Wellness Strategies for Contextual Relationships With Food and Body Image

Intuitive Eating and Movement 

Introduction Workshop

There is a reason that you can’t seem to stick to a certain lifestyle, meal plan, diet plan. And there is a reason that you feel disconnected from your body. Our Intuitive Eating and Movement group can give you the tools to reconnect with your body and feel good about yourself. 

If you’re sick of the roller coaster of dieting and feeling at odds with your body, then join us for an Introduction to Intuitive Eating & Movement Practice Workshop. Cost $30.00.

8 Month Program 

Intuitive Eating is not a diet or meal plan; it’s a framework that helps you connect with your body with a set of principles that allow us to intuitively listen to and trust our bodies.  (We honor the Anit-Diet prinicipals of HAES)

 Our 8-month small group experience is offered online and in person. The small group is limited to a maximum of 8 individuals so you have an opportunity for learning, growth, sharing, and community with other like-minded individuals. 

10 sessions of interactive group work

(Sessions will be recorded if you are unable to attend).

Weekly sessions

In-person format

In each session, we will all meet in person where we will have group discussion, interaction, demonstration, and Q&A related to that week’s Intuitive Eating principles and an intention of the IE Principal, Movement. 

Online Format

Each session will have live video calls where we will have group discussion, demonstrations, and Q&A related to that week’s Intuitive Eating principles and an intention of the 11th Principal, Movement. 

1:1 Sessions (2)

You will receive two (2) 30-minute individual consultation sessions with Mary Shackelford, RN, and Intuitive Eating Counselor Angela Sastry, LPC.

12 Pre-Recorded video modules

For each Principle of Intuitive Eating, you will receive a video module to listen to or watch before that week’s session.

Online chat group and Discussion

You will have daily support via an online chat group. This helps answer questions in real-time and offers support and encouragement between our weekly video sessions. Discussion prompts will help facilitate supportive conversations. 

Materials

The Intuitive Eating Workbook and additional materials such as handouts, worksheets, and practice notes are included in the program’s cost and will be provided.

Journaling Prompts

There will be weekly journaling prompts to allow you to begin experimenting and implementing what you’re learning in group.

Ongoing Community

After completion of the 6-month group experience, you have the option for continued community and long-lasting support, with 1:1 consultations and other special topic group offerings.

Cost

Total Cost: $675 

Monthly payments: $84.37 

Intuitive Eating and Movement 

Individual Sessions 

We offer individual Intuitive Eating and Movement sessions, incorporating the principles of Intuitive Eating and yoga. 

Individual sessions: 1:1 $100 per session

Intuitive Eating Philosophy 

1. Reject the Diet Mentality

Throw out the diet books and magazine articles that offer you the false hope of losing weight quickly, easily, and permanently. Get angry at diet culture that promotes weight loss and the lies that have led you to feel as if you were a failure every time a new diet stopped working and you gained back all of the weight. If you allow even one small hope to linger that a new and better diet or food plan might be lurking around the corner, it will prevent you from being free to rediscover Intuitive Eating.

2. Honor Your Hunger

Keep your body biologically fed with adequate energy and carbohydrates. Otherwise you can trigger a primal drive to overeat. Once you reach the moment of excessive hunger, all intentions of moderate, conscious eating are fleeting and irrelevant. Learning to honor this first biological signal sets the stage for rebuilding trust in yourself and in food.

3. Make Peace with Food

Call a truce; stop the food fight! Give yourself unconditional permission to eat. If you tell yourself that you can’t or shouldn’t have a particular food, it can lead to intense feelings of deprivation that build into uncontrollable cravings and, often, bingeing. When you finally “give in” to your forbidden foods, eating will be experienced with such intensity it usually results in Last Supper overeating and overwhelming guilt.

4. Challenge the Food Police

Scream a loud no to thoughts in your head that declare you’re “good” for eating minimal calories or “bad” because you ate a piece of chocolate cake. The food police monitor the unreasonable rules that diet culture has created. The police station is housed deep in your psyche, and its loud speaker shouts negative barbs, hopeless phrases, and guilt-provoking indictments. Chasing the food police away is a critical step in returning to Intuitive Eating. 

5. Discover the Satisfaction Factor

The Japanese have the wisdom to keep pleasure as one of their goals of healthy living. In our compulsion to comply with diet culture, we often overlook one of the most basic gifts of existence—the pleasure and satisfaction that can be found in the eating experience. When you eat what you really want, in an environment that is inviting, the pleasure you derive will be a powerful force in helping you feel satisfied and content. By providing this experience for yourself, you will find that it takes just the right amount of food for you to decide you’ve had “enough.”

6. Feel Your Fullness

In order to honor your fullness, you need to trust that you will give yourself the foods that you desire.  Listen for the body signals that tell you that you are no longer hungry. Observe the signs that show that you’re comfortably full. Pause in the middle of eating and ask yourself how the food tastes, and what your current hunger level is. 

7. Cope with Your Emotions with Kindness

First, recognize that food restriction, both physically and mentally, can, in and of itself, trigger loss of control, which can feel like emotional eating. Find kind ways to comfort, nurture, distract, and resolve your issues. Anxiety, loneliness, boredom, and anger are emotions we all experience throughout life. Each has its own trigger, and each has its own appeasement. Food won’t fix any of these feelings. It may comfort in the short term, distract from the pain, or even numb you. But food won’t solve the problem. If anything, eating for an emotional hunger may only make you feel worse in the long run. You’ll ultimately have to deal with the source of the emotion.

8. Respect Your Body

Accept your genetic blueprint. Just as a person with a shoe size of eight would not expect to realistically squeeze into a size six, it is equally futile (and uncomfortable) to have a similar expectation about body size. But mostly, respect your body so you can feel better about who you are. It’s hard to reject the diet mentality if you are unrealistic and overly critical of your body size or shape. All bodies deserve dignity.

9. Movement—Feel the Difference

Forget militant exercise. Just get active and feel the difference. Shift your focus to how it feels to move your body, rather than the calorie-burning effect of exercise. If you focus on how you feel from working out, such as being energized, it can make the difference between rolling out of bed for a brisk morning walk or hitting the snooze alarm.

10. Honor Your Health—Gentle Nutrition

Make food choices that honor your health and taste buds while making you feel good. Remember that you don’t have to eat perfectly to be healthy. You will not suddenly get a nutrient deficiency or become unhealthy, from one snack, one meal, or one day of eating. It’s what you eat consistently over time that matters. Progress, not perfection, is what counts.