Intuitive Eating for Women in Lynnwood: Finding Freedom from Diet Culture

Look, I'm going to be straight with you. If you're reading this, you're probably exhausted from the diet roller coaster. You've tried all the things—counting points, cutting carbs, intermittent fasting, whatever the latest trend promised would finally "fix" you. And here you are, still feeling disconnected from your body, still hearing that critical voice telling you you're not doing it right.

I get it. I see women every single day who have spent decades learning to override their body's wisdom in favor of external rules. And honestly? It pisses me off that we've been taught to distrust ourselves so deeply. Intuitive eating isn't just another wellness trend I'm throwing at you. It's about unlearning all the bullshit diet culture has fed us and getting back to what your body has been trying to tell you all along.

This isn't going to be some fluffy, overly positive "love your body" lecture. That's not how I work. Instead, I'm going to walk you through what intuitive eating actually looks like for real women—the messy, non-linear, sometimes uncomfortable journey back to yourself. Because you deserve to eat without guilt, to trust your body, and to stop spending so much mental energy on food rules that were never meant to serve you anyway.

What Intuitive Eating Actually Means (And What It Doesn't)

Let me be clear about something: intuitive eating is not a diet. It's not "eat whatever you want whenever you want" with no awareness. And it's definitely not some magical solution where you suddenly wake up loving kale and never wanting cookies again.

Intuitive eating is the process of rebuilding your relationship with food by learning to trust your body's internal signals again. Think about babies—they know exactly when they're hungry and when they've had enough. They don't stress about whether they've had too many carbs or if they've "earned" their next meal. Somewhere between childhood and now, most of us lost that connection. We learned to ignore our hunger, push past fullness, and let external rules dictate our eating.

In my work with women in Lynnwood and beyond through online sessions, I see this pattern constantly. You've been the "good girl" your whole life, following the rules, trying to do everything right. And when it comes to food and your body, those rules have been relentless. Diet culture has convinced you that your body can't be trusted, that you need someone else to tell you what and how much to eat.

Here's what I know to be true: your body isn't broken. The system that taught you to ignore it is broken.

Throwing Out the Diet Mentality for Good

This is where the real work begins, and it's probably the hardest part. Rejecting the diet mentality means letting go of the voice that says your worth is tied to your weight or your food choices. It means recognizing that diets have failed you—not the other way around.

Research shows that intentional weight loss through dieting doesn't work long-term for most people. In fact, it often leads to gaining more weight later and can create a really damaging relationship with food. But diet culture doesn't want you to know that. It wants you to believe that if the diet failed, you failed.

That's crap.

When you truly let go of dieting, something shifts. Those "forbidden" foods start losing their power. When nothing is off-limits, when you genuinely believe you can have any food whenever you want it, the obsession starts to fade. This doesn't happen overnight—I'm not going to lie to you and say it's easy. But it does happen.

Learning to Recognize Your Body's Hunger Signals

Your body has been trying to communicate with you this whole time. Hunger isn't just a growling stomach—though that's certainly one signal. It can show up as a dip in energy, trouble concentrating, feeling irritable or lightheaded, or even a headache.

Many women I work with have been so disconnected from these signals for so long that they don't even know what real hunger feels like anymore. They've been eating by the clock, or according to their meal plan, or waiting until they're absolutely starving before they allow themselves to eat. And then they feel guilty for being "too hungry" and eating "too much."

This is exactly the kind of thought pattern we need to challenge together. Your body deserves to be fed when it's hungry. That's not a reward you have to earn—it's a basic need. Learning to honor your hunger is about responding to your body's signals in real-time, not waiting for the "right" time according to some external schedule.

Understanding When Food Isn't About Physical Hunger

Here's something I tell every client: emotional eating isn't the enemy. It's information.

We all eat for emotional reasons sometimes. You're stressed after a long day, so you reach for something comforting. You're celebrating good news with your favorite meal. You're bored on a Sunday afternoon and find yourself in the kitchen. This is normal human behavior, and it doesn't make you weak or broken.

