Why did the sports dietitian become an intuitive eater?
To get to the other side... haha? But seriously. I needed to go through some serious 'ish to realize that food isn't all about control and vanity - its about self-care, self-love, performance and peace.
I started my intuitive eating journey around 3 years ago. The lessons I learned from intuitive eating were impactful for me because I had struggled for nearly 10 years with disordered eating, and so I thought that while *I* clearly needed intuitive eating to heal, maybe it was not something all my clients needed?
Except as I started working with more and more runners, it became painstakingly obvious that a lot of runners have fears around food. The explosion of social media has not helped. We are all terrified of sugar even though we rationally know carbs are supposed to help us perform. We are all scared to eat too much healthy fat as we slather avocado on our toast. We are all worried that protein will make our muscles too bulky to run that next PR. We know food is important but it terrifies us. And it used to terrify me.
There was such a divide within me - I knew the science, but the absolute terror of gaining weight was SO pervasive that I couldn't seem to let the science work for me.
You see, the science wasn't enough for me. I needed to make peace with food and my body. I needed the food freedom piece to really apply the science.
And I've found that to be true for a lot of you too. You don't need an eating disorder to benefit from food freedom. Because you also probably intellectually know that carbs are good. You maybe know a thang or two about nutrient timing but you're so worried about the scale and the instagram-experts who said carbs make you gain 5lbs of fat in your left earlobe (HA or something equally as absurd) that you can't seem to move past the food drama.
And if you're rolling your eyes totally unable to relate to this - that's cool too! Maybe I'm not the dietitian for you, and that's okay.
But if you get it. If you feel the need to over-exercise to earn your 'date night dinner' or can't figure out why you spend every night feasting on chips & ice cream after 'being so good' all day... then you're my people. And I totally wana help you change your life (cause that's what food freedom did for me - it changed my whole life).
AND realize that this isn't a journey where you stop caring about your body and your health because you're making peace with food. My athletes still kick butt in the gym, PR their races, feel fabulous in their bodies. It just looks really different from everything you've been doing and that's scary - but isn't that a good thing?? Don't you think if everything you've been doing was going to work for you then it would have by now??
If you want to chat about finding food freedom then fill out this super short application. Let's set up a time to see if you're a good fit for my virtual coaching program (before the holidays make everything 1000x harder lol).