In my last blog I talked about how the holidays can be a difficult time for some. 

We don’t live in a cheesy Hallmark movie where life gets tied up in a nice, neat bow. For many of us, the holidays can be downright messy.

Today I want to give you permission to be however you need to be and to feel however you need to feel, during this topsy-turvy time.

It’s OK that you feel anxious, exhausted, and a bit melancholy. 

It’s OK that you feel badly that people around you love this time of year, yet you don’t. And it’s also OK if you love this time of year and that it brings you so much joy, and that you’re the first one to get your decorations up.

What do you associate Thanksgiving with?  Food? Family? (Or maybe Black Friday shopping?) What feelings come up?  Excitement? Anxiety? Dread?  It’s true:  spending a day, weekend, or even an hour with family can elicit mixed emotions for many. Then add in food—well, now you’ve got a potential recipe for disaster!

But we never go into battle unprepared, right?  

So if this holiday is indeed one that brings fear, dread, and stress—let’s make sure you have a self-care plan so you walk away from this holiday unscathed (or at least not as scorched). 

Here are some ideas:

When it comes to supplements, there are usually two nutritionist camps: 

• Those who say supplements aren’t necessary because we get all we need from food

• Those who believe that they are needed for specific reasons.

I fall into the latter—I definitely think that supplementation has its place and purpose. Personally, I have benefitted from taking certain herbs, vitamins and minerals and noticed a difference, for example when taking vitamin B12 when deficient or taking herbs to support my Hypothalamic-Pituitary Axis (read: managing stress levels).

One of the biggies I recommend is vitamin D3, especially during the colder months and for those of us who live far from the equator (most of us). I would say that around 90% of the women I see in my practice have very low vitamin D status, myself included (I just found out my D is low, too)! 

It’s that time of year again! 

Kids can’t sleep this week due to the anticipation of Halloween trick or treating (and the candy!). And parents…well, parents are bracing themselves for a long evening of dealing with their kids’ Halloween-fueled excitement.  And the candy.  Oh, the candy! Truly, it can seem like every parent’s worse nightmare as your kiddos return home with a pillowcase stuffed with sugary confections, begging to eat everything NOW.  What’s a parent to do?  

As a Registered Dietitian, I bet you think that my advice will be to limit candy to a few pieces and give them apples and carrots instead and then deal with the meltdowns and tantrums that ensue.  However, you may be surprised that my advice is actually quite the opposite:  Let your kids (and you!!) eat candy, I say!

This week I am taking a question that came to me from someone who follows me on Instagram.

“Amanda, I have done really well with ditching the scale. I haven’t weighed myself in almost 7 months, down from weighing multiple times per week.  I was at the doctor for my physical and I told them I didn’t want to know my weight. They did a good job with that but when I went in to check my lab results a few days later in the online portal, I saw my weight listed right there front and center. And the number is MUCH higher than what I could have ever thought possible for me.  I was feeling so good before and now I just feel awful. How do I get back to where I was feeling so good now that I know my weight?”   

There are so many apps these days to track everything you do: calorie counting apps, sleeping apps, meditating apps, and even pooping apps (I’ll be getting to that one later, it’s seriously one of my fave!).  Yet Intuitive Eating as a practice doesn’t require you to track your calories or even the foods you eat like most diets do.  In fact I have seen so many people get obsessed with the tracking their foods, calories and exercise that it can lead to unhealthy behaviors.

There are so many things wrong with our worship of tracking our intake.

Did you know that this week is Weight Stigma Awareness Week?

“Weight stigma? What’s that? And why does it need its own week? I am too busy celebrating National Farm Animals Week and I am not sure if I can handle this much awareness!”

Ah, I’m so glad you asked those excellent questions, friends.

Yes, it is indeed the first ever Weight Stigma Awareness Week created by the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA).

I’d like to talk today about my Non-Diet Approach.

Non-diet approach? What the heck is that? Quite simply, it means that when we work together to attain your health goals we do so without a focus on what the scale tells you.

Does your story sound like mine? For over 20 years I was a slave to the quest for a perfect body. For perfection in all areas, really. For so long I thought that life would just be so. Much. Better if my thighs were thinner.

Do you ever go to the Farmers market, or the regular supermarket, buy a bunch of produce because it looks so good and then get home and totally not know what to even do with it?

In the essence of full disclosure, I had a major pity party last night. I was procrastinating studying for an exam and I decided to engage in a completely random activity–look through old pictures on Facebook, as far back as 2007.