The work isn't about never eating for emotional reasons. It's about understanding what's happening when you do. What are you actually feeling? What do you really need in that moment? Sometimes food is the answer—comfort food is called that for a reason. But often, there's something else going on that food can't actually fix.

This is where we start building your emotional toolkit beyond just eating. Because when you're dysregulated, when you can't sit still with your thoughts, when those quiet moments feel overwhelming—that's when old coping mechanisms kick in. And if food has been your primary way of managing feelings, we need to expand your options.

Making Real Peace with Food (Not Fake Peace)

This section might make you uncomfortable. Good. That means we're getting somewhere real.

Making peace with food sounds gentle and easy, but it's actually radical as hell. It requires you to challenge every diet rule you've internalized, every voice that tells you certain foods are "bad," and every belief about what you "should" be eating.

Giving Yourself Full Permission (Yes, Really)

This is probably going to terrify you at first, and that's okay. Unconditional permission to eat means exactly what it sounds like: you are allowed to eat any food, at any time, without guilt or shame. Period.

I know what you're thinking. "But if I give myself permission to eat cookies, I'll eat them all the time!" Will you though? Because here's what I've seen happen countless times: when something is truly available to you without restriction, it loses its power. When you know you can have cookies whenever you want them, you don't need to eat the entire package tonight. The urgency disappears.

This is both physical permission (yes, you can have that food) and emotional permission (yes, you can enjoy it without punishing yourself later). The restriction-binge cycle exists because of restriction, not because you lack willpower. When you remove restriction, the cycle starts to break down.

Calling Out the Food Police in Your Head

We all have that voice. The one that comments on every food choice. "You shouldn't eat that." "That's too much." "You already had dessert yesterday." "You're going to regret this."

That's not your intuition talking—that's internalized diet culture. That's every message you've absorbed over the years about being a "good girl," staying small, controlling yourself, and earning your food. It's the voice of every diet you've ever tried, every person who commented on your body, every magazine article that told you how to eat.

I'm not going to tell you this voice will disappear completely. But you can learn to recognize it for what it is and choose not to let it run the show. When you hear it, you can pause and ask: Is this actually true? Is this my authentic self, or is this diet culture speaking?

This is the work. It's not comfortable, but it's necessary.

Actually Enjoying Your Food (Revolutionary Concept)

Food is meant to be pleasurable. Full stop. Not just nutritious, not just functional—pleasurable. The satisfaction factor is huge in intuitive eating, and it's something diet culture completely ignores.

When you eat food that doesn't satisfy you—whether it's because it doesn't taste good, doesn't feel good in your body, or leaves you feeling deprived—you'll keep searching for satisfaction elsewhere. You'll keep eating because you're not getting what you really need.

Satisfaction comes from multiple things: taste, texture, aroma, temperature, and even the environment you're eating in. When I work with women who have been restricting or dieting for years, they've often forgotten what they actually like. They've been eating "diet foods" for so long that they don't know what truly satisfies them anymore.

Part of our work together involves you figuring out what you actually enjoy. Not what you think you should enjoy, not what some wellness influencer says you should crave—what YOU actually want. This might feel selfish at first, especially if you're used to putting everyone else's needs before your own. But this is your life, your body, your experience. You get to enjoy your food.

Navigating the Emotional Landscape of Eating

I'm going to be honest with you about something: the emotional work is often harder than the food work. Because underneath all the food rules and body anxiety, there's usually a whole lot of unprocessed feelings.

Honoring Your Feelings Without Automatically Eating

When you notice yourself reaching for food when you're not physically hungry, that's not a problem to fix—it's information to explore. What's actually going on? Are you anxious about something? Feeling lonely? Overwhelmed? Bored? Angry?

I see this all the time with my clients. You've learned to be busy, to keep moving, to stay productive. Because in the quiet moments, in the stillness, those uncomfortable thoughts and feelings start to surface. And that's scary as hell.

So you reach for food. Or you throw yourself into another project. Or you find some other way to avoid sitting with what you're feeling. This isn't about judgment—this is about survival. You learned to cope the best way you could with the tools you had.

