My story

Hi! My name is Mia, and I'm on a mission to help women embrace their power and reclaim their lives by cultivating a better relationship with food, and ultimately themselves. 

When you defy the conventional way of thinking about body image, you will feel empowered in your relationship with food.  You are capable of becoming and Intuitive Eater and I am here to show you how.

Once we stop the cycle of dieting, body shaming and the endless pursuit of weight-loss, we can find peace in our bodies. I know this is possible for everyone and I have made it my life mission to inspire women to take control of their relationship with food so that they can feel fully confident in their bodies. 

So, what brought me here exactly?

From a young age, I learned that my body was “not right” and that I needed to change it in order to be fully accepted. Ever since I can remember I struggled with my weight, and I spent most of my life in a tumultuous relationship with food and my body.

My entire life revolved around trying to lose weight, which just perpetuated a negative relationship with food. I would restrict food, then binge eat and subsequently slip into a downward spiral of guilt and self-hatred.

My patterns eventually led me down a dark and destructive path, and I developed an eating disorder which I struggled with for years. I felt helpless, misunderstood and desperate to gain control. I was at war with my own body.

After over a decade of failed weight loss attempts, I had resigned myself to hating my body for the rest of my life. I was completely and utterly lost and discouraged, and I thought it would never happen for me.

Why was I so completely controlled by food? Why couldn’t I lose weight?  What was wrong with me? Would I ever find peace?

It was such a dark space and I lived there for years. I tried to convince myself that when I finally lost the weight I would be happy, but once I finally did succeed at losing weight I was still miserable and I still hated my body. It was never enough.

When it all finally started to change...

It wasn’t until I started to change the way I looked at my relationship with food that everything finally clicked. I lost a significant amount of weight in my mid-twenties but over the course of 5 years I slowly gained it back and I felt like a total failure. I returned to yo-yo dieting to try and lose weight again, and it wasn’t until I discovered Intuitive Eating that everything started to change.

I went to grad school for nutrition in 2018 thinking I wanted to help people lose weight and get healthier. Over the course of my program I learned about the psychology of eating, eating disorders and discovered Intuitive Eating. I started to change the way I looked at health and body image and finally changed my approach and heal my relationship with food.

The most important part of my journey is that I finally accepted that in order to be in a healthy relationship with my body and myself I had to let go of my desire to lose wight. It was not an easy journey, I went back and forth for years trying to let go of “dieting” but I still struggled with wanting to be thinner. I still have days where it crosses my mind and old narratives about how life would be “easier” if I was thinner still cross my mind. I began to understand that my relationship with food and my body is a life long journey and is never perfect. Intuitive Eating is not a destination to “arrive” at, it is a life long practice.

After I began to practice Intuitive Eating, I still wasn’t totally happy. Although I had accepted that long-term weight-loss wasn’t a healthy goal, I still struggled with my body image.

 My life became about proving that I was “good enough” and I validated my self-worth with what others thought of me, particularly men. I was obsessed with being wanted after years of rejection. I had taken huge steps to improve my relationship with food, but I was still desperately searching for acceptance.

I was so consumed with my image and my dating life that I lost myself. I didn’t know who I wanted to be or what I wanted to do with my life, I just knew that I wanted to inspire people and make a difference. Then began my journey to self-love.

The first step for women who struggle with their body image and relationship with food is to begin to heal their perception of what it means to be healthy. I poured into the research on health and body image and realized that Intuitive Eating was the only way to build better mental and physical health. Through my journey I became a witness to my own negative self-talk and engrained ideas of what my body should look like. I realized that my mental health mattered just as much as my physical health, and that there was a way to be healthy without trying to change my body.

Me now:

Stepping into my power on my journey of self-love has completely transformed my life. I have healed parts of me that I didn’t even know were broken, and I learn more about myself and what I am capable of every single day.