Eating Disorders & Body Image
A compassionate space to untangle food, body, and self-worth.
Food and body image are rarely just about food or a reflection. More often, they become the quiet landscape where deeper feelings live, our search for self-worth, belonging, comfort, or control in a busy world. When life feels overwhelming or uncertain, turning to food or body rules is often a deeply human way of trying to care for yourself and stay grounded. Disordered eating and body distress aren't about willpower or how you look on the outside; they are usually tender, older stories about how you learned to stay safe, adapt, or feel accepted.
What disordered eating actually is
Struggles with food and body image exist on a broad spectrum, and so much of the pain happens quietly beneath the surface. From the outside, life might look smooth, steady, and high-functioning. On the inside, a significant part of your daily mental energy might be spent managing rules, body checks, or food anxiety. Simply feeling exhausted by the constant mental commentary and the quiet burden of holding it all together is reason enough to give yourself permission to heal.
Restriction
Skipping, delaying, or shrinking meals; strict food rules; 'earning' food through exercise or a good day.
Binge and cycle eating
Eating past comfort, often in private, usually following a stretch of restriction or a hard emotional day, then promising to start over tomorrow.
Compensating
Over-exercising, purging, fasting, or 'fixing it' the next day. The behaviour is a relief valve, not a character flaw.
Body image distress
Mirror checking or avoidance, body scanning in photos, changing plans based on how you feel in your body, or believing life starts at a different size.
Orthorexia-style control
Rules dressed as wellness: clean, safe, macro-tracked, always optimising. It looks disciplined from the outside and feels exhausting from the inside.
This might sound familiar
- Eating comes with rules, rituals, or a running mental tally.
- You scan mirrors, photos, and reflections without meaning to.
- Control around food feels steadying, until it doesn't.
- You compare your body to others, then feel worse for doing it.
What it quietly costs
Most people wait years, usually because the struggle looks manageable from the outside and because part of them believes it isn't 'bad enough' to take up space. In the meantime, the preoccupation keeps widening.
- Mental space that could belong to your work, relationships, or rest.
- Social withdrawal: declining dinners, holidays, or travel because of the food or the photos.
- Physical strain: fatigue, disrupted sleep, hormonal and digestive changes, low concentration.
- Shame that makes the behaviour more private, and privacy that makes it harder to leave.
- The sense that self-worth is set daily by a number, a mirror, or a meal.
How we work together
We turn toward food and your body with curiosity instead of critique, creating a therapeutic space rooted in compassion and genuine care.
Relational and attachment-informed work helps us listen for where your story first took root, while Internal Family Systems-inspired practices meet the parts of you that have been trying to keep you safe through control or vigilance. As a Certified Nutritional Practitioner, I gently hold the physical nourishment piece alongside the emotional one—supporting both body and mind.
Through this integrated approach, we shift how you relate to yourself from the inside out. Slowly, food becomes calmer, your body feels like a safer place to reside, and your self-worth grounds itself in something far deeper than a reflection or a food rule.
What healing can look like
Recovery here is not about a meal plan handed to you or a promise to think positively about your body. It's about making food and the body a smaller, calmer part of your life, so the rest of you has room again.
- Eating with less negotiation, and less running commentary afterward.
- Being able to feel a hard emotion without needing food or control to hold it.
- Body neutrality that's real, on the days you like your body and the days you don't.
- Understanding your triggers early enough to respond rather than react.
- Self-worth that no longer moves with the scale, the mirror, or the week you're having.
Sessions
Sessions are 50 minutes, virtual across Alberta and Ontario or in-person in Calgary.
Common questions
Do I need a formal eating disorder diagnosis to start therapy?
No. Many people I work with have never been diagnosed and never will be. If food, eating, or your body takes up more of your attention than you want it to, that is enough of a reason to begin.
Will you put me on a meal plan or tell me what to eat?
No. There is no plan that asks you to shrink. I am a Certified Nutritional Practitioner as well as a therapist, so nourishment can be part of the conversation when it's helpful to you, always gently and always alongside the emotional work rather than instead of it.
Can eating disorder therapy work over video?
Yes. Virtual sessions are effective for this work and often make consistency easier. I see clients online across Alberta and Ontario and in person in Calgary. Higher-acuity presentations may need a medical team alongside therapy, and we would talk about that together in the consult.
How long does this take?
It depends on how long the pattern has been protecting you and what else is layered underneath. Most people notice a shift in how they relate to food within the first couple of months; the deeper self-worth work is slower and unhurried by design.
What if I've tried therapy for this before and it didn't help?
That's common, particularly when previous work focused only on behaviour. My approach is relational and attachment-informed, so we look at what the eating or the body focus has been doing for you, not just what it's costing you.
The next step
Start with a free 15-minute consult.
A relaxed, no-obligation call to tell me a little about what's bringing you in and to see whether working together feels right. Virtual across Alberta and Ontario, or in person in Calgary.