If you have arrived on this page, we’d like to first tell you that dieting is not about willpower. You will never be able to overcome your body’s natural responses to ensure SURVIVAL. If you are able to do this, please take this quiz to see whether you may be suffering from an eating disorder.

The Minnesota Starvation study, which starved war veterans with an intake of 1500 calories per day offers evidence of the detrimental effects dieting has on one’s physical and mental health.

Just as someone would not expect to control how much or how often they pee, it is equally as futile to try controlling your hunger.

We are committed to helping you through a weight- inclusive, intuitive eating and collaborative approach

Anti-Diet

The dietitian’s role at Sööma is not about telling you what you should and should not eat. The journey to healing your relationship with food will most likely be a lot more complex than that. The dietitian will serve as a guide in exploring how diet culture has poisoned your relationship with food and has dysregulated your ability to respond to your body’s demands for energy. This process is internal, personal and about coming to a place where food and weight are no longer controlling your life.

Health at Every Size ©

Sööma does NOT believe in Body Mass Index, Ideal Body Weight or that body size is responsible for your health conditions. We believe that every body has a biologically appropriate weight where the body will naturally settle if someone is eating normally. In order to do this, one must heal their relationship with food.

There are healthy ‘fat’ people and unhealthy ‘fat people’ just as there are healthy ‘skinny’ people and ‘unhealthy’ skinny people. Health at Every Size encourages you to focus on wellness rather than weight, and making changes that impact health and well-being  .

Intuitive Eating ©

When people who have a normal relationship with food hear this term and definition, they often respond by saying: ‘isn’t that just eating?’. Indeed, it is like “just eating”. However, when someone has received the message that they need to control their food intake in the name of health, intuition can quickly fly out the window.

 

Intuitive Eating is an approach that was developed by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch and consists of 10 principles. The dietitian will use these principles in a non structured way to explore your personal biases or experiences with intuitive eating.

 

The ultimate goal of healing your relationship with food is that you will become an intuitive eater. Please note that intuitive eating is NOT A DIET. It is a state of being, which means that there are no rules and parameters. The principles serve as a tool to explore what your physical and emotional needs are on any given day and how you can respond to them without judgment.

Gentle nutrition for metabolic conditions

Food can serve as medicine, but one’s relationship with food can also be problematic to health. If you have been diagnosed with a medical condition such as hypertension, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia or another, your relationship with your body and food may be at the forefront of your condition. Please note that your weight IS NOT the source of the problem and if a medical provider has prescribed weight loss as the solution, it is not.

 

One principle of intuitive eating is ‘gentle nutrition’, which considers the impact that our eating behaviors can have on our physical well-being and health. This principle is the last of the 10 for a reason…You can’t jump to gentle nutrition if you’re not first able to honor your body.

 

Our goal is to help you address your metabolic conditions, while honoring your body. We are not saying that nutrition doesn’t play a role in physical health. We are saying that weight loss is not the solution.

Why your weight is not the problem

Physical health and mental health are both important  when we think of ‘health’. People in larger bodies face stigma and pressure to restrict their energy intake and constantly work towards changing their bodies. Anxiety, depression, low self esteem are often the result of pursuing these behaviors. This often results in emotional eating as a mechanism to ‘tap out’ and escape the increasing demands and the burden of everyday life. Individuals in large bodies also experience shame that prevents them from engaging in physical activity, due to fear of judgment. Lastly, energy restriction puts individuals more at risk of experiencing a “loss of control“ with food when they finally eat. If you’re prone to chronic disease because of your genetic blueprint, the above factors can certainly have an impact on your cholesterol, blood pressure or blood sugar. HOWEVER, focusing on weight loss will only exacerbate the problem rather than fix it. The role of the dietitian at Sööma is to assist you in managing your metabolic conditions through gentle nutrition (IE  principle number 10) and honoring your body. If your goal is to restrict your intake and lose weight to manage your condition, you may forever be stuck in the cycle.