Why I’m a Non-Diet Dietitian
I’ve had a few women ask me why I don't promote weight loss and why I'm a NON-DIET dietitian so I thought I'd share a snippet of my story.
My mom, who was somewhat of a pioneer in the field of nutrition, always talked about food and body weight. She introduced me to wheat germ, carob and fresh ground peanut butter at a very young age. I still remember the smell of Spice and Nice. Dieting and watching our weight was part of our everyday life. Weigh gain was a real fear. Comments like you look thin or you look like you gained weight were typical.
In high school, I was the girl who brought her own fat free salad dressing to Friendly’s, ordered only salads and watched her friends eat ice cream sundaes. In college, my sorority sisters expressed concern over my baked potatoes-salad-grape nuts diet. When I graduated, I ate only fat-free foods such as brown rice, bagels with fat free cream cheese (gross!), pasta with spray butter (double gross!) and veggies. I felt horrible most of the time.
When I got pregnant with my first daughter I designed a color coded meal plans, highlighting all the nutrients I needed to grow a healthy baby and not gain too much weight.
Over the next several years I was very strict with my eating and exercise habits. Don't get me wrong...I loved competing in CrossFit and I still love to exercise but I now realize, more isn't better.
As a mom to three daughters, I knew I didn't want them to grow up micromanaging their food and exercise like I did. I definitely didn't want them to feel guilty about eating food and punish themselves in the gym.
I knew that if I wanted them to have a healthy relationship with food and their body then I needed to have healthy relationship with food and my body.
Around this same time my co-worker mentioned the Intuitive Eating book to me. This book changed my life. I took baby steps unlearning my food rules and listening to my body. I took days off from the gym and allowed foods I wouldn't typically eat.
Day-by-day, week-by-week, and year-by-year my relationship with food and exercise completely changed!
I have been able to feel the happiness and freedom that a healthy relationship with food and body feels like, I've dedicated my career to using a non-diet approach -Intuitive Eating approach to help women stop obsessing about food and their body so they can start living life, on their terms.
Think about it: If you change your relationship with food, you change your kids relationship with food. You change the narrative for the next generation and beyond.
What's better than that?!
