There’s more behind the scenes as to why your clients may be eating in certain ways - and sometimes it takes going back in time to really understand the history in the making.  

In this week’s episode of Making It Real, Meal Garden nutritionist and certified health and wellness coach Marissa Holmes sheds light on the mind-food connection and why she believes a zero-diet culture is a key to finding healthy food habits that work for every individual.

Click below to listen along or just read the story below.

Food Habits - Triggered by Past Experiences?

Marissa starts by vulnerably sharing that for her, she notices that whenever she would get into a rut, or the weather is gloomy - she’d just want to curl up and eat. She also describes that certain past childhood experiences would eventually lead to ice cream - her single mother’s innocent way of comforting her through the painful circumstances.

“After doing a lot of healing and working on myself, I was pulling back the layers like an onion and digging deeper within myself, and realizing these are all learned behaviors. And I was spiraling them out of control.” ~ Marissa

3 Steps To Reprogramming Food Behaviors

First, Marissa states, it’s about awareness - understanding the connection. From there, you have to accept, okay, well, this is what I've been doing.

Second, give yourself grace! “You have to be nice to yourself, acknowledge that you're doing it, and then understand that you have a choice to do something different.”

Thirdly, and most importantly, it’s about understanding that with the proper portion control, you can indeed still have these things.

Food Restrictions Are Not The Answer

Marissa explains that the entire process consists of allowing yourself to understand why you're having that emotion, and why you're craving that food - but then also giving yourself grace and controlling the portion size. Hence, she doesn't restrict any types of food with her clients, as that would ultimately interfere with their freedom to make their own choices.

So how does this practically work with clients?

Well, Marissa always starts by simply asking her clients what foods they tend to enjoy already in their day-to-day life. That’s where Meal Garden comes in - which she uses as a framework so that she can include all of the foods that they're eating, but then put it more in a portion-controlled way.

“I deliver it in more of a suggested meal plan of what my clients are already eating, so it never feels like a diet. It's just, well: it's what they already like to eat, but in a more sensible fashion.”

Goodbye “I can’t” Mentality

Marissa claims that letting go of the idea of dieting is the first shift that needs to be made, which she gets to right in the beginning. Explaining that because every woman she works with is different - so is every meal plan! Instead of living by the concept of “dieting”, Marissa works on shifting into a mind frame of grace and acceptance.

Although this may seem somewhat subjective, it’s really about helping your clients UNlearn what diet culture has likely taught them.

“You have to stop trying to put yourself in a box with other people because you're not other people, you're yourself.”

Wrapping up with a practical example, Marissa shares a client success story whereby her client felt compelled to eat apple pie at every less-than-fabulous instance in her life. Instead, Marissa recommended baking an apple and topping it with homemade & nutritious granola - oh, and yes, a bit of ice cream too!

Links to Resources:

Marissa on Facebook -https://www.facebook.com/marissa.lucille.5

Marissa’s Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/rissalucille/

Marissa’s Linktree - https://linktr.ee/nutritionbeyondtheplate

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