By: Rachel Dodson RD. LDN.  What I always emphasize to my clients is that there is no one size fits all  when it comes to what recovery...

By: Rachel Dodson RD, LDN As the weather gets warmer, it’s a perfect time to have a conversation about set point theory. Sadly this time...

By: Breanna Potts, Clinical Intern DBT is a therapy that helps people understand and navigate their uncomfortable feelings in a way that...

By: Rachel Dodson RD, LDN Fighting diet culture and all of the noise surrounding food can be tough all throughout the year, but especially during the holiday season. Now, I LOVE THE HOLIDAYS. The movies, the activities, giving (and getting lol) gifts, seeing people who you don’t get to see regularly and all the flavors of the seasons. This time of year is magical but can be a stressful time filled with tension and anxiety surrounding your relationship with food during recover

By: Hannah de Groot, MEd. Close your eyes and envision who comes to mind when you picture a person with an eating disorder. What does that person look like? For most of my life, the person I envisioned matched the images you’d get with a quick Google search - a young, white woman in body that looks very malnourished. For years, I imagined that the only way to actually have an eating disorder would be to look like that woman. To have an eating disorder, a person had to be whi

By: Gabrielle Morreale LPC When we hear the word safety behavior we often think that this is some type of coping skill, something that will keep us safe. Right?!! Nope…wrong although at times a safety behavior is a coping skill they oftentimes do not keep us safe but stuck. Safety behaviors provide short-term relief in an attempt to prevent some type of uncomfortable feelings or a feared catastrophe or anxiety producing event. For people with eating disorders this can range f

By: Abby Emmert M.A. & Gabrielle Morreale LPC A lot of times we see those that struggle with eating disorders also struggle with their relationship with exercise. Exercise can be weaponized as a way to control how our bodies look and feel. It can also be used to compensate and “make up for” the food we eat. It can often come with feelings and emotions such as guilt and shame. It can also come with, what we call in the counseling words, musturbations. These are words like “mus

By Hannah de Groot MEd. Loneliness is universally one of the most painful and challenging emotions to face. It can exacerbate our...

By Abbey Emmert M.A. and Gabrielle Morreale M.A. LPC. If you have struggled with an eating disorder, or know someone who has, the topic of values may have come up. Just like living with an abusive partner, after a certain amount of time of living with this opposite force, it can be hard not to start adopting the other’s values and replacing your own with them. You can be months into the relationship before you realize it's caused you to lose friendships, family members, and

By: Abby Emmert M.A. You know that needle in a haystack saying? Yeah. That’s what labeling your emotions in your ED is like. Throwing a dart at a bullzeye that isn’t there. Something like that! It’s hard, and sometimes feeling almost impossible. What we know is that those that struggle with eating disorders often struggle with emotion regulation, as well. If you don’t know what this is, it’s one of the pillars of DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy), which is one of the therapy

By: Hannah de Groot, MEd. With the 2021 Olympics starting this week, it seems like a perfect time to talk SPORTS! As a lifelong athlete and lover of competition, sports are one of my passions and an important part of my identity. While sports can facilitate meaningful friendships, teach discipline and hard work, and be a beautiful form of self expression, it is no secret that sports are not all fun and games (pun intended). Eating disorders run rampant in the sports world, a

By: Abby Emmert, M.A. When I was recovering from my eating disorder, I saw relapse and slips as the same thing, and they both meant this:...

Gabby Morreale MA LPC. Hey there! Did you know there are four different types of hunger? As an eating disorder therapist it is usually...

By: Abby Emmert When I typed in “Emotional Eating” to a search engine, I got advertisements for Noom and their tagline to “Stop stress...

By: Abby Emmert & Gabby Morreale Ladies, let’s talk! As the weather gets warmer and clothes get tighter, body image issues often kick into overdrive. It’s ok, you are NOT alone! We’ve been there, so we get it!! Body image is defined by how we see our bodies based on four factors. These factors are perceptual, affective, cognitive, and behavioral. Perception is how we see ourselves, affective is the way we feel about the way we look, cognitive is the thoughts and beliefs we ha

By: Abby Emmert M.A. When we are counseling those with eating disorders, we often talk about body trust and building this relationship...

By: Abby Emmert & Gabby Morreale No matter what kind of eating disorder you have, you probably know that buying clothes, trying on clothes, going through your clothes that you currently own in recovery is so frustrating. Mostly because you know that your body is going to be different, but we promise that's ok!! Also knowing you may have outgrown or may need to outgrow some of these clothes in the future can feel stressful. This unknown or unpredictability can be really frust

By: Abby Emmert & Gabrielle Morreale Alright, let’s talk about the elephant in the room. If you have a Facebook, Instagram, or Tiktok,...

By: Abby Emmert & Gabby Morreale Diet Culture and Eating Disorders This topic seemed to repeat itself a lot this week. Many clients we work with struggle in their recovery as they find themselves surrounded by a culture obsessed with the thin ideal. Often they find themselves trying to maintain their recovery in a world that is pushing them back into their eating disorder. We live in a world where disordered eating, diet culture, beauty standards, and so many disordered tho

By: Abby Emmert & Gabrielle Morreale We get asked often from family and friends who have a loved one struggling with an eating disorder ...