Why Eating Psychology Matters

With my mentor, founder of IPE, Marc David.

You know those moments in your life that you just want to savor, celebrate, and give some honor to?

Well, I’m having one of those right now, this very weekend.

And truthfully, I don’t think we celebrate our successes as often as we should in life, like raising good-hearted kids, navigating our relationships with our partner with heart and soul, starting a second career when others think you are nuts, or even having the courage to reach out for help when we can’t do something alone.

Lots of moments/events in life, big and small, that are worthy of acknowledgment.

For me, right now, I am having a pretty big one.

I’m here in Boulder, Colorado honoring the completion of my Professional Eating Psychology Coach Certification from the Institute for the Psychology of Eating (IPE). I am so proud to say I am a graduate of a cutting edge field that currently only a few hundred people in the world have studied.

It’s been hours and hours of intense study, reading, journaling, writing, financial sacrifice, and most of all, deep soul searching.

This beautiful body of work has changed my life and the course of my work forever.

You see, I realized pretty early into my health coaching practice that showing people what foods work best for them, how to prepare kale, giving exercise tips, or explaining why natural/organic food and products were so important wasn’t enough.

Because behind the actual food or workout was something much deeper. There was a relationship with food and body that needed to be explored and honored, a journey to go on that explores where is life calling you to. Without that piece, anything I shared with my clients would lead to short term success at best.

Psychology of Eating isn’t just for people who have a “disordered” way of eating. We all have a unique conversation and connection to our bodies and to food happening that can range from being full of loving thoughts and actions to self-hate and self-loathing.

Years ago, I became fascinated with deconstructing how I had created such a horrible relationship to my own body and to food in my childhood, which lead to years of chronic dieting, hating my body, exercising her out of self-loathing and the desire to be “perfect”, and constant internal conversation about how I didn’t measure up….all which lead to more and more weight-gain. Yes, the more I hated and more tried to diet myself into “perfection”, the further I got from my desired result.

I started to realize that I had been using dieting and exercise as a way to stay connected to those I loved, to be accepted, to replace the things I really desired as a woman, to grasp for things I couldn’t even name yet.

I realized that it was only through that look within and changing the internal conversation I was having with myself about myself, my desires, and about food that I was able to really shape-shift everything…my physical form, the foods that I desired, the way I moved my body, the way I saw myself.

This is for me the core reason why diets never work. Knowing how many fat grams are in a slice of pizza will never let you into the secret desires of your heart. Until you know that, food will seem like a great substitute to either binge on and/or feel intense shame about having.

But knowing that for myself wasn’t enough. I wanted to give my clients tools for real change. Again, it’s not to say that nutrition isn’t valuable because it is; it’s a way to give your body love and nourishment. But it’s only a piece of the story.

How you “do food”, how you “do movement” is a reflection of how you are thinking of yourself, of how you do your life.

So through my studies with IPE, I have been able to give my clients those tools, to take them to deeper places, to get in touch with what they really desire (which is so much deeper than chocolate cake), to lose the shame and perfection goals they have and live….free.

Some of my clients have resented me, desiring only to lose weight. They didn’t feel ready to change how they thought about their bodies or food. They were still stuck on a number on the scale. Or they found it easier to say “I’m just a sugar addict. Just get me off sugar and I know I’ll be all good.”

They weren’t ready to let go of the dieting world. They didn’t quite understand that weight isn’t just about calories in/calories out.

I get it. This is hard work; it’s soul-level stuff and it’s counter-culture. We are taught that the goodies are only available when we weigh X amount of pounds or we have the “perfect” way of eating, a “perfect” body, a “perfect” life.

But it’s a lie. Especially perfection. Such a lie.

And when we start to explore this world, our connection and relationship to body and food, and start exploring what we really desire….wow…everything opens up. Brings tears to my eyes.

I feel so blessed to start sharing the truth with women (and yes some men) at a greater level. My heart is bubbling over with ideas for workshops and live events to get us all in a room together to explore this work, breakthrough what’s keeping us stuck and not really living, and come out on the other side really living embodied.

Sometimes I get emails saying, “why are you always talking to women?” Well, my work now really does focus on women because I know how tough it is to be one and also how glorious it is as well. As women, we have a unique relationship to food and body that is different from a man’s and we have been bombarded with masculine strategies on how to “lose weight and get in shape.”

Follow a formula and you get X result.

But now is the time for me to teach other women that there is a whole other world and way of doing things that calls in the feminine. It’s beautiful and freeing and most of us ladies are walking around cut off from its power. And in truth, men need this too. We all need some Yin to our Yang.

I have so much more to share, a whole new world of knowledge to give to you so I hope you’ll stick around. I’ll have even more to share after my next level summer training at IPE with my teacher/mentor Marc David.

I hope you’ll keep reading and watching. I hope we get to work together. I hope to see you at my first live event this fall.

And I send you so much love and hope…

And know I walk this journey with you.

Please share your thoughts, comments, and heart with me below. I love hearing from you.

Love,