About Women Eat

“If diets don’t work, what does?”

You are invited to our table to explore true nourishment, self-acceptance, and how to tap into your body’s inner wisdom.

Why This Site?

It started as a few small lone voices, who had some powerful questions and a new way of thinking. These pioneers wanted to start a movement, with new messages like “healthy is the new skinny and “all bodies are beach bodies.” They had revolutionary ideas, such as giving ourselves permission to enjoy what we eat, connecting with our inner wisdom, health being more than the absence of disease, and the need to heal our relationship with food and eating. And they posed thought-provoking questions, like “If tomorrow women woke up and decided they like their bodies, how many industries would go out of business?”

It’s time to join the movement, to put all our voices together to stop the dieting craziness. Because there is another way—and that’s what we are here to explore. A way to live without diets, to attain the size our bodies were meant to be without denying ourselves what we want to eat. One that opens our eyes to the futility of trying to hate yourself into a place of acceptance.

We are here to help you tap into your inner wisdom, honor your emotions, and get in touch with what you really need: to make friends with your appetite and with others seeking the same goals, and to empower you to find what’s uniquely right for your body and life.

Why Now?

Because I’m fed up (pun intended). I’ve had it up to here with dieting.

I’m fed up with a culture that tells women that our worth is all in our body size, our looks, and our age. One that encourages us to use our precious life energy to keep striving to be forever young, pretty, and skinny, well beyond when that’s healthy . . . or even possible.

I’m fed up with a culture that creates and perpetuates a dysfunctional relationship with food. One that worships at the altar of “Our Lady of Calorie Counting.” Lose weight, no matter how unhealthily you do it, and you will be praised, looked up to, and asked advice. Gain weight, and you will be criticized, judged, and snickered at.

For too many years we’ve felt bad about our bodies. We’ve restricted, cleansed, and challenged, and put off so many goals. We’ve denied ourselves and felt ashamed. If only we were different, then we could love ourselves. And others would finally love us too.

Our eating has become more and more disordered, to the point where many of us chronically diet but never reach our goal. We’re either depriving ourselves or binging on what we missed—until we are just too tired.

We’ve given food morality and divided the world into good and bad foods. We force ourselves to eat the good food while we are constantly craving the bad. We jump on the latest fad or magic pill regardless of how unknown, unproved, or dangerous the ingredients might be.

Many of us are living miserably, chasing an impossible ideal with a chronic dieting lifestyle. And it’s clearly not working. If diets worked, we would have already lost the weight and be keeping it off effortlessly.

It’s come to the point where we have no idea what to eat. We’ve become afraid of food, and we’ve lost all connection to our inner wisdom about how to best feed ourselves or take care of our bodies. We’ve let an inaccurate machine called a scale determine our daily mood, and even our self-worth.

Many of us are living miserably, chasing an impossible ideal with a chronic-dieting lifestyle. And it’s clearly not working. We want to step out in the world in bigger ways and to live larger lives, but we’re stuck chasing smaller bodies.

If diets worked, we would have already lost the weight and be keeping it off effortlessly. We wouldn’t need new and improved diets. And we wouldn’t need covert diets in the guise of rigid food rules and off-limit food groups, which are supposedly for the sake of our health.

It’s toxic and disempowering, and it causes unnecessary suffering. It’s hurting our daughters (and our sons). And it’s time to say no more!

Diets clearly don’t work, so let’s figure out what does.

Why Me?

Because I’m tired of seeing the pain in other women’s eyes when they deny themselves. And I’m eager to throw my old passion for dieting into a new direction, one that will connect and support us in breaking the dieting lifestyle and in healing our relationship with food and our bodies.

I have spent years seeking a solution to the emotional pain I was in around food. Now I know that I’m one of millions of women who have a problematic relationship with food, but not to the point of having a diagnosable eating disorder. And because of that my issues went undetected, despite my years spent in therapy and nutritional counseling.

For decades, I desperately sought an answer. Dieticians and nutrition experts helped me find healthier ways to diet. Personal trainers made sure I worked out. Sometimes I lost the weight, but then I would go back to my old ways of eating . . . and regain every pound plus some. As I got older, the cycle got more difficult. The weight loss became more elusive. My restriction became more obsessive.

At some point I just gave up and prayed for an answer. I prayed for relief from the pain; for a way to stop overeating, binging, and emotional eating . . . to just be normal.

I knew dieting wasn’t working as a long-term solution. I knew that I could no longer force myself into more restriction and deprivation. I knew that the insane food rules of my increasingly crazier diets weren’t the answer and that hating my body and fighting my appetite was not the solution. But I didn’t know what to do about it.  I had no clue. Zero.

I felt broken. I assumed something was missing in me. That was obvious, since other people were able to keep weight off. I couldn’t understand how I could be successful at many things, but a complete failure at something that seemed so basic. This is what I call the Oprah Paradox. If Oprah can’t lose weight and keep it off, what chance do the rest of us have?

I felt broken. I couldn’t understand how I could be successful at many things, but a complete failure at something that seemed so basic. This is what I call the Oprah Paradox. If Oprah can’t lose weight and keep it off, what chance do the rest of us have?

When I was first exposed to the idea of eating according to my internal wisdom, without outside rules, I was terrified. Dieting was my escape valve when my out-of-control eating led to weight gain. Dieting had to work! The problem had to be that I just didn’t know how to do it right. There had to be a magic diet or pill somewhere that would continue to melt off the weight without the struggle. Besides, I was sure that I was deeply flawed and broken, so there was no way I could trust my body to know what it needed. I couldn’t understand the concept of what you were supposed to do if you didn’t diet.

Now I get it. I see the parts of the puzzle that were missing.

When you’ve been a chronic dieter, you’ve lost touch with your body wisdom. You can’t stop dieting and magically start eating intuitively, and live happily ever after.  You need to learn new skills and awareness, and you need to practice.  That’s the enlightenment I want to facilitate here for others at Women Eat.

Now, I know we are all OK just the way we are. We can become the weight we are meant to be, even if it might not be our thinnest ideal, by giving up the restriction and deprivation of dieting.

I now realize women who starve themselves, and women who overeat and binge are flip sides of the same problem. I see that our body size has little correlation to the healthiness of how we eat, or even to how healthy we are. Thin isn’t noble—it’s just a body size. Fat isn’t the most awful thing in the world. I now realize that there is no one body size that’s right for everyone, and that there isn’t a single best way to eat. In fact, healthy eating turns out to have little to do with any of my diet plans.

Whatever size or shape you are, and no matter how you eat, you are welcome here. You are among a community of women who will support you and show you the way forward to a life without diets and deprivation.

I’m beyond excited to bring together the many amazing voices that are emerging toward a new psychology of eating and to be a guide on this path.

How We Make Money

Creating this community is a labor of love, but we still have to pay the bills. To keep our work going, we will occasionally announce the programs, books, and coaching opportunities of our contributors when they are aligned with our beliefs and in service to our subscribers and readers.