Welcome

As Accredited Practising Dietitians we know the science of food and nutrition and can convey this as understandable and practical information for our clients.

We don’t lecture our clients on weight and weight loss; (in fact we don’t believe that weight loss is necessary to improve health – but more about that later!)  rather we support them to let go of food guilt, fears and body shame. We assist clients to make lasting changes to their health behaviours which have a significant impact on decreasing their risk of illness.

We are passionate about helping people to build a more positive relationship with food and their body. Fostering a connection with hunger and satiety and listening to these internal cues rather than external cues like time and place.

We live in a culture so oppressive of anyone who doesn’t fit the ‘ideal’ and so confused about what ‘Health’ really is. At Eat Love Live we aim to provide a safe place where you can break down this information to determine what is real and what is not and most importantly what it means for you and your body!  

We believe that you are the expert of your body. We have the skills to help you get back to listening to it and trusting it.

We are experienced dietitians who work with empathy, kindness and compassion. We have a host of clinical and life experiences and are ready to work with you where ever your journey begins.

Eat Love Live was established to help support people to build a more positive and healthful relationship with food and their bodies.

Food is a huge part of our everyday life and all of the information available to us about food is contaminated by the diet culture that engulfs our daily lives.

Diet culture is a system of beliefs, customs, messages and behaviours that places value and focus on weight, shape and size over and above health and well-being.

Diet culture is everywhere, and we are often unaware of its presence or impact as it is so normalised.

It is the information and comments from our family, and friends. It is the overt messages in the media to change your body; and the more subversive ones. It can be overwhelming and confusing.  

We want to help you to understand diet culture; where it is around you and how to manage it so you can reconnect with your body and work out what is best for you. After all – you are the only expert on your body and we are here to work alongside you.

To feel and perform at your optimum and to manage disease sometimes some guidance is important. We aim to work collaboratively with each individual client to reach their individual health goals.

We are skilled and experienced in supporting people who have developed disordered eating patterns or clinical eating disorders  to recover their physical and psychological health and re-engage in a meaningful life for them.

We are confident supporting you to manage Diabetes, cardiovascular disease, polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and gastrointestinal complaints; as well as other acute or chronic health conditions in a safe, non-judgemental, compassionate space.

Telling people just to ‘lose weight’ to improve health fails to recognise all of the possible factors impacting on their body size. It perpetuates body shame and is often steeped in fat phobia and weight bias.

At Eat Love Live we feel that focusing on weight loss or prescribing diets is unethical. Weight and size are genetically predetermined and influenced by many factors we can’t control.

Weight loss research shows that manipulating energy intake results in short term weight loss but in 95-98% of research subjects weight is regained within 2-5 years (often plus extra weight).

A 2007 study reviewed outcomes from long-term calorie-controlled diet plans to determine if they were a successful way to treat "obesity." The researchers found 1/3 to 2/3 of dieters regained more weight than was lost. Further, dieters did not experience any significant health improvements (Mann et al 2007 and Bacon and Aphamor 2011).

Traditional health recommendations often focus on weight; something that is genetically pre-determined for all individuals and impacted by fat to muscle tissue ratio, eating habits, hormones, bone density, movement habits, whether you’ve been through puberty, whether you’ve birthed children, whether you’re going through (or have gone through) menopause, hydration, and much more. Most of these things we have little or no control of!

We focus on health goals – clinically measurable outcomes which your behaviour changes will impact; Such as blood pressure, blood sugar levels, fitness or cholesterol levels. 

We work with you on behaviours – weight is not behaviour but an outcome and as such we don’t focus on changing weight as a tool to improved health.

Our dietitians work from a non-dieting and Health at Every Size ® Paradigm.

The Health At Every Size® Principles are:

1. Weight Inclusivity: Accept and respect the inherent diversity of body shapes and sizes and reject the idealizing or pathologizing of specific weights. 
2. Health Enhancement: Support health policies that improve and equalize access to information and services, and personal practices that improve human well-being, including attention to individual physical, economic, social, spiritual, emotional, and other needs. 
3. Respectful Care: Acknowledge our biases, and work to end weight discrimination, weight stigma, and weight bias. Provide information and services from an understanding that socio-economic status, race, gender, sexual orientation, age, and other identities impact weight stigma, and support environments that address these inequities.
4. Eating for Well-being: Promote flexible, individualized eating based on hunger, satiety, nutritional needs, and pleasure, rather than any externally regulated eating plan focused on weight control.
5. Life-Enhancing Movement: Support physical activities that allow people of all sizes, abilities, and interests to engage in enjoyable movement, to the degree that they choose.