But now we're going to build you a bigger toolbox. Some things that might help:

• Getting honest in a journal about what you're actually feeling, even if it's messy and contradictory
• Moving your body in ways that feel good, not as punishment but as a way to shift energy
• Reaching out to someone you trust when you need connection
• Practicing self-soothing techniques like deep breathing, taking a bath, or listening to music that matches your mood

The goal isn't to never eat for emotional reasons. The goal is to have options so food isn't doing all the heavy lifting.

Identifying Your Specific Triggers

Emotional hunger usually hits suddenly and feels urgent. It's often tied to specific situations or feelings. Maybe you always want something sweet after dealing with a difficult family member. Maybe you find yourself mindlessly snacking when you're trying to avoid a task you're dreading.

Here's what I suggest: keep a simple awareness log for a week or two. Not to judge yourself, but to get curious about patterns. What were you doing? How were you feeling? What did you notice about your hunger? You might start to see connections you hadn't noticed before.

Understanding your triggers doesn't make them disappear, but it gives you a chance to respond differently. Instead of automatically reaching for food, you might pause and ask yourself what you really need. Sometimes the answer will still be food, and that's okay. But sometimes you'll realize you need something else entirely.

Building a Life That Feeds You (Beyond Food)

This is the bigger work we do together. Because intuitive eating isn't just about food—it's about building a life where you're not constantly dysregulated and seeking ways to cope. It's about setting boundaries with people who drain you, finding activities that bring you genuine joy, and learning to listen to your own needs instead of always putting yourself last.

For many women I work with, this means recognizing patterns that have been there for years. You learned to be the caretaker, the peacekeeper, the one who makes everything okay for everyone else. You learned that your needs come last, that speaking up is selfish, that taking care of yourself is indulgent.

That's the real work. Not just changing how you eat, but examining why you've been treating yourself this way in the first place. This is where therapy becomes essential, because we're not just talking about food—we're talking about your whole life and how you've learned to move through the world.

Healing Your Relationship with Your Body

Let's talk about the body stuff, because this is where things get really real. You can't fully embrace intuitive eating while actively hating your body. I'm not saying you need to love every inch of yourself or feel grateful for your thighs every morning. That's not realistic, and honestly, it's not necessary.

Moving Past Appearance-Based Worth

Your worth isn't tied to your weight, your size, or how "good" you've been with food. I know you've been taught otherwise your entire life. I know there are very real consequences in our society for not fitting into a certain beauty standard. I'm not going to gaslight you and pretend that's not true.

But here's what I also know: you are so much more than your appearance. Your intelligence, your kindness, your creativity, your resilience, your humor, your capacity to love—none of that has anything to do with your body size. The system that taught you to base your self-esteem on your appearance is the problem, not you.

In our work together, we look at where these beliefs came from. Who taught you that your worth was conditional? What messages did you receive about your body as you were growing up? How have you internalized societal beauty standards as personal failures?

Finding Body Neutrality (Because Positivity Feels Fake Sometimes)

Body positivity is great in theory, but sometimes it feels like too much pressure. If you're not there yet—if you can't look in the mirror and feel love for what you see—that's completely okay. That's where body neutrality comes in.

Body neutrality is about viewing your body as a vessel that gets you through life. It's about appreciating what your body does for you rather than how it looks. Your body breathes, moves, heals, feels, experiences pleasure, gets you where you need to go. That's worth respecting, even if you're not in love with how it appears.

This shift—from focusing on appearance to focusing on function—can be incredibly freeing. Instead of asking "does this make me look good," you might ask "does this feel good in my body?" Instead of criticizing your reflection, you might thank your legs for carrying you through a hard day.

It's not about forcing positivity. It's about moving toward respect and appreciation, which feels a lot more authentic and sustainable.

Recognizing Cultural Bullshit for What It Is

Society has some seriously messed up messages about women's bodies. These messages are everywhere—in media, in advertising, in casual conversations, in family dynamics. And they're especially harsh for women who don't fit into the narrow definition of what's considered acceptable.

