To be honest, we're sick of all the blog posts circulating this time of year that promote "saving calories" for holiday parties or skipping the ranch with your veggies to "lighten up" your holiday spread. These "tips" not only steal the joy from holiday foods, but likely set you up to binge on the foods you're trying to avoid. There's nothing like eating plain raw celery instead of a slice of pie to make you feel unsatisfied and deprived. With diety messages like these, it's

If you're looking for this post to tell you how to shave calories from your thanksgiving dinner, you're out of luck. And, if you're seeking advice on whether you should eat white or dark meat or want the five best post-thanksgiving cleanses, you'll have to look elsewhere. But, if you're like us and and are sick of the overthinking, guilt-tripping, and food-shaming that happens every year around the holidays, you've come to the right place. Plenty of people employ the "eat thi

[Photo by Christina Branco on Unsplash] "I can't keep ice cream at my house without eating the whole carton." Does this sound like something you may have said or thought before? Maybe you yourself have turned down cookies from a friend or thrown out food from a party simply because you knew you couldn't control yourself around that particular food item. Perhaps you know what it's like to have a plate of cookies in your cupboard and to find yourself going back for thirds, four

[Photo by Andres Urena on Unsplash] Whether you're recovering from an eating disorder or are simply working on tuning in to hunger and fullness, counting calories is a major hindrance to eating intuitively. While calorie counting is praised and encouraged in our society, it forces eating decisions to be made based on external cues and robs us of mental energy and true food freedom. However, many people who want to stop counting calories feel unable to "just stop." They delete

If you're like many people who have heard of intuitive eating, you don't feel comfortable with all 10 of the intuitive eating principles. Maybe you want food freedom, but are afraid of the cost it will take to get there. On the surface, the idea of focusing on developing healthy behaviors rather than focusing on weight sounds great to a lot of people. But, when the concept of honoring hunger comes up, people say, "I'm hungry all the time. If I honor my hunger, I'll gain weigh

Ever felt like The Hunger Games was a title better suited for your family mealtimes than for the popular book series? Try as we might, mealtimes with kids can feel more like war zones than peaceful dining experiences. We use our smartest sleuthing tactics to sneak veggies into the foods they least expect (meatloaf, anyone?). We negotiate deals with our children, promising ice cream if they eat just "one more bite" of that dreaded baby carrot. We plead, persuade, and pressure.

"It's not a diet, it's a lifestyle." Sound familiar? Nowadays, more and more diets are being disguised as "lifestyles", but still promote the same ineffective practices. While frustrating, it makes sense. People are fed up with diets, and advertisers know it. Most of us are aware that 8-day cleanses and 30-day workout challenges won't solve our problems with food and body image. While we're certainly in favor of lifestyle change to promote sustainable, long-term health (that'

If carbohydrates were people, they'd be the the most misunderstood, underappreciated guys on the block. Instead, they're just the most misunderstood, underappreciated macro-nutrient...and they have been ever since South Beach became much more than a vacation destination. Food personification aside, it's understandable if you're confused about carbohydrates. Of all the food groups, this is the one people seem to have the most questions about these days. And rightly so. Media d

[Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash] For many people, meal planning feels like a dreaded burden they have to suffer through each week. And yet, many people would also say that meals feel less chaotic and more consistent if they have some sort of plan in place. A lot of times, when I talk with people about how diets don't work and how to eat more intuitively, they think that means that any form of meal planning is now off the table. Quite the opposite! While highly rig

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash If you had to describe your relationship with food, what would you say? Maybe something jumps immediately to mind, or maybe you've never considered your relationship to food before. When you think about food, do you experience feelings of guilt, fear, or shame? Do you think of food in terms of punishment or reward? Does each food you see automatically earn a label of "good" or "bad"? If you had to guess, what percent of your day do you spend thi

Photo by Bethany Newman on Unsplash Whether it's chips and salsa, doughnuts, pizza, ice cream, or french fries, so many of our clients have certain foods that make them feel out of control. Oftentimes, we hear the stories of individuals who swear off their "trigger foods" only to polish off multiple servings of that same forbidden food hours later. Ashamed and afraid, they restrict the next day to compensate, only to overindulge again. This cycle consumes an incredible amount

Photo by Dan Gold on Unsplash How often do you find yourself eating while doing something else? Maybe working at your desk, scrolling through social media, reading the newspaper, watching TV, or driving? If you're like many people, you probably multi-task while eating quite a lot. When your schedule is packed to the brim, things like eating somehow tend to get pushed to the side. I mean, if you’re capable of simultaneously eating, typing an email on your phone, and running to

Photo by Charl van Rooy on Unsplash We often like to think of food decisions in very black and white terms: I "should" eat this, I "shouldn't" eat that. The struggle with this is that eating is very rarely a black and white process. You may have noticed this when you try to stick to a rigid plan with very clearly defined rules. It may make things seem easier on the surface, but the actual implementation is a struggle (this is true for the vast majority of people - it's not ju

If you take a second to type "guilt-free" into your search engine, the large majority of suggestions will be about food! "Guilt-free cheesecake," "guilt-free ice cream," and "guilt-free comfort favorites" are all popular Google searches. On the flip side, other foods are described as "sinfully delicious" to communicate that these foods are especially guilt-inducing. This plays out in advertising as well. Halo-Top Ice Cream, Eat-Me-Guilt-Free Brownies, and many other food bran

Many of you have told me how helpful it was to see how intuitive eating plays out with my last "day in the life" post. Since it seemed useful, I plan to try doing these once per month or so. Before we jump in, just a reminder that these posts aren't intended to tell you what you should eat. We are different people, so we have different needs and preference. They are simply a tool to help you see what it might look like to eat intuitively - to make choices while considering hu

Below is a collection of all the foods I ate over the weekend and why I chose to eat what I did. This post is not intended to be a list of what you should eat. Rather, I hope it provides a helpful glimpse into what it looks like to make food decisions based on your internal cues instead of external cues. What is normal eating for me might not be for you because we are different people with different lives and different needs when it comes to food. For me, intuitive eating mea

Photo by Joshua Sortino on Unsplash All throughout our series on intuitive eating, we've talked about what a process it is to move away from the diet mentality thinking we've been surrounded with our whole lives. Hopefully some of the tips we've shared on the blog and in our email series have helped you start out on that journey, but I think having an abundance of resources to turn to never hurts! Below are some incredible blog posts from other non-diet dietitians that I high

Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash Often, as a person starts their journey toward becoming an intuitive eater, there is a lot of concern about where nutrition comes in. The process of rejecting diet mentality and making peace with food can make it feel like nutrition is being thrown out the window, and that makes people nervous! I think some of this fear comes from the intense pressure we as a culture put on food as it relates to our health. The belief that, if we eat a cheeseb

"I should exercise more, but I just hate it!" This is feedback we regularly hear from clients when the topic of exercise comes up. Oftentimes, our clients who despise exercise have every reason to do so! Their experience with exercise has involved militant movement, from sweaty pushups and lap-running to monotonous elliptical sessions. Ready to enjoy exercise again? Read on for some tips on how to incorporate intuitive movement in your life: Pinpoint The Problem Have you ever

Photo by Dakota Corbin on Unsplash It's tough for most people to imagine tolerating their bodies in this culture, let alone respecting them! By age eight, eighty percent of kids are afraid of getting fat, and by age ten, eighty percent of girls have already dieted! It's no surprise that the American culture is swimming with people who are at war with their bodies, either because they feel they are too fat or because they are afraid of becoming fat. It might seem that all this