Food and Body Image

Do you obsess that if you only had the perfect weight, your life would work out?

So many people through dieting and body hatred have blocked their connection to themselves. The body instead of being our ‘home’ becomes the battleground. What we don’t realize is that in trying to control the body and suppress her appetites we also numb our capacity to feel pleasure and savor life’s abundance and flow. We count the calories, hate ourselves for slipping up and resolve to try harder. But what we are really doing is boxing in our life force through self-denial and self-denigration. Then we wonder why we feel so stuck and unhappy.

“When women begin to internalize permission to feed themselves as an act of affirmative self love, they rarely experience themselves as out-of-control or in thrall to their food.” – Marion Woodman

I am a licensed psychotherapist and the former Director of the Eating Disorders Program at the Community Institute of Psychotherapy in San Rafael. I have extensive experience in working with eating disorders and body image struggles. I offer a non-diet approach to untangle the physical, emotional, and spiritual components of your struggle with food and weight.

Change does not happen by force, deprivation, guilt or punishment. Change happens with understanding and compassion. Healing a food and weight obsession can be a potential doorway to self-empowerment and a more fulfilling life.

I assist people to come home to their bodies and reconnect to their appetite for life.

Self Diagnosis Checklist for Eating Disorder

Adapted from The Eating Disorders Collaborative.

  • Do you feel guilt and remorse about your eating/not eating?
  • Are you terrified about being overweight?
  • Has anyone ever told you that you have a problem with food/weight/body-image?
  • Does the scale tell you how you feel about yourself?
  • Do you feel that food or thinking about food/body size controls your life?
  • Do you have a history of dieting?
  • Do you avoid eating when you are hungry or continue to eat when you are full?

If you answered yes to 4 or more of these questions, chances are that you suffer from an eating disorder.

Freedom

It is possible to…

  • Be free from your obsession with food and weight.
  • Put an end to body hatred and dieting.
  • Break out of “the shame trap” and have an identity/self esteem that is not based on your weight.
  • Think and talk about your problems rather than eat/starve yourself about them.
  • Reclaim your body and appetite for life!

Email Ondina at ondinah@gmail.com for a free, no obligation, 15 min discovery call.