How is my approach different?

For far too long, we’ve been inundated by negative messages about food, weight, and diet. We’ve been told that we’re willpower weaklings or that we need more control. We are bombarded 24/7 with unrealistic media images of thinness, and dieting aid ads, while the majority of nutrition experts promote conflicting advice. The result is people are confused about what to eat, and how to have a happy relationship with food and a healthy metabolism. In my professional practice, I combine many of the best strategies from nutrition science, eating psychology, Intuitive Eating, and stress management. By eliminating all the “shoulds and shouldn’ts”, I focus on what’s right for your body and your personal style. As we work together in this way, eating and health issues become a place of exploration. Instead of seeing such challenges as the enemy, they become opportunities for growth and self-improvement. In my training at the Institute for the Psychology of Eating, I’ve learned to help clients reach their highest goals not by strategies that punish, but through strategies that nourish.

What is Intuitive Eating?

Intuitive Eating is a dynamic mind-body integration of instinct, emotion, and rational thought. It focuses in honoring our health by paying attention to the messages of our body (aka attunement or interceptive awareness), and meeting our physical and emotional needs. It’s based on 10 principles. Some of them focus on body attunement and others work by removing obstacles that keep us from tuning in with our bodies.

In 1995, Evelyn Tribole, MS, RDN and Elyse Resch, MS, RDN wrote the first edition of Intuitive Eating. Since then, more than 100 peer-reviewed studies have shown that this flexible style of eating is associated with lower markers of distress (such as disordered eating, food preoccupation, food-related anxiety, body dissatisfaction, binge eating, uncontrolled eating, and depression), enhanced satisfaction with life, self-compassion, self-esteem, optimism, and body appreciation. Biomarkers, such as blood sugar and cholesterol have also shown improvements through Intuitive Eating, and although weight loss is not the goal of this style of eating, it has been found to relate to a lower body fat percentage.

The principles of Intuitive Eating are:

• Reject the Diet Mentality

• Honor Your Hunger

• Make Peace with Food

• Challenge the Food Police

• Discover the Satisfaction Factor

• Feel your Fullness

• Cope with your Emotions with Kindness

• Respect your Body

• Movement—Feel the Difference

• Honor your Health with Gentle Nutrition

What is Mind-Body Nutrition?

Mind-Body Nutrition is an exciting and timely new field that advances the practice of clinical nutrition by exploring the psychophysiology of how thoughts, feelings and beliefs impact nutritional metabolism and health. Originated by Marc David, Founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating, it goes far beyond classical nutrition by focusing on the fascinating connections between brain, body, and behavior. Simply put, what we eat is only part of the story of good nutrition. The other part is who we are as eaters. Mind Body Nutrition reveals how stress physiology, the relaxation response, breathing, awareness, pleasure, meal timing and much more profoundly influence digestion and metabolism. And it offers practical and results-oriented strategies for the most commonly seen eating challenges and health issues of our times.

What is Dynamic Eating Psychology?

Dynamic Eating Psychology is an important new field originated by Marc David, Founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating. It’s a positive, empowering and transformational approach that’s designed for anyone who eats. Each of us has a unique, fascinating, and ever changing relationship with food. Dynamic Eating Psychology affirms the primary importance of this relationship. It sees our challenges with eating, weight and health not as an indication that we’re broken, but as a beautiful opportunity to grow and evolve. Previously, eating psychology has been limited to those with clinical eating disorders. Dynamic Eating Psychology though, is for everyone. It affirms that our relationship with food has important lessons to teach us if we choose to listen. And it recognizes that our challenges with eating, weight and health are intimately connected to other primary life dimensions – relationship, family, work, finances, sexuality, our search for meaning and fulfillment, and so much more. Dynamic Eating Psychology is a powerful breakthrough approach.