I want to start off by saying that not all dietitians are perfect eaters.  I’m not a perfect eater.  I’m human, with normal cravings and needs.  I’ve gotten a lot of questions on what I do to stay healthy and how I eat.  There is no simple answer to those questions.  How I eat to stay healthy is something I’ve learned over time.  A lot of what I’ve learned is through the countless mistakes I’ve made.  When I was thinking of a way to put how I eat into words, I knew the best way to describe it was to let you know how I got to the healthy place I am now.  I could easily list what I eat on a daily basis, but without you knowing how I got there seemed pointless.

Before I get started, I have to let you know that I’m 7 ½ months pregnant.  So everything I reference in this post is based on pre-pregnancy.  Eating while pregnant is a whole other topic.  I had to get to know my body all over again. I had to learn how to deal with morning sickness, massive cravings, and the hardest of all… accepting the physical changes my body was going through.  So, everything I talk about is pre-pregnancy.

About Me

I’m a petite 5′2″ female and have dealt with weight insecurities most of my life.  I’ve always been an avid exerciser… often exercising too much.  The funny part is during that time in my life, I was at my heaviest.  The more I exercised, the heavier I was.  And what I mean by too much exercising, I mean exercising for 2+ hours… and not because I was training for a race or event.  The more I exercised, the hungrier I got.  The hungrier I got, the more I (over)ate.  The more I ate, the more I weighed.  The more I weighed, the more insecure I became.  The messed up part is that all of this was happening while I was studying to be a dietitian.  I viewed exercise as a form of weight control, and viewed eating as a something that could only be done once calories were counted and portions were weighed.  I was straight-up un-healthy!!  My relationship with exercise, food, and my weight were way off.   

How I came out of it

I knew what I was doing was unhealthy.  I thought to myself “how can I be a dietitian and tell people how to be healthy when I was struggling with it myself?”  Without getting too detailed, I did have sort of a moment and I new a change had to be made.  I had to help myself before I could help others.  This process took a lot of time.  When all this was happening, I was living in San Diego, CA.  I contacted one of the author’s of Intuitive Eating (just 2hrs away from me) and began to slowly come out the “funk”.  As a Dietitian, I am well aware of calories, portions, and everything else regarding food.  What I had to do was develop more of a healthy relationship with food, and look at calories in a non-judgmental way.  This process took time… a lot of time.  I worked really hard to eat when I was hungry.  The difference was I knew what a proper portion size was for me.  I stopped eating “diet” foods and moved to “real” food. 

All of the mistakes I made I viewed as a learning experience.  I know what happens to my body when I consistently eat when I’m hungry, and I know what happens when I consistently eat when I’m not hungry.  The reason I know this is because I’ve seen the results.  I’ve gained weight when I mindlessly snack.  I’ve lost weight when I cut out the mindless eating.  Another big difference is my exercise routine.  I view exercise in a totally different way then before.  I run and practice yoga (bikram is my favorite).  I’m healthier physically and mentally now more than ever. 

Why am I Sharing This??

The reason why I’m sharing this personal info is to help people.  Dietitians are not perfect… I know I’m not!!  Dietitians are a wealth of nutrition knowledge and our job is to give accurate nutrition info based on sound science.  There are tons of RD’s who have never had any food issues and some who have.  I can only speak for myself.  As far as the way I eat now.  I never look at calories on a day to day basis.  I based when I eat on hunger and sometimes convenience.  When I do eat, it’s kind of impossible to ignore the calories… it’s my job to know the calories of things.  I look at calories differently now.  I don’t obsess over them or crunch my daily numbers.  Sometimes I may eat a meal that has 300 calories, and then eat 1 or 2 cookies because I want them and I’m still hungry.  As long as I’m listening to my body I am happy.  It’s when I get out of touch with my body that I know something is wrong.  Like I said… this took a lot of time for me to figure this all out.

I truly hope this post has helped!  If you’re interested in see what a typical day looks like for me, let me know… I’m happy to share!

Tags: intuitive eating, weight loss

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009 at 11:43 am and is filed under How A Dietitian Really Eats - A Journey to Healthy Eating. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.