way. I’ve seen first-hand how they have created long-lasting benefits to the overall health and wellbeing of my clients. I’m so excited to share a bit more about my approach with you here.
The truth about diets…
You may or may not be surprised to know that diets don’t work. Within three to five years, nearly every dieter will regain the weight that they lost. And two thirds will regain even more weight than they lost in the first place.
What? Yes, you read that right.
Believe it or not, diets are actually one of the main predictors of weight gain – the very thing they are supposed to do the opposite of.
And diets don’t fail because you have a lack of “willpower”. They fail because our bodies are biologically wired to protect against starvation, and our bodies perceive a diet as exactly that.
When you go on diets and deprive your body of the food that it needs, your body makes changes to how it runs in order to protect itself. Here are some of those changes:
A lower metabolism to conserve energy
Lowered levels of the fullness hormone & increased levels of the hunger hormone
Increased appetite
Preoccupation with food
Improved smell functioning (food tastes more palatable)
Beyond being ineffective, diets also do not come without a risk of potential harm. Here are some of the negative outcomes that diets have been associated with:
Increased cravings & binges
Obsessive food thoughts
Disordered eating & eating disorders
Feelings of failure
Lowered self-esteem
Social anxiety
So if diets don’t work, then why isn’t that common knowledge? A big part of it is diet culture. Read more about diet culture here.
What does “weight-inclusive” mean?
As a weight-inclusive dietitian, I recognize that weight is only one small piece of the puzzle of health. There is no way to know a person’s health just by looking at their body size.
Have you heard of the body mass index (BMI) scale that is often used to classify weight? It is more than 200 years old and was created from the measurements of a group of white men only. Relying on this scale alone frequently misclassifies health.
Just as it is possible for bodies to be healthy at a range of different heights, it is also possible for bodies to be healthy at a range of different weights.
Even if weight was a good indicator of health, most often when weight loss is pursued (ahem dieting), it results in weight gain.
But the good news is that weight does not need change in order to improve your health. Changes to lifestyle behaviours, like eating, movement, and stress management, can improve indicators of health – regardless of whether weight is lost.
This is why instead of focusing on weight loss, I focus on promoting overall health and wellbeing with my clients through a focus on adequate nourishment and a peaceful relationship to food and body.
Intuitive Eating Principles
Intuitive Eating forms the foundation of a lot of my work in nutrition counselling. This framework is anti-diet and weight-inclusive. It is supportive of improving overall health and wellbeing through a focus on relationship to food and body.
Intuitive Eating is a self-care eating framework that was created by two US-based Registered Dietitians, Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. Since 1995, they’ve written four editions of the book. There has also been a number of research studies that support the framework.
It is a mind-body integration of instinct, emotion and rational thought. A good way to understand Intuitive Eating is to think about the way children eat. We all entered into this world as Intuitive Eaters. We were able to eat according to our hunger and fullness, and choose to eat the foods that were right for us at that time.
Over time, people often lose touch with their ability to eat intuitively through internalizing external messages about food. Those messages may come from well-meaning friends and family, social media, magazines, and television, to name a few.
The framework of Intuitive Eating helps you to reconnect with your inner intuitive eater. It isn’t a linear process, and it often takes time. Here are its 10 principles:
1. Reject the diet mentality
2. Honour your hunger
3. Make peace with food
4. Challenge the food police
5. Discover the satisfaction factor
6. Feel your fullness
7. Cope with your emotions with kindness
8. Respect your body
9. Movement – Feel the difference
10. Honour your health with gentle nutrition
These principles are relevant to all people with consistent access to enough food. If you are a person with a health condition or someone with dietary restrictions, these principles can still be applied to your eating.
In my work, I incorporate these principles, as well as other non-diet approaches and supportive counselling to help you learn to nourish your body in a way that supports your overall health.
Are you ready to re-learn how to nourish your body without the diets & food guilt?
If what you’ve read here resonates with you, I would love to support you on your journey to break up with diet culture. I would be honoured to help you re-learn how to nourish your body confidently, free of guilt and shame. You can book a free discovery call or an appointment here.
What will you get out of working with me?
Less feelings of guilt & shame with eating
Less time spent thinking about food & more time to participate fully in other areas of your life
Less out-of-control eating, overeating, or bingeing
Less fear of eating “too much” or the “wrong” thing
Improved overall health & wellbeing
More confidence in nourishing your body