• Disordered Eating:

I am not a dietitian, nor am I a therapist. Who I am is someone who’s been there, and come out the other side. In my travels I’ve spent over a decade researching nutrition, metabolism, the psychology of eating disorders, and how to chisel your way out of one.

As part of your team, or if you are medically stable and just need encouragement to do what you know to do (or find out what that is!), I’m here to walk the journey with you. Coaching is not a replacement for treatment or therapy, but can be another great arrow to add to your quiver of recovery tools.

• Chronic dieting and/or exercise addiction:

You feel like your relationship with food is chaotic or rigid. (both?) Even though it never works, and the results are a slow metabolism, tanked thyroid, you are running yourself into the ground, and you are barely eating anything and still not losing weight, it’s REALLY hard to get off the chronic dieting and exercising treadmill. The irony is, though, that until you do, you won’t likely see any real results, and you keep yourself trapped in a vicious cycle. Not only do you deserve a (permanent) break, but your body will thank you forever more. Scared to let go? Let’s work together so it’s empowering and liberating at the same time.

• Quasi Recovery:

Many who suffer from disordered eating manage, with help or alone, to get themselves to a place of better physical and mental health. Their body’s are no longer screaming for help or medically compromised. But neither are they truly liberated from the chains of food.

To the untrained eye (even your family and friends) you seem and look “fine”. But you aren’t fine. And you certainly aren’t free.

When I got out of the woods with anorexia and bulimia, and no longer had to fight through each bite, where I had arrived at was far better than anything I’d known for over 20 years. I knew I wasn’t free yet, but I was tired and wanted to coast. I remember imagining myself in a quasi-recovery hammock and praying “Father, I’m tired. But this feels good. If it’s okay with You, I’m gonna hang out here for a little while.”

I needed a bit of a respite, to gather up more courage before I decided on the next battles to fight. But I also stalled in my recovery for far too long because I didn’t know what to do next. Recognition that I had arrived at the beginning stages of the afterwards brought with it a whole new type of anxiety. Let me help you get unstuck and keep going, because you know you need to even when the world thinks you are just fine.

• General mind-body nutrition coaching:

You don’t have to be broken or have an alternator die on you to benefit from a tune-up. I realize you are not a car. But the body does have some similarities!

When we are younger we can get by with the occasional pizza night (I’m talking the one large per person nights), or bingeing double stuffed Oreos with girlfriends watching reruns. Even into our twenties our bodies are pretty forgiving.

But with time, things get a little, well, “fussy”. And if we are moderately wise, in our early thirties the concept of health crosses our minds. (You overachievers might have made the connection between health/nutrition and your creaky joint at the gym or skin reactions to whatever your aunt brought to the reunion a bit earlier- mid twenties maybe?)

You know you aren’t eating in a nourishing way, but can’t seem to get balance on your own.

Regardless, searching the inter-webs for healthy diet information took you down a road with no end where you picked up information overload like fleas on a cat, and feel none the wiser. For crying out loud, you just want to know how to eat better!!!

Calm down, I got you. (Imagine a cute little Bitmoji of some kind placed here -> x)

Let work together, sift through the stacks of books you’ve bought (read? Not so much yet…) and videos you’ve saved to the watch later folder on YouTube, and figure it out together. How to eat, when to eat, why to eat (x,y,z) and what to eat. No diets, I promise. Just education and support to find what works for you and your health and life goals.

• Hypothalamic Amenorrhea:

Been there. And it was great for my period to be MIA. (Gals, you know what I mean!) But the sad reality is that cycles are incredibly important. So much so that many physicians now consider it one of a woman’s vital signs? Sucks, I know.

If you have ever wanted to have children, though, you might have already realized that, um, that ain’t possible with HA.

And, if you are like me, and decided not to have a family, at some point you’ll realize how important it is for your body (especially your bones!), or maybe you are tired of missing out?? (Probably not…)

Regardless, HA is not okay.

Problem is though that just deciding you want Aunt Flo to come visit every once in a while again doesn’t make it happen. If your body’s not happy, you are undernourished, over-exercised, or even just stressed, she’s heading overseas and not looking back til you get yourself sorted out!

Maybe you’ve heard of the “all-in” method, coined by author Nicola Rinaldi in her excellent book “No Period, Now What”. If so, great! It’s a fantastic approach I’d be pleased to help you with. That said, it doesn’t work for everybody with HA. It wasn’t the right approach for me, so I get that. If you aren’t quite ready to throw in the towel on your “healthy eating” routine and eat with reckless abandon, given the importance of recovery for so much of your body and future, there are steps we can make gradually and still move you in that direction a bit more gently. Sometimes it’s as simple as some deficiencies or nutrient imbalances (essential fats anyone??), and other times it’s due to the reasons I mentioned earlier including stress and under-fueling.

Let’s work together, figure out what’s holding you back from experiencing that glorious time of the month (my eyes are rolling as I type), and make it happen! If I can recover from HA after 23 years, I absolutely believe you can. (Unless of course that window in life has passed for good- I don’t have magic superpowers, sorry!)

• Fatigue and Lack of Vitality:

Fatigue and feeling run-down sucks. But it’s often a sign of deep wisdom coming from your soul and body, trying to get your attention that something’s not right.

Maybe your relationship is suffering, work is unfulfilling, you’ve lost your mojo (along with your favorite pen and blue sweater) or you don’t take time for your own meals and only get the scraps from your kids’ plates. But you could also be suffering from low thyroid states (often a sign of nutritional insufficiency of various kinds or high stress), metabolic adaptation to restrictive diets, specific deficiencies of key nutrients, or life stresses manifesting as nutritional imbalances and poor choices.

Likely, if you are noticing a slow down and feel like napping after brushing your teeth in the morning, you’ve got a few soul lessons to learn. We can listen to what your body is trying to tell you together, make a plan, and get you skateboarding before breakfast again. Okay, maybe not, but at least you’ll be able to finish sentences and maybe have energy left to finish the book you started last year (year before maybe?).

• Digestive Distress and Food Intolerances:

Like fatigue, digestive distress is also your body’s innate wisdom trying to get your attention. Did you know that eating speed, your mood and thoughts about your food, your company at the table, and even just the stress of the day can compromise your digestion? Eating is designed to be an experience… it’s not just about shoveling food in. (Hint: your body knows the difference.)

On a similar note, if you are eating out of balance for your needs, or eating things that you are intolerant to, all hell can break loose, causing anything from bloating to heartburn, all kinds of interesting bathroom experiences, and leave you scared to touch everything from mushrooms to chocolate milk after caroling! It’s not fun. And it doesn’t need to be this way. Baring serious medical conditions (and even these can be supported through healthy eating habits and nutrition), it’s very likely that, working together, we can figure out what ain’t workin’ right with the plumbing and get you back to thinking about just about anything else (yes, please!)

From SIBO to histamine sensitivity, leaky gut and chronic stress to FODMAP sensitivities, I’ve been there. I still get flares on occasion (my digestion wagging a finger at my freneticism or reminding me that mushrooms and I just don’t get along so find a new friend already!!), but for the most part I’ve learned to be attentive and grateful that my body tries to keep me in line. (Somebody needs to…)

It’s not a bad place to be with digestion. Join me?