Understanding that these are cultural problems, not personal failures, is crucial. The beauty standard you're comparing yourself to? It's arbitrary, unrealistic, and designed to make you feel inadequate so you'll keep buying things to "fix" yourself. It's not based on health, it's not based on what's natural or realistic for human bodies—it's based on what sells.

Part of healing involves actively questioning these messages. When you catch yourself thinking "I should look like that," pause and ask: according to whom? Why? Who benefits from me believing that?

This awareness doesn't make the pressure disappear, but it helps you step back and see it for what it is: external noise that doesn't define your worth or determine your value.

The Real Journey: Messy, Non-Linear, and Worth It

I'm not going to sell you a fantasy here. Intuitive eating isn't a straight path from restriction to freedom. It's messy. You'll have days where you feel totally connected to your body and days where you fall back into old patterns. This is normal, and it doesn't mean you're failing.

Approaching Yourself with Compassion (Not More Rules)

When you eat past fullness or find yourself restricting again, your first instinct might be to beat yourself up. That critical voice kicks in: "See? You can't do this. You're not good at intuitive eating either."

But that voice is part of the problem, not the solution. What if, instead of judgment, you brought curiosity? What was happening for you in that moment? What were you feeling? What do you need to understand about that experience?

Every so-called "mistake" is actually a learning opportunity. When you eat past fullness, you learn what that feels like and can recognize it sooner next time. When you notice yourself restricting, you can ask what fear or anxiety is driving that behavior. This is how you build a stronger connection with your body—not through perfection, but through paying attention.

Learning from Every Experience (Even the Uncomfortable Ones)

The times when you feel like you've "messed up" are actually some of the most valuable moments in this process. This is where the real learning happens. Instead of spiraling into shame, you get to practice self-compassion and curiosity.

Did you eat while distracted and miss your fullness cues? Okay, what did you learn about the importance of paying attention while you eat? Did you restrict all day and then binge at night? What does that teach you about honoring your hunger earlier? Did you eat something that didn't sit well in your body? Now you have information about how that food affects you.

This isn't about being perfect. It's about gathering information and building trust with yourself over time. Every experience gives you more data about what works for your unique body and what doesn't.

Grieving What Was Lost to Diet Culture

As you heal your relationship with food and your body, you might feel angry or sad about all the time and energy you've lost to dieting. All the summers you didn't enjoy because you were worried about your body in a swimsuit. All the meals you didn't savor because you were counting and measuring. All the joy you missed because you were trying to make yourself smaller.

This grief is real and valid. You were taught to shrink yourself, to control yourself, to constantly monitor and restrict. That's not your fault, but it is a loss. Allowing yourself to feel that—to be sad or angry about it—is part of the healing process.

This is where therapy becomes essential. Processing these feelings in a safe space, with someone who gets it, can help you move through the grief instead of getting stuck in it. It's okay to mourn what diet culture stole from you while also celebrating the freedom you're building now.

Bringing Nutrition Back In (Gently)

Once you've done the work of making peace with food and healing your relationship with your body, you can start thinking about nutrition again. But this time, it's different. It's not about rules or restriction—it's about taking care of yourself because you actually care about yourself.

Using Nutrition Knowledge as a Tool, Not a Weapon

You probably know a lot about nutrition. Maybe too much. You've likely spent years learning about macros, calories, portion sizes, and food groups. The goal isn't to forget all of that—it's to change your relationship with that information.

Instead of using nutrition knowledge to control or punish yourself, you use it to support your well-being. For example, you might notice that when you include protein with your meals, you feel more energized and satisfied. That's useful information. But it's not a rule. It's a way to help yourself feel good.

This flexible approach to nutrition means making choices based on how you want to feel, not on what you think you "should" do. It means trusting yourself to make decisions that honor both your body's needs and your preferences.

Focusing on What You Can Add

Diet culture is all about restriction—what you need to cut out, eliminate, avoid. Gentle nutrition flips that completely. Instead of focusing on what to take away, we look at what you can add to nourish yourself.

Maybe you notice that adding more vegetables makes you feel more vibrant. Maybe incorporating healthy fats helps you stay satisfied longer. Maybe eating regular meals prevents you from getting overly hungry and uncomfortable. These are ways to care for yourself, not restrict yourself.

