For me as an ED dietitian, a meal plan can feel like a double edged sword. On one hand, a meal plan can be a very supportive part of facilitating mechanical eating 😋 On the other hand, it can play into new food rules that the ED clings to follow 📝

HAES is less about following strict rules and more about changing your relationship with health, food, and your body.

If you’ve spent any time online looking at nutrition, wellness, or fitness content, you’ve probably come across the term Health at Every Size®—often shortened to HAES®. Depending on where you encountered it, it may have been described as empowering, controversial, misunderstood, or even dismissed altogether.

We have known that neurodiversity has a strong correlation with EDs for a while now. This autistic client described how the onset of their ED started with gaining a special interest in counting and tracking calories.

Picky eating can be a natural development stage in childhood that is perfectly normal. Having strong preferences for food is also okay👌🏼

However, if you notice persistent strong rigidity around eating to the point where it impacts growth or desired functions due to things outside of body image such as:
- Sensory elements like texture, temperature, smell, taste, appearance, noise etc
- Fear of adverse consequence like nausea or choking
- Overall lack of interest in eating ie. eating feels like an overwhelming chore

These symptoms are often related to another type of eating disorder called Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID).

There is no need to gaslight ourselves into believing that looks do not matter. What we look like has an impact- weight stigma, thin ideal, racism, sexism, ageism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, the list of examples goes on.

We have bad days for all types of reasons. ED loves bad days, because it gets to scream and shout things like “I ate too much” or “I hate my body” all the more 📣

When protein becomes the only focus, other important aspects of nutrition often get pushed aside.

Protein Is Important — But It’s Not the Only Nutrient That Matters

Scroll through social media for five minutes and you’ll probably see someone adding protein powder to coffee, praising a “high-protein” dessert, or warning that you’re not eating enough protein. Protein has become the wellness world’s favourite nutrient — marketed as the solution for weight loss, muscle gain, fullness, energy, healthy aging, and even “clean eating.”

And while protein is important, diet culture has turned it into something much bigger: a moralized nutrient that people feel pressured to maximize at all costs.

The reality? Your body needs more than protein to function well. Health is not built on a single nutrient.

This client’s revelation came when they noticed the difference of how they felt when they did honour their hunger vs when they did not🤯

Hunger and fullness are paired responses. The degree of fullness the body encourages you to honour is a response to the degree of hunger you honour.

It is amazing when we realize how smart and compassionate our bodies are. How quickly the body responds to restriction of food by increasing the urges to eat 🤤

When exercise🤸🏻‍♂️ physical activity🏃🏻‍♀️ or movement💃🏻 - whatever we wish to call it- is tied to unhealthy judgment, it will hinder enjoyment 😞

The answer to this is so boring that it’s easy to scroll past- because it DEPENDS! 

We need to get past the rigid belief that sugar is bad for weight and bad for health without context or nuance. Sugar itself is essential to our survival, would we call our need for oxygen addicting or inflammatory even though it ages us all the same as sugar?

Sugar substitutes are products that offer sweetness while providing little to none of energy (aka calories). They are chemically different from naturally occurring sugar present in foods.

Added sugars are any naturally derived sugars or syrups put into foods, distinct from the sugar that the food naturally possesses. This means any sugar added in food processing, in food preparation or at the table would be considered added sugar. 

Added sugars can include refined sugars, brown sugars, maple syrup, molasses, honey, and corn syrup. 

Refined sugar is sugar extracted from natural sources often like sugarcanes, sugar beets, or corn that has been stripped of fiber and other nutrients to only contain mostly sucrose. The common name for sucrose is table sugar. Molecularly, sucrose is called a simple sugar meaning it only has one chemical bond the body has to break before it becomes glucose that the body can use. This makes refined sugar a very quick source of energy. 

Sugar has been the big, bad wolf of nutrition for decades now. In fact, as the years go by, we’ve only doubled down on the message that sugar, especially added sugar, is dangerous for health and bad for you, period. Thus, the emergence of sugar substitutes and “natural sugars” began to sweep the markets. So what are the differences between them all? Are all sugars created equal? Let’s get into it.

Holidays are a time for celebration and we are also aware of the struggles it brings. Food is undoubtedly a major centerpiece for many different holidays.

What does eating good-tasting food mean to you? I’ve learned many stories from clients of what it means when they eat delicious food.