This definition is from Linda Bacon’s Health at Every Size Community

Want to understand more about diet culture, Health at Every Size ®, non – dieting nutrition counselling, focusing on health rather than weight? 

Have a look at the Blog, links and resources section on the website and follow our Instagram and Facebook feeds where we regularly post interesting articles and links.

Body Image

Body Image – it is a phrase we hear so often; but what do we really mean. Body image is the way we perceive our body and how we feel in our body. It is how we think we look and the influence this perception has on the way we interact in the world.

Body image is developed from an early age and influenced by an array of things.  Our body image can be expressed through our thoughts, beliefs, perception, feelings and actions.  Evidence shows us that poor body image independent of health behaviours can lead to worse physical and mental health outcomes.

Body image is about so much more than our bodies – more then we may ever realise. Starting to delve in to how you feel about your body, how you connect with and act in your body may be a difficult, fascinating, scary time. We provide a safe space to support you during this journey.

Whilst we would love for all people to have a positive relationship with their bodies, we appreciate that each individual person has individual stories and experiences; and this may seem to great an ask.

Some more achievable goals we work towards may be body appreciation, body neutrality, and/ or body attunement  - being able to connect to a respond appropriately to the bodies needs.

You our clients are our greatest teachers and we are so humbled you allow us to share this journey with you.

The World Health Organization (WHO) defined health in its broader sense in its 1948 constitution as "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

This highlights the importance of considering more than merely numbers such as weight, measurements or clothing size.  Clinical measures such as blood pressure, heart rate, blood glucose readings and other blood results can indicate health or illness; but mood, thoughts, feelings, energy, motivation, social connectedness, social interaction and sleep are very important considerations!

Health for each individual person is going to be a little bit different as it considers all the influences on their health including their circumstances, lifestyles, family, environment, work, study etc.

When working with our clients we help them to see beyond the numbers and consider all these aspects. Most importantly we aim to move the focus off the number on the scale to health promoting behaviours’ and self-care.

We work closely with psychologists, psychiatrists, GPs and exercise physiologist to ensure that our clients are getting all the support they may need to better care for themselves.

Some of the things we may focus on to help people make this shift include:

• Self and body acceptance
• Body positivity
• Mindful and enjoyable movement and activity
• Connecting to and responding to the body internal cues of hunger and satiety
• Responding appropriately to food desires and cravings
• Self-compassion
• Being able to nourish the body with a wide range of foods
• Incorporating the necessary range of nutrients in to flexible and practical meal choices
• Seeing all food as important to provide a range of nutrients for the body rather than a moral judgement making you ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Also, the importance of including a wide range of foods so we can feel connected to others during celebrations when food is often a crucial element!
• Recognise when food is used as an emotional coping tool and developing more appropriate alternatives 

As Accredited Practicing Dietitians we do work with a wide range of conditions including:

• Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS)
• Insulin resistance, impaired glucose tolerance Type 2 or gestational Diabetes and metabolic syndrome
• High cholesterol, high triglycerides, hypertension and other heart health problems
• Iron deficiency anaemia
• Women's health including menopause and osteoporosis
• Adequate nutritional intake during pregnancy and breastfeeding
• Childhood and adolescent nutrition
• Nutritionally adequate vegetarian eating
• Optimal nutrition for optimum energy and prevention of health complications
• Supporting people to understand their disordered eating patterns and make changes towards more sustainable eating habits by creating a positive relationship with food
• Supporting, motivating and educating people suffering with eating disorders to make necessary changes towards recovery at a pace which is appropriate for them
• Working to improve people's relationship with food so they can eat in response to their hunger and satiety, free of guilt or compulsive compensatory behaviour.

Our areas of interest are non-dieting health management, disordered eating and eating disorders and all Eat Love Live team members are experienced working with these difficult issues. We regularly undertake further learning activities to ensure we are providing optimal care to you our family

The journey to recovery from an eating disorder can be a long and bumpy ride but one that is achievable. We work with clients, their treatment teams and support network to help improve acceptance and flexibility with food; leading to physical and mental health benefits (one baby step at a time!)

Often when we work with people who are trying to implement health behaviours to improve their overall health or decrease the risk of disease, and those on the journey of recovery for an eating disorder; we find we end up discussing similar concepts. These can include body acceptance, activity for pleasure, breaking ingrained eating habits and food beliefs. As such, information on this website will focus on these things and hopefully many people will find it helpful.

We look forward to working with you soon,

Jo and the Eat Love Live team