117: A New Way of Looking At Weight with Amanda Mittman

Since I pivoted the podcast away from focusing on weight loss to embrace the new direction of health at every size, I’ve struggled to find guests who embody those new concepts. Today, however, I get to introduce you to Amanda Mittman who beautifully embodies everything I want to focus on. Amanda is a registered dietitian, nutritionist, certified intuitive eating counselor, and a body image coach. She owns a group private practice of registered dietitians supporting people with disordered eating and eating disorders and she teaches providers how to incorporate body image counseling skills into their practice. What a perfect fit for the new direction this podcast is taking! I’m so grateful to have found Amanda.Amanda and I reflect upon our own journeys with disordered eating and weight loss, sharing stories from how we struggled to embrace our bodies and stop dieting. There is a lot of history to examine there and what it really does is give us a springboard to dive into diet culture at large and how deeply entrenched we all are in it. The journey to loving our bodies is not an easy one and Amanda argues that perhaps body love is not the ultimate goal, but that learning to respect and be kind to our bodies is easier to achieve. We talk about moving away from weight loss, the grief associated with abandoning a lifelong diet journey and accepting our bodies, intuitive eating, how body image and self-care are linked, and a whole host of other things that I know will resonate with all of you. Amanda is insightful and warm and our conversation was such a joy. I hope you find her as inspiring as I do.About Amanda MittmanAmanda is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor and Body Image Coach. In addition to owning a group private practice of Registered Dietitians supporting people with disordered eating and eating disorders, she also teaches other providers how to incorporate body image counseling skills into their practice. She has worked with hundreds of clients in her career and what she knows is that people, especially women, feel so much shame around their body. And nobody is talking about this! Whether the client is in college, just had a baby or experiencing perimenopause/menopause, the conversation around the distress of a changing body is very similar. It is Amanda’s mission for people to talk about this topic without shame, guilt, or sense of failure, and to understand the systemic forces that cause us to feel the way we do about our body.—Resources mentioned in this episode:Body Image with Bri—Contact Amanda Mittman:Website: HappyValleyNutrition.comInstagramLearn more about Dr. Michelle Tubman and Wayza Health:Website: www.wayzahealth.comFollow me on Facebook and Instagram