The Body Mass Index (BMI) is a number that must tell us a great deal about our health, right? After all, it’s printed at the top of the page, right next to your name and DOB on most medical records, so it must be important!

But what does it really tell us? At its core, BMI only reflects two things: a person’s weight relative to their height. Yet, for reasons that are more historical than scientific, this simplistic metric is widely used by healthcare systems to define health.

Today’s post is inspired by my Intuitive Eating coaching clients. While the Intuitive Eating principles can appear pretty straightforward in the books, in practice, it’s not always smooth sailing. Grab 6 of my favorite practical tips for making your intuitive eating journey just a little easier.

What foods do you enjoy? Are you a fan of salty and sweet things? Perhaps you adore a soft, fluffy croissant with a black, slightly bitter coffee. Or, maybe a warm, velvety soup paired with crispy crackers and a crunchy, but delicate salad is your idea of the perfect lunch. Today, we are discussing the hub of the Intuitive Eating wheel, Discovering the Satisfaction Factor. Let’s dive in.

What does it mean to be healthy? Is it the absence of disease? Can it be summarized with a number?

Unfortunately, we’re still pretty behind when it comes to fully understanding what it means to be healthy, and that is partly because our healthcare systems still rely on outdated measures to determine health status.

Ob*sity is described as a complex medical condition, brought on by many factors, that leads to excessive body fat. In recent years, we’ve even heard more and more about obesity being a disease, one that is complicated and still quite misunderstood. For such a complicated medical condition, we sure have a pretty naive way of defining and diagnosing it.  

Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, or T2DM accounts for 90-95% of diabetic diagnoses. T2DM used to be referred to as “adult-onset diabetes”, but children and teens can be affected as well. This is a condition in which insulin is being made, but over time, the body stops being able to use insulin as effectively. 

Research shows both losing weight and restrictive dieting increase the risk for eating disorders. Many assume a restrictive diet has a name, rules, and a specific duration, but the term “restrictive diet” simply refers to eating less than your body needs. Not only are GLP-1’s prescribed in addition to restrictive diets, but they also make following a restrictive diet much easier due to their mechanism of action: extreme appetite suppression and delayed gastric emptying.

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to work with an Eating Disorder Recovery Coach? Collaborative Counseling and Nutrition is so excited to be offering this new service. Jennie Griswold, RDN is giving us all the details! Take it away, Jennie!

Today, we are revisiting and updating our post on Bulimia Nervosa. Bulimia is one of the more well-known eating disorders, impacting 1.5% of women in their lifetime and 0.5% of men [6]. Like other eating disorders, bulimia nervosa impacts individuals across the race, gender, sexuality, and ability spectrum. The lifetime prevalence of bulimia in trans men is 3.2% and trans women 2.9%, with Black teens being 50% more likely to develop bulimia than their white counterparts [7]. In this post, we are reviewing the diagnostic criteria, symptoms, medical complications, and treatment.

Have you ever wondered how to become an Intuitive Eater? The principles seem easy enough to understand, but in diet culture, it can also be really easy to turn the Intuitive Eating principles into a diet. Today, we are unpacking how to become an Intuitive Eater and addressing a variety of myths, barriers, and important things to know.