how my journey began
i grew up in a family that loved food and i was blessed to live in a home where normal-eating was modeled most of the time. i played sports. i watched a lot of That’s So Raven and Lizzie McGuire on the weekends. i ate pretzels dipped in melted chocolate chips and giant bowls of watermelon for snacks and battled my siblings for the last Fruit-By-The-Foot. we often ate dinner at home as a family - except on Mondays when we always went to Pizza Hut. i would accompany my dad on weekly grocery trips and pick out new recipes to try. i was also the type of kid who loved school, especially science, and late in high school i discovered the world of food science and dietetics. the thought of combining two of my favorite things - food and science - into a career path was exciting. so off i went to study dietetics.
the further i got into my education though, i noticed something: the intuition and freedom i had around food felt like it was suddenly at risk of slipping away from me. in its place was the pressure to eat a certain way, a figurative book of food rules reinforced by professors and people i trusted, and ideas about “good” and “bad” when it came to food choices. i can remember sitting in class after having just competed an end-of-semester project that involved analyzing a week’s worth of my eating patterns, and at my professor’s request, essentially grading myself on how “well” i did. of course i didn’t meet the recommendations - now i know that it is impossible to eat “perfectly” and this was totally normal - but, at first, this made me feel less-than. how could i be an RD if i couldn’t even eat “right” myself? and then i remembered that i am human. and that i have a life. a life in which i value so many more things than the food i eat. and that nutrition is nuanced; so incredibly nuanced. but i also felt shame that i didn’t eat “better”. WHAT? my mind was blown, the ability for food or my eating choices to make me feel that way. nope. i was not signing up for that for the rest of my life. and i certainly wasn’t going to be promoting and perpetuating that as a dietitian either.
there had to be another way to promote nourishment and wellbeing outside of micromanaging intake and living by a rigid set of food rules and dieting, even if it wasn’t being taught in my courses. it was then that i found Intuitive Eating and Health-At-Every-Size®, along with a whole new supportive community of RDs rooted in these ideas. as i entered into grad school, i dove deep into these approaches to health that acknowledge 1) weight loss diets don’t work, 2) every body, regardless of size, shape, and weight, deserves respect, appreciation, and the same access to care, and 3) our bodies hold a lot of valuable information to guide us when we can connect with them and honor their inner wisdom.
it was my own experiences with diet culture and the disordered thoughts and ideas i was being taught as a dietietcs student, that led me to pursue work as a registered dietitian in the field of clinical eating disorder treatment and recovery and now, in this space here too, helping individuals nourish a healthy relationship with food, free of diet talk, food rules and shame. i have three years of experience working in the eating disorder field at various levels of care including PHP/IDP, IOP, and outpatient. it is my honor and privilege to walk alongside clients in their journey to achieve food freedom, reconnect with their bodies, and reclaim so much of their lives that diet culture has stolen away. your life is now. and it’s time to discover and explore what living a healthy and nourished life means to you.