Get Yourself A Dietitian

[Listen to an audio version of this blog here.]

When I started seeing my Dietitian (Amy), I hadn’t quite figured out how to feed myself. I was past the really bad eating disorder stuff: the purging and starvation and inevitable binges. I had stabilized my body weight enough that it didn’t cause concern, but as anyone with an eating disorder will tell you, the body is only a small part of it. Fixing the real problem requires fixing the brain. I had started fixing my brain but I hadn’t even come close to healing myself enough to feel like a happy, whole person all on my own.

When I first started seeing Amy she asked me if I wanted to weigh myself. “No,” I answered. “Definitely not.” Amy was a tall, broad shouldered woman, a former collegiate swimmer and a mom. Sometimes you know someone is a mom before you really know if they’re a mom. She was warm and welcoming, with a big smile and a quirky but honest way of talking. I saw her every other week, and she slowly but surely dismantled false beliefs I held about food, like that all carbs were bad, or that eating a sweet would make me gain weight. Amy asked me, every visit, if I wanted to be weighed. She wanted to take away my fear of the scale and prove to me, with numbers and data, that the weight of my body was nothing to be ashamed of.