Tips for Daily Nourishment

Have you heard Taylor Swift's new song, “Anti-Hero?” (If not, go watch her music video first, then come back!) In this article, I unravel four specific emotional patterns hinted at in this powerful song, all from the perspective of behavioral food therapy. The goal of this exploration is to highlight the tie between our emotional world and choices and offer insight into one of the most common quandaries my clients bring into session: “Why do I do the things I know aren’t good for me?”

Have you ever found yourself freaking out over something small and immediately numbing through food, alcohol, scrolling, or work? Or maybe you've impulsively reacted in a way that you knew was an extreme or disproportionate response to the thing that triggered you? If you can relate to either of these scenarios, it's likely you experienced a dysregulated nervous system hijack your emotions and reactions and the body's attempt to regulate and soothe unsettled nerves.

This is the second of four videos in the Mind-Spine Connection series where I sit down with my personal chiropractor to explore how our spinal health impacts our mental health.

In part two above, Dr. Sydne and I discuss the practice of "attunement" or paying attention to our body and the various channels through which we can pay attention in a safe and gentle way.

This is the first of four videos in the Mind-Spine Connection series where I sit down with my personal chiropractor, Dr. Sydne, to discuss how our spinal health impacts our mental health.

In the last 10 months I’ve spent working with my chiropractor, Dr. Sydne Pomin, to address chronic pain and adjust my body alignment, I’ve learned so much about the intricate connection between spinal health and mental health.

Self-love is a trendy aspiration. It also feels cliche, out of reach, and dismissive of the true internal struggles we can experience in the wake of body disappointment, unworthiness, and shame. Self-kindness, on the other hand, feels more genuine to me — an accessible middle path.

This year, I've been working A LOT behind the scenes on rebranding my website so that it accurately reflects me as a person and the way I support my clients.

After more than a decade, I recently returned to the Pilates reformer. Before this reintroduction — and what has otherwise been a general uptick in movement recently — I found myself in a many-months-long lethargic lull. For various reasons, old routines were no longer working, but I also hadn't found a new routine that felt right.

This is the in-between space. You recognize something no longer works in your life and you begin to transition away from it. Then you realize this transition is a process that requires you to be in suspension – neither here nor there – for an undesignated length of time.

There’s more influencing our food choices than we may realize. Often, when we serve ourselves another helping or reach for a snack we know our body isn’t craving, we blame our lack of discipline and willpower. In reality, the reactive, compulsive, and automatic ways we engage with food are, in part, a downstream effect of living with unprocessed body grief, shame, and neglect, or feelings of unworthiness and disappointment in our bodies and ourselves. learn about the five mindsets and practices I turn to in order to help my clients gently process the emotional discomfort often tied to food, so they can begin to feel more at home in their body as it is and move forward in a healthier and more complete way.

Many of us expect January to be the month that we feel motivated and eager to hit the ground running, tackling those New Year’s resolutions. But what if we don’t feel motivated? What if setting grand plans for the year ahead isn’t for us, or it doesn’t feel good to do right away in January?

I lead a six-week group program called Make Peace with Food. The first group of 2022 begins this Friday, January 14th,, and I hope you’ll join! In the video below I explain why I'm so passionate about offering this group.

For many, the period of festive celebration can also be a landmine of overwhelming food situations, triggering social or family dynamics, and feelings of sadness or loneliness that lead to working out our emotions through food (and other self-sabotaging behavior).

In my work with clients, radical self-care is the practice of attuning to our physical and emotional bodies and responding in a way that creates an internal sense of calm and safety. You can start down this path by watching your energy usage throughout the day (e.g. where it goes and how it comes back in) and nurturing the energy deficits - whether you’re numbed out or strung out - in an intentional way. (Two specific practices are suggested at the end.).

In order to accept and embrace your current body, you must grieve the loss of your old body.

This is a suggestion I’ll offer my clients in session. As we move towards an accepting, compassionate and mindful existence with food and body, we often experience sadness and grief about our changing bodies.

In the Make Peace with Food group program I run a few times a year, we’ve been talking about expanding our toolbox so that food is just one of many tools that we have access to and feel supported by. Otherwise, having only food to cope is like a carpenter going to work with just a hammer. The hammer cannot remedy every situation, and when it’s used inappropriately it could impact the structural integrity of the build. As long as we use food to numb, we can’t use it to nourish.