This approach removes the feeling of deprivation that comes with dieting. You're not being "good" or "bad" with your food choices. You're simply making decisions that support how you want to feel in your body. Sometimes that means choosing a salad because you're craving something fresh. Sometimes it means choosing pizza because that's what sounds satisfying. Both are valid.

Making Food Choices from Self-Care

Ultimately, gentle nutrition is about treating yourself with kindness. It's recognizing that what you eat matters because you matter. Not because you need to earn your worth or prove your discipline, but because you deserve to feel good in your body.

This might mean choosing foods that give you sustained energy for your busy day. It might mean including foods that support your overall health goals. It might mean eating foods that simply bring you joy and comfort. All of these reasons are valid, and they can coexist.

The key difference between gentle nutrition and dieting is the intention behind your choices. Are you choosing this food because you're trying to control your body, or because you're trying to care for it? That distinction matters, and it changes everything.

Recognizing Your Body's Signals During Meals

One of the most practical aspects of intuitive eating is learning to tune in while you're actually eating. This isn't about following external rules about portions or timing—it's about paying attention to your internal experience.

Staying Present While You Eat

How often do you actually focus on your food while you're eating? Most of us are distracted—scrolling through our phones, watching TV, working at our desks, or caught up in conversation. These distractions make it nearly impossible to notice what's happening in our bodies.

Presence during meals doesn't mean you have to eat in complete silence while meditating on every bite. But it does mean bringing some awareness to the experience. Noticing the taste, texture, and temperature of your food. Paying attention to how your body feels as you eat. Catching those subtle signals that you're getting satisfied.

This practice helps you recognize satisfaction before you reach uncomfortable fullness. It helps you notice when food stops tasting as good as it did when you started. It connects you to the experience of nourishing yourself instead of making eating something you do on autopilot.

Checking In Mid-Meal

Here's a simple practice that can make a huge difference: halfway through your meal, pause for a moment. Take a breath. Ask yourself how you're feeling. Are you still hungry? Are you getting satisfied? How does your stomach feel?

You don't need a perfect answer. You're just practicing awareness. Sometimes you'll realize you're already pretty satisfied and could stop eating. Other times, you'll notice you're still hungry and that's completely fine. The point isn't to stop eating at a specific time—it's to build your ability to notice what's happening in your body.

This check-in helps prevent that uncomfortable, overstuffed feeling that comes from eating past your body's needs. It helps you honor your fullness the same way you've been learning to honor your hunger. And over time, this awareness becomes more automatic. You don't have to think about it so much—you just notice.

Understanding How Satisfaction Affects How Much You Eat

This might seem backwards if you're used to thinking about portion control, but satisfaction actually helps you eat appropriate amounts for your body. When you eat food you genuinely enjoy, without guilt or restriction, you tend to feel satisfied at a reasonable level of fullness.

When you're eating food that doesn't satisfy you—whether it's because it's "diet food" that doesn't taste good or because you're eating it with guilt—you're more likely to keep eating past fullness. You're searching for something that never comes.

This is why giving yourself permission to eat satisfying foods is so important. It's not about eating whatever you want until you're uncomfortable. It's about eating foods you actually enjoy, paying attention to the experience, and naturally stopping when you're satisfied. This is how your body is designed to work when you're not overriding its signals.

Overcoming the Obstacles

Let's talk about the things that will try to trip you up on this journey. Because they will come up, and I want you to be prepared.

Dealing with Fear About Your Body

The fear of body changes is huge for most women. What if you gain weight? What if your body doesn't look the way you want it to? What if giving up dieting means losing control?

I'm not going to lie to you and say your body definitely won't change. It might. But here's what I know: when you give your body consistent, adequate nourishment and stop restricting, it often finds a weight that's natural for it. This might be higher than where you've been trying to force it through dieting. It might be lower than where you've been after years of the restriction-binge cycle. It might stay exactly where it is.

