Using it was a morning ritual: wake up, use the restroom, remove my clothing to be as light as possible, step on the scale, and anxiously wait for a number to appear. I did this without fail, every day. Since I found my self worth in how much I weighed, I panicked when I was traveling and didn’t have access to my scale. This habit extended far past my weight restoration and “recovery” from anorexia. Although my relationship with food and my body was, by comparison, much healthier at this point, it was nowhere near where it should have been. I still relied on numbers to dictate how much I could eat and how far I needed to run. Doesn’t sound quite “recovered”, does it?
Read MoreRoughly 65 percent of dieters regain 100% of their lost weight within three years, according to Gary Foster, Ph.D. (clinical director of the Weight and Eating Disorders Program at the University of Pennsylvania). Diets aren’t new, of course, and they’ll likely never go away. There’s plenty to choose from, too: the Atkins Diet, the Paleo Diet, the Zone Diet, the Keto Diet, Weight Watchers, South Beach, the list goes on and on. The differences between these diet types are immeasurable, but they all have one thing in common: they require the dieter to put their own intuition in the back seat. If following one of these diets correctly, you must let go of your hunger cues and stop listening to what your body is trying to tell you. Instead, you’re obligated to stick to the strict set of rules that probably promise to “not be strict”. That doesn’t sound very instinctive, does it?
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I’m a 27 year old Registered Dietitian located in Orlando, Florida and currently run my nutrition therapy private practice all by myself (sounds scary when I put it like that). Since graduating from the University of Cincinnati in 2016, I’ve worked in community and clinical nutrition (with experience ranging from intensive cardiac care to outpatient pediatric counseling, and many others in between). I’ve since narrowed my practice in on my true passion: nutrition therapy for those recovering from disordered eating and other psychological disturbances surrounding food and nutrition. My practice recognizes that one does not have to be diagnosed with a full blown eating disorder to have a struggled relationship with food and health (considering 80% of women have attempted to diet before the age of 10 and over 75% of 17 year old girls admit to having body image issues). My hope, through my work, is to make even just a small dent in those numbers.
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