As nutrition coaches, people come to us when they are stuck and not making progress. One particularly challenging and recurring example of this is people who struggle with binge eating and excess weight, both of which they would like to lose for good. It's not hard to see that binge eating (consuming objectively large amounts of food in a single sitting while feeling out of control) is counterproductive to weight loss. What's harder to see is why someone in this situation actually shouldn't try to work on both goals at the same time.

Working on weight loss is counterproductive to binge eating recovery, however, binge eating recovery is the single best step toward attaining a healthy weight.

Is that a mind-bender or what? Let's explore.

Friends and families of our clients who fit this profile often know them as the Super Healthy Eaters, who never seem to eat any sweets, or maybe they are the strict Paleo dieter in their circle of friends. They may have "always been on...

Dear Georgie,
My husband is starting the keto diet! On the bright side, I think this will make some things easier for me because he will be watching what he is eating and having less temptations around. But I'd love some reading on this, either for my knowledge or anything I should have him read. I'm concerned about his health. - Joan

Dear Joan,

I agree that it will be helpful to you and your goals that your husband is choosing to do watch his intake, even if his approach isn't the same as yours. Your home will likely have fewer temptations, (especially alcohol and sweets) and hopefully, it will help him with the results he wants to see. Maybe he'll start cooking more!

There are a lot of ways to do a low carb diet. A keto lunch might be a salmon filet and green salad with pecans.... or it might be bacon wrapped steak with butter-blue cheese sauce on it. If a person includes a lot of vegetables and chooses healthier fats and proteins, it's not that bad...

My clients, their results, and their personal happiness, matter to me. I work on holidays if they need me, I answer emails at strange times and places, and I read research for hours a week so I can bring them the best practices. It's my responsibility to stay informed on the latest science in nutrition, psychology, and behavior change because they deserve it and I want to call myself an expert and still sleep at night. I want to know my craft, and do it better than anyone else. 

That brings me to the topic of dietary supplements, and why I rarely spend time talking about them, while I talk about all sorts of other things, like sleep, stress, joy, activity, and the benefits of furry pets. 

To say it briefly, my clients have goals involving weight loss, muscle gain, improving sports performance, and eating disorder recovery. In these contexts, supplements are generally a waste of time, and I have mountains of evidence-based, effective strategies...

Millions of busy adults suffer from food prep problems, which we're going to call "FPP." Are you one of them? Symptoms of FPP include:

• Possessing 3 or more items in your refrigerator which are furrier than your dog
• Not having the right things on hand to assemble a meal, so your order Pizza or Chinese
• Throwing out food on a weekly basis (that once would have been fine to eat)
• Overeating because you skipped a meal earlier (may cause paradoxical weight gain brought on by grocery shortage)
• Skipping meals during the workday because you’re too busy to go out and don’t have anything with you to eat
• Two items in your crisper have achieved sentience, and are battling for dominion over the lower refrigerator
• Your past google searches include “How many weeks past the ‘sell by’ date can I eat deli meat?”
• Paleontologists have requested access to items in your freezer

Maybe these are all familiar to you (sounds like you’re afflicted)! Or maybe...

How many of you have foods that you try to steer clear of because you know - you just know - that once you start, you can’t stop? Or perhaps you find yourself intentionally seeking that specific food out after a particularly trying day.

A trigger food is a food that you have a difficult time eating a reasonable portion of. Eating a little bit usually leads to cleaning off the rest of the plate. These are oftentimes highly palatable foods including chips, cookies, or chocolate. Usually, individuals have an ongoing, tumultuous relationship with said trigger food, and while they may love the taste of it at the moment, it usually doesn’t end well.

Fortunately, it’s entirely possible to conquer trigger foods. Follow this 4-step process below to break free.

1. Accept That You Are In Control

Forgive the bluntness of this next statement, but it’s crucial to establish as a fact. Your brain controls the movement of your voluntary muscles, so moving your...

1. Wanting To Avoid A Task

I’ll get to that, right after a snack. Ok, now, time to get to that work I need to do…. Hmm, maybe just a bit more food first. Procrastineating is commonplace and isn’t necessarily a problem unless it’s getting in the way of your health or productivity goals. It’s easy to see how stalling by nibbling can contribute to extra pounds, in addition to not getting as much done as we could be.

2. Delaying A Confrontation

This is really similar to the above problem of procrastineating, but specifically, avoiding a confrontation with another person has a separate element of squashing down our feelings, not just buying us a few more minutes.

3. Needing A Break From Work, Responsibility, Or Pressure

Try to keep yourself in perpetual work mode 24/7 and you’ll find out that it’s an impossible task. If you don’t plan and allow yourself breaks and rests to balance out your daily exertion and toil, you’ll end up...

Several times a day, I listen to someone describe what and how they eat. One of the benefits of having a coach is that someone outside of your head can, in many ways, have a clearer view of what’s actually going on.

Almost nobody says “I need to eat a bigger breakfast”. Or even “I need to eat a bigger lunch”.

What they do say is, “I eat well, but lose it on the weekends.” Or, “I do great all day, and damn it at night I snack, and can’t stop!” The words vary, but it’s a very common theme: “I eat well, until I don’t.”

What they see is a problem that starts at 7 pm, or starts on Saturday, or just before the kids get home from school...whatever time their particular hot button is. And that may well be the case. If we talk about that place and time and find there is an emotion, fatigue or stressor that happens at that time of day, we’re onto something and can work on changing behavior directly. We...

Your life has some problems in it.

As does mine. The world is full of problems.

Some of them we just accept because they don’t seem solvable to us personally (world peace), or we know we could do something but it’s not exactly a priority (example: my oven door hinge which has been broken for 19 months and counting).

But then there are all of the problems we do want to do something about solving. As unpleasant as it may be, you probably will do your taxes, whether on your own or with a professional. If you get a flat tire on the car you need to get to work, you’re going to get it fixed. The dog needs to be neutered for his health, so you call the vet to make an appointment.

Some of these problems we have the choice to solve by doing the work ourselves (the taxes being a better example than the dog neutering), or hiring someone to do it for us. You can get out your receipts, pay a nominal fee for Turbotax, and work your way through filing a tax return....

This question is stationed prominently on many people's minds. Paradoxically, the more you read about nutrition and diet, the less you might feel like you know how to feed yourself. When did it get so confusing? You have to eat something, so what should it be?

Let's go through it, in a comprehensive, science-backed way. We'll answer the question of what to eat, depending on your goal. A woman wanting to run a faster marathon needs to choose differently than her friend who wants to lose weight, and their pal who is worried about preventing cancer has different priorities completely.

• For weight loss, your most important task is to eat things that help you create a calorie deficit.
• For sports nutrition, your most important task is to eat foods that help you take in enough energy, carbohydrates, and protein for optimal performance and recovery.
• For disease prevention, you want to choose foods that are high in some nutrients, and low in others
• For mending a disordered relationship...

Everyone know what to expect from the actual holiday, but that first day back at work, WHAM. It's often something that blindsides people with how demoralizing and tough it can be. 

The difficulty of the post-holiday return to work is often a complete surprise to people. My clients often worry whether it is a potential indicator of a greater, more serious, problem. There can be a lot of stress, frustration, and regretted food behaviors on account of these feelings.

It has led me to think more about how I can help people predict these not-so-obvious emotional and nutritional challenges. How can these peak frustration days be... more manageable?

The first day at a new job many of us expect to be tough, but I see that difficulty and overwhelm persist for about two weeks. Similarly, planning for how a person wants to eat and drink while on vacation is common, but frequently the returning home can be a rocky re-entry. And if you ever wondered if...