Your body isn't wrong for being whatever size it is. The cultural message that you need to be smaller is wrong. I know this is easier said than believed, especially when there are real consequences in our society for not fitting into a certain size range. But your body's size doesn't determine your worth or your ability to live a full, meaningful life.

We work through this fear together in therapy. Because it's not really about the number on the scale—it's usually about deeper stuff. Safety, acceptance, control, worthiness. Those are the things we need to address.

Handling Social Situations and Diet Talk

Diet culture is everywhere, and it doesn't stop just because you've decided to opt out. Family dinners, work lunches, social media, casual conversations with friends—all of these spaces are saturated with diet talk, body criticism, and food judgment.

You might need to set some boundaries. This can feel uncomfortable at first, especially if you've spent your life being agreeable and going along with things. But protecting your peace is important. You can change the subject when diet talk comes up. You can say you're not discussing diets anymore. You can limit time with people who make you feel bad about your choices.

Finding supportive spaces is equally important. Whether that's online communities, local support groups, or individual therapy, having people who get it makes a huge difference. You need places where you don't have to defend your decision to make peace with food and your body.

Setting Clear Boundaries Around Food Conversations

So much of our social interaction revolves around commenting on food and bodies. People bond over shared dieting experiences, criticize their bodies together, and judge each other's food choices—often without even realizing they're doing it.

You have the right to opt out of these conversations. You can say things like: "I'm not really talking about diets anymore," "I'm trying to focus on other things," or "Can we talk about something else?" It might feel awkward initially, but most people will respect your boundaries once they understand you're serious.

This is about creating an environment that supports your healing. You can't control what other people say, but you can control how much you engage with it and how much space you give it in your life. Your mental health and your relationship with food are worth protecting.

How Therapy Supports This Work

I want to be really clear about something: intuitive eating isn't just about food. It's about your relationship with yourself, your patterns of coping, and the beliefs you've internalized about your worth and your body. This is deep work, and it's often more effective when you have support.

Learning to Trust Internal Signals Over External Rules

In therapy, we work on distinguishing between your body's actual signals and all the external noise you've been taught to follow. What does physical hunger actually feel like for you? What does emotional hunger feel like? What's the difference, and how can you tell them apart?

This process involves unlearning years of conditioning. You've been taught to eat at certain times, in certain amounts, according to specific rules. Your body has been trying to communicate with you this whole time, but you've been trained to ignore it. Therapy provides a space to practice listening again, to build trust in your body's wisdom, and to challenge the beliefs that keep you disconnected from yourself.

I work with each client individually because your experience is unique. What works for someone else might not work for you. Your hunger cues might be different. Your triggers might be different. Your history with food and your body is yours alone. That's why the work we do together is personalized to your specific needs and experiences.

Rebuilding Trust After Years of Dieting

If you've been through multiple diets, your relationship with your body is probably pretty damaged. You might feel like your body is untrustworthy, like if you give yourself permission you'll just eat everything in sight. This fear makes sense given what you've experienced, but it's based on the restriction-binge cycle, not on what happens when you truly make peace with food.

In therapy, we work on rebuilding this trust gradually. We explore:

• How to recognize and respond to hunger before it becomes extreme
• How to notice satisfaction and fullness without judgment
• How to make peace with all foods instead of categorizing them as good or bad
• How to sit with uncomfortable emotions without immediately turning to food

This isn't quick work. It requires patience with yourself and consistent practice. But over time, you start to trust that your body isn't your enemy. You start to believe that you can listen to yourself and make choices that honor your needs.

Intuitive Eating in Recovery from Disordered Eating

Many women don't realize their relationship with food is disordered because it looks like what our culture expects from women. Constant food thoughts, guilt after eating, rigid rules, over-exercising—these things are so normalized that they seem like just what women do.

If you recognize yourself in this description, know that you're not alone and that healing is possible. Intuitive eating can be a powerful part of recovery, but it needs to be approached carefully and with proper support.

Supporting Your Healing Without More Rules

The last thing you need in recovery is another set of rules to follow. Intuitive eating offers a different path—one focused on rebuilding trust with your body rather than controlling it. Instead of meal plans and strict guidelines, we work on listening to your internal cues and responding to them with compassion.