If you're looking for emotional support and a reminder that you're not alone navigating difficult emotions and hard things, I've compiled a list of documentaries, podcasts and a few books I've personally been enjoying and am excited to share with you in hopes that something here will be helpful.

This year, I've been working A LOT behind the scenes on rebranding my website so that it accurately reflects me as a person and the way I support my clients.

Many of us expect January to be the month that we feel motivated and eager to hit the ground running, tackling those New Year’s resolutions. But what if we don’t feel motivated? What if setting grand plans for the year ahead isn’t for us, or it doesn’t feel good to do right away in January?

If you’re overcoming a troubled relationship with food and you’re feeling frustrated or discouraged, there’s likely a disconnect between the expectations you have for yourself and the reality of the healing journey or what I call, “The Process”. If we don’t acknowledge and remedy this disconnect, and we don’t know that our rocky experience with The Process is to be expected, we might give up prematurely and walk away as if we’re doing something wrong. The antidote to shame and self-doubt inflicted by unrealistic expectations is to understand The Process, trust it, and learn to flow with it.

It’s not that hard to be healthy, to find balance in the way we eat, move, and care for ourselves that best serves body and mind. This is one of the most healing, reassuring lessons I learned from a nutritionist back in college. And since then I’ve studied, researched and read about the how and why, embodied it in my own life, and have taught it to and seen it take shape in that of my clients’!

Holistic Nutrition acknowledges that many aspects of daily life contribute to our health and well-being. But the idea of focusing on all the components of holistic health each day can be overwhelming. Keep reading for two small ways to put holistic nutrition into practice in daily life.

We eliminate physical waste (hopefully) daily. Why don’t we do the same with emotional waste? The mind-body connection, and subsequently our physical health, is negatively impacted when we hold in, resist, or ruminate over the same thoughts and emotions day after day. Keep reading to learn practical tools for eliminating emotional waste in just 5-10 minutes!

Whole Nourishment is going through a few significant changes this spring. This week I'm sharing some BIG announcements and powerful mindset shifts you don't want to miss!

The health of our gut influences our whole health. Everything from cravings, mood swings, low immunity, brain fog, and chronic aches and pains can be tied to poor digestive functioning.

But HOW we eat and interact with food throughout the day impacts our digestion just as much as WHAT we eat.

This guide to whole healing offers mindset and nutritional tips useful whether you're healing from a physical injury, illness, diet mentality, an eating disorder, or you just need some extra TLC. These are strategies I've shared with clients over time and practice myself to support the healing journey.

Three secrets to gut health that have nothing to do with nutrition and everything to do with the HOW: how we live and how we eat. These are secrets that research has proven and that I've witnessed having a tremendous impact on my clients' gut health and general well-being.

Recently I had a close friend say she aspires to eat healthy.

And then came the “but”.

“BUT”, she said, “I enjoy unhealthy food too much.”

It’s a familiar pattern. You have a string of stressful days, you begin to feel rundown, moody, or anxious, and you need comfort, fast! You turn to food that soothes in the moment but later leaves you feeling bloated, crampy, or constipated, and your anxiety returns. You might not even realize the self-justification dialogue running in the background: you deserve a reward for coping or muddling through a challenge, right?

Whole Nourishment is going through a few significant changes this spring. This week I'm sharing some BIG announcements and powerful mindset shifts you don't want to miss!

For many, the period of festive celebration can also be a landmine of overwhelming food situations, triggering social or family dynamics, and feelings of sadness or loneliness that lead to working out our emotions through food (and other self-sabotaging behavior).

'Tis the season when our calendars get increasingly busier by the day. We're inundated with obligations and parties and holiday prepping. Maybe some of us feel pressure to "perform"; to put on our stage face and decorate, bake, and shop more than we'd like. To continue pushing forward no matter what, because we've got to keep.checking.off that to-do list!

The holidays are such a cozy, festive, and joyful time of the year. But for many us, December is also synonymous with hurried days and increased responsibilities to host, cook, decorate, attend, chauffer, volunteer, shop, and gift. This probably means we’re overextending ourselves and finding fewer moments for proper nourishment, exercise, and quiet time to recharge. And we feel guilty.