How I Went From Trying to Control My Body to Discovering I Needed to Reconnect with It to Truly Support my Health and Well-Being.

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My Story: How I Discovered That Information and Willpower Alone Don’t Work (And What Actually Does)

I went on my first diet at 8 years old, when people started noticing I was getting “chubby.”

A couple years earlier, my family and I had made some big transitions. We moved from a remote area in the mountains of Colorado to small town in New Hampshire and I started public school. As a highly sensitive kid, this was huge. I didn’t have the skills or resources to navigate all I was going through and food was the most natural way to find comfort.

Family food rules like “clean your plate before having dessert” and “only 2 cookies” were intended to give me guide rails for good nutrition, but they became structures to sneak around and rebel against to try and get my needs met.

So when I was encouraged to diet, I internalized the message that my body was a problem and my appetite couldn’t be trusted. I was indoctrinated into the belief that if I could just find the right plan to control myself and my body, everything would get better.

From that point on, my relationship with food was an internal battle of coping with food and then judging myself. I was stuck in a cycle fueled by anxiety and shame.

Over the course of my adolescents and early adulthood I tried, and failed, at so many diets flip-flopping between being super strict to giving up and eating all the restricted foods in a way that felt out-of-control. As I got older and began to think of food as medicine, I chased the cleanest, healthiest, most “ideal” way to eat.

But the stricter I got, the more moralistic I became about food, and the stronger the compulsion to overeat sweets became.  I would find myself sitting in my car after grocery shopping, eating a box of cookies and throwing away the evidence before walking in the house.

And every time I repeated this pattern, I asked the same question: “What’s wrong with me?”  My guilt and shame deepened, creating a critical rift within myself that also impacted my relationships.

I was so preoccupied with analyzing, monitoring, and second guessing myself, I couldn’t really be present and connect with the people I was with. My shame made it hard to see myself as lovable and drove me to constantly try to prove my worth making it hard to receive and give love unconditionally.

I was fully caught in diet and wellness culture and the belief that if I just followed a diet to its fullest and achieve the thin ideal, then I would be happy. My passion and interest in nutrition increased and my desire to pursue a career in the wellness industry made it all that more important for my body to match my new identity.

The Turning Point

One Sunday afternoon, my wife gently sat me down and told me how concerned she was. She told me how hard it was to watch me struggle and how my all-consuming pursuit of eating “right” and being “healthy” (a.k.a. thin) was taking up so much of my energy that it was coming between us. I was confused and yet also relieved.

I had thought that doubling down on eating clean and showing I was healthy by attaining the thin ideal would make me happier, more desirable, and successful. And yet here my wife was telling me she was worried and felt disconnected.

I had thought that all I needed was the right plan and to be disciplined, but honestly, I was tired and the thinner I got the more worried I was that I wouldn’t be able to keep this up long term.

And I had questions: if meeting the thin ideal was so healthy, why had my monthly menses stopped?

I finally allowed myself to recognize that my pursuit of health and thinness had become very unhealthy. I didn’t need another diet. I needed a paradigm shift.

How I Built a Different Model of Care

Before my turning point, I had already decided to pursue a Master’s in Nutrition because the more I researched on my own about the “right” way to eat, the more confused I became. The advice from different experts was contradictory and recommendations didn’t take into account the complexity of individual people’s lives and health histories.

If I was going to help people, and help myself, I wanted to truly understand the science, be able to decipher research, evaluate claims, and make recommendations that were grounded in evidence rather than trends.

At the same time, I didn’t want a purely clinical education that reduced food to numbers and nutrients. I love cooking. I love food as culture, creativity, and connection. I wanted a program that honored both the science and the lived experience of eating. That’s what led me to pursue my degree at Bastyr University, known for its whole-person, functional and integrative medicine approach.

But the true paradigm shift I needed required a parallel path.

So alongside my formal education, I charted a different kind of learning — one focused on dismantling diet culture and rebuilding trust with my body.

I immersed myself in Health at Every Size, Intuitive Eating, body respect, and behavioral psychology.

I came to understand what shapes our eating behaviors.

How restriction fuels rebellion.

How shame blocks sustainable change.

How our relationship with food mirrors our relationship with ourselves.

As I’ve continued my work in nutrition counseling, and in my own healing, I’ve learned the power of cognitive behavioral coaching and somatic experiencing to help us understand how our thoughts create our feelings which fuel our actions and how to process our emotions.

And what I came to realize, for myself and with my nutrition counseling clients, is this:

• I wasn’t the problem, diet culture was.
  
• Food plays many roles in our lives, and for many of us, it’s a way we learn to regulate our emotions.
  
• What I thought was a problem (binging, “loss of willpower”) was really a part of me reclaiming my power.
  
• Long-lasting changes come from internal trust and from a place of love and care, not fear.
  
• True health and wellbeing has nothing to do with the size of our bodies, but with our mind-body-soul connection and care.
  
• Our bodies have the wisdom to tell us what we need; we just have to learn to listen and respond.
  

All of this new learning led me to create my signature program: The Nourishing Vitality Method, where I provide Personalized Nutrition Counseling. I designed it to bring together everything I had been searching for all those years: solid nutrition science, behavior change psychology, body awareness, and deep compassion.

Through this work, I meet people exactly where they are whether they’re exhausted from decades of dieting, navigating midlife changes, managing health concerns, or simply tired of feeling at war with food.

Together, we deconstruct the eating rules, beliefs, and coping patterns that have been keeping them stuck by getting curious about what those patterns have been trying to protect or provide. They learn to rebuild trust with themselves, make conscious choices, create intrinsic motivation, and a cultivate compassionate understanding that supports their health and lasts far beyond any program.