This approach helps you move away from the diet mentality that often fuels disordered eating patterns. It's about understanding that food isn't the enemy and that your body isn't something that needs to be controlled or fixed. It's about learning to nourish yourself without fear.

Recovery isn't linear. You'll have good days and hard days. You'll feel connected to your body sometimes and completely disconnected other times. This is all part of the process, and it doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. The key is to keep showing up for yourself with kindness, even when it's difficult.

Addressing the Emotional Roots

Disordered eating is rarely just about food. It's usually connected to deeper emotional needs that haven't been met. Maybe food became a way to cope with anxiety or depression. Maybe restricting gave you a sense of control when other parts of your life felt chaotic. Maybe bingeing was the only way you allowed yourself to relax and let go.

In therapy, we explore these connections. What role has food been playing in your life? What needs have you been trying to meet through your relationship with food? What would it look like to meet those needs in other ways?

I use approaches like Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to help you develop psychological flexibility—the ability to be with difficult emotions without being controlled by them. This means learning to notice your thoughts and feelings without immediately acting on them. It means expanding your ability to tolerate discomfort without turning to disordered eating behaviors.

We also work on challenging the "food police"—that critical voice that judges every food choice. Learning to distinguish this voice from your actual intuition is crucial. Your eating disorder wants you to believe it's protecting you, but really it's keeping you stuck. Learning to recognize and challenge these thoughts is a key part of recovery.

Recognizing Socially Acceptable Disordered Patterns

Some disordered eating patterns are so normalized in our culture that they're hard to recognize as problematic. Obsessive calorie counting, rigid exercise routines that you can't miss even when you're sick or injured, extreme restriction followed by binges, constant body checking, avoiding social situations because of food or body anxiety—these behaviors are common, but they're not healthy.

If you're constantly thinking about food, if eating causes significant anxiety, if your food rules are interfering with your life, if you're using exercise as punishment, or if you're unable to eat spontaneously or enjoy meals without guilt—these are signs that your relationship with food needs attention.

You don't have to meet the clinical criteria for an eating disorder to benefit from healing your relationship with food. If your eating patterns are causing you distress or getting in the way of living your life, that's enough reason to get support.

Finding Your Way Forward

So here's where we are: you've read about intuitive eating, maybe you're feeling a mix of hope and terror, and you're wondering what to do next. That's exactly where you should be.

This work isn't something you do alone in your head by reading blog posts. It's something you do in your real life, with your actual body, often with the support of someone who knows what they're doing. That's where I come in.

In my practice, I work with women who are tired of fighting their bodies, tired of diet culture's bullshit, and ready to find a different way. We use approaches like Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Person-Centered Therapy, Brainspotting, and intuitive eating principles to help you reconnect with yourself and build a peaceful relationship with food and your body.

I offer both online sessions and in-person sessions in Lynnwood, so you can choose what works best for you. I also offer intensive sessions for women who want to go deeper faster, as well as group therapy for women and specialized groups focused on binge eating and health.

The work we do together is personalized to you. Your history, your struggles, your goals, your pace. I'm not going to hand you a worksheet and tell you to follow the steps. I'm going to show up fully present in every session, challenge you when you need challenging, support you when you need supporting, and be real with you about what this journey actually looks like.

I take my role as a healer seriously. This isn't just a job for me—it's my calling. I believe in the women I work with, even when they don't believe in themselves yet. I see your potential for healing, for peace, for freedom from the constant mental noise about food and your body.

If you're ready to explore what intuitive eating might look like for you specifically, if you're ready to stop fighting your body and start listening to it, if you're ready to build a life that feels genuinely satisfying—reach out. We'll start with a free consultation where we can talk about what's going on for you and whether working together makes sense.

You don't have to have it all figured out before you contact me. You don't have to be "ready enough" or "sick enough" or anything else. You just have to be willing to try something different. That's enough.

Visit my website to learn more about my approach and to schedule your free consultation. Let's figure out together what freedom from diet culture can look like for you.