I see my experience mirrored in my client’s and am so grateful for every opportunity to support people through this work to reclaim a paradigm of care that is based on intrinsic worth and conscious awareness.

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Not a Cookie Cutter Program: Finding Your Unique Way Forward with Food

If you go see a traditional nutritionist, you’ll most likely have your diet assessed and be given a handout of recommended foods to eat and foods to avoid.

If you sign up for a weight loss program, you’ll be handed rules for a specific way of eating and exercising, plus motivational tactics to keep you “on track.”

But how do you take a handout of information and actually put it into action and sustain it long term? What happens when the program ends and someone else isn’t holding you accountable?

And most importantly: how do you change your relationship with food and your body so you can maintain choices that promote true health and wellbeing for life?

That’s what makes The Nourishing Vitality Method different.

This isn’t about handing you another plan you have to navigate how to implement on your own. It’s about providing personalized support and coaching to that helps you uncover why you’re doing what you’re doing in the first place and find your own unique way forward that’s rooted in your desires, needs, and values.

You won’t be told to follow rules and track every bite.

Instead, inside the Nourishing Vitality Method, I provide personalized support giving you just what you need, when you need it:

This work, is about helping you build something new.

A way of caring for your body that is rooted in trust instead of fear.
A way of making food choices based on internal cues rather than external pressure.
A way of relating to yourself that supports consistency without relying on willpower.

And this creates confidence and ease with food (no more out-of-control reactionary eating), helps you have the energy you need to do the things you love, and gives you the skills to navigate the challenges of life with more regulation.

The Nourishing Vitality Method isn’t about handing you the right plan, it’s about helping you relearn how to relate to yourself (your body and your needs) and rebuild trust that can help you determine what is right for you. You learn to make conscious choices, create intrinsic motivation, and a cultivate compassionate understanding that supports your health and lasts far beyond any program.

I’m Not the Only One Who’s Gone from Controlling to Reconnecting: What My Clients Are Saying

One of the most common things I hear from clients is:

“I thought I just needed better portion control — but this goes so much deeper.”

“I thought I just needed better portion control — but this goes so much deeper.”

At first, many people come to me thinking they need more structure or more information about what to eat. But once we start working together, something shifts.

They begin to realize the real struggle isn’t about food; it’s about the pressure to get it “right,” the fear of failing again, the all-or-nothing mindset, and the deep belief that they’re the problem.

Clients often say they feel a huge sense of relief when they finally understand that their behaviors make sense and that there’s nothing wrong with them. Once we identify those patterns with compassion, the path forward becomes much clearer.

Elissa’s story: From Inner Tug-of-War to Being at Ease

When I started working with Julia, I thought I just needed a better exercise and eating routine. I felt lethargic, unmotivated, and blamed my sweet tooth and lack of willpower for the steady weight gain I chalked up to “middle age.”

What we uncovered instead was an inner tug-of-war: my Productivity Manager (the part of me that thrives on structure and pushing harder) versus my Treat Seeker, who wanted something sweet or fun to take the edge off. The more I tried to control myself, the louder the cravings became.

Julia helped me step out of that fight and get curious about what I actually needed—rest, care, and small moments of pleasure throughout the day. As I began listening to my body without guilt, the cravings lost their intensity.

I’m more authentically myself now, doing the things I’ve always hoped for without feeling like I have to become a completely different person. By changing the way I think about exercise and food, the actions I wanted to take now just fall into place naturally.

– Elissa

Benefits Beyond Just Food

Many clients describe the ripple effect of this work on other areas of their life — they come to me because they want peace with food, but they leave with:

• More energy for the things that truly matter
  
• The ability to set boundaries and say no without guilt
  
• Greater ease within themselves in activities that used to trigger an inward spiral like getting dressed, making meals, or showing up for work meetings
  
• Increased confidence in relationships and social settings
  
• A clearer understanding of how they work — mentally, emotionally, and physically
  

They’re not just eating differently — they’re living differently.
Because when you stop spending so much energy trying to fix yourself and worrying about what you are eating, you free up space to actually care for yourself.

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My Perspective on What We Need for a Future of Well-Being

What I’ve learned from my own journey and working with so many clients is that people are tired. Tired of being told they’re the problem. Tired of confusing advice. Tired of chasing a version of health that requires them to ignore their actual needs, rhythms, and emotions.

For decades, the conversation around nutrition and health has been centered on control and disciplining your body, tracking everything, and performing health “perfectly.” But that paradigm is cracking.

The future I see, and the one I’m committed to helping build, is rooted in liberation, trust, and wholeness.

The way I approach nutrition and well-being is about reconnection, not optimization.

For people who want to feel at home in their bodies.
For people who want to trust themselves again.
For people who want care that feels sustainable, meaningful, and aligned with their values.

And that’s exactly why I provide Personalized Nutrition Counseling within The Nourishing Vitality Method.

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Ready for Your Own Breakthrough?

If you’ve gotten this far in the blog, then part of you is curious about how this work could help you.

The Nourishing Vitality Jump Start is the first step. You’ll get a feel for how this works and if it is a good fit for you.

The Jump Start is a 2 week process that includes two 1:1 sessions with me. We’ll assess your unique situation, give you tailored coaching and resources, and recommend next steps.

You will walk away with new understanding of yourself and your situation as well as a new path forward. There is no judgment, no obligation, no gimmicks. Just personalized support and a new understanding of what’s possible.

If you’re tired of trying to “fix” yourself and you’re ready for a more sustainable, self-honoring way forward…

I invite you to sign up for The Nourishing Vitality Jump Start.
It’s the first step toward clarity, connection, and confidence with a powerful breakthrough guaranteed!