Sarah Berneche

05/18/2025

In case you missed it, I'm on Substack!

Today, I'm talking about:
1. My experiences with endometriosis, chronic illness, and chronic pain
2. Limitations or problems in how we teach body image in the context of chronic illness
3. My answer to "the goal" of body image work -- you might be surprised!

What endometriosis has taught me about body image work

04/04/2024

A struggle that comes up repeatedly in my practice?

Wearing fewer clothes. Sporting a swimsuit out in public. Choosing shorts over long pants. Tossing on a t-shirt instead of spending summer days in sweats.

The culture positions dieting — and specifically, weight loss — as the “solution” to the discomfort you experience in your body.

✨The problem? Losing weight doesn’t teach you how to love or care for your body more. According to body image research, dieting worsens body image. ✨

I want to give you another option — one anchored in care and compassion rather than judgment, control, and criticism.

This is why I’m opening enrolment to The Life Preserver, an intimate somatic group body image program…just as we head into the warmer months.

Over 12 weeks, I’ll support you to:

✨Feel comfortable showing your arms and legs in public on sweltering hot days…instead of covering up (and sweating buckets)
✨Wear a swimsuit while out in public without constantly worrying about what other people are thinking about you
✨Deal with the discomfort you feel about your body without embarking on another restrictive diet
✨Manage tough body image days with tried-and-true tools that support a healthier nervous system
✨Look at photos of yourself through a more neutral lens
✨And soften your most critical and judgmental thoughts about your body…

I know it can seem like the only way to feel more comfortable in your body is through weight loss, which makes sense if that’s all you’ve ever known.

I want you to know there's another way.

Click on the link below to find out more or to enrol. Doors close on Thursday, April 11 at 11:59pm and we start on April 22!

12-week body image group training

11/03/2023

https://sarahberneche.com/2023/11/03/weight-gain-feels-threatening/

Does weight gain feel like a threat? It's common to be afraid of weight gain as you go through eating disorder recovery.

09/05/2023

What myths have you heard about binge eating?
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Here are 4 myths about binge eating I see most often:
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✨Binge eating is a willpower issue.

Far from it! As I like to say, "weak willpower" is actually a code for strong restriction.

Binge eating, also known as reactive eating or driven-driven eating, is driven by food restriction (physical or emotional/mental.)

Trying to impose "willpower" or "discipline" is likely to worsen binge eating.
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✨Eating carbs causes binge eating. Eating too FEW carbs can actually drive binge eating.

There are many reasons you might feel out of control around food.

And if you're not eating enough carbs for your unique body, carbs are going to feel extra.
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✨You can't binge if you don't restrict food.

I often see this one coming out of the non-diet community and it's not entirely true.

While many people will stop binge eating once they stop restricting food (especially if they're getting good therapy), food restriction isn't the only reason for binge eating.
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✨Binge eating or BED is a body type.

People of all body sizes, races, ethnicities, religions, abilities, genders, and sexualities struggle with binge eating. Binge eating is a label, not a body size.

09/04/2023

Many of us know not to deliver "negative" body comments, but "positive" comments are harmful, too.
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It may not always seem this way initially. But repeated comments, even "positive" ones, can be really dehumanizing, reducing who we are to a cluster of body parts.
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Objectification is a risk factor for depression, anxiety, eating disorders and disordered eating, low self-esteem, a diminished sense of agency, and shame. Sexual objectification is strongly linked to harassment, sexual violence, and rape-supportive attitudes.
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I doubt anyone means any harm when they comment on someone's body, but this is the impact.
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09/01/2023

Moving away from dieting or disordered eating requires a heavy dose of curiosity.

This can be extremely challenging if you’re used to rules and restrictions that tell you what to eat, when to eat, and how much to eat. (Having a lot of survival energy in your body can also make it difficult to get curious.)
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One of the ways I often see this show up is in binary thinking about food: good vs bad, healthy vs unhealthy, clean vs dirty, and so on.
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How can you become more curious?
✨Here's 3 ways:
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✨Nutrition education! So much of what you’ve likely learned about food is based in diet culture, not science.

Whether you’ve learned which foods are “good” and “bad” from classmates, friends, colleagues, teachers, parents, or extended family, it can be helpful to get the 411 to help you to distinguish fact from fiction.
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✨Weight-inclusive education! If you’re actively trying to maintain a specific body size, it can be difficult to attune to and honour your body’s needs and desires.

Learning about weight science, unlearning anti-fat bias, and doing some body image work can help you to release control over your weight and make decisions from a place of self-care.
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✨Grow your capacity! Trauma of all kinds, including birth trauma, ancestral trauma, and attachment injury can result in a narrow “window of tolerance.”

There are many ways I do this with folks, but generally speaking you can expand your window through co-regulation (e.g. working with a regulated practitioner), resourcing, adding things in (like eating more food), and sometimes taking things out where indicated.
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If you're interested in moving away from dieting and becoming more embodied when it comes to food, I have a couple spots open in my private practice. Head on over to the link in my bio to book your complimentary, no-pressure call.
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08/30/2023

Deceptively small and gentle recommendations can be tough to swallow when you expect the answer to your problems to match the severity of your experience.
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Small actions aren’t intended to invalidate your pain.
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Small actions are the way to honour and respect your pain.
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08/29/2023

Does “eat whatever you want!” feel less like a battlecry and more like a …battle?
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“I wanted to order the fries, but something inside just stopped me.”
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I know what I want to eat, but it only feels safe enough to eat if someone else offers it to me.
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If an or any attempt to take initiative in your life was met with retaliation, it makes sense that taking the lead with food feels unsafe.
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In these instances, making food decisions on your own without someone else's approval can feel extremely uncomfortable (and even life-threatening.)
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It may feel this way even if you’ve been told you need carbohydrates.
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It may feel this way even if you’ve done a ton of body image work.
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It may feel this way even if you know in your bones that the peeps you’ve having lunch with don’t care about your fry order.
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If you identify with this, you may find dieting to be somewhat freeing. For many people, it’s the first time they’ve been able to “choose” without the lingering fear of something bad happening.
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Meal plans can seem like a safe haven to someone whose efforts at self-determination have been met with violence.
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The beauty of somatic nutrition work is that we can wander to the place(s) where choosing fries for yourself feels terrifying.
And together we can help your system to feel safe enough to select and eat what you want with more ease.
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08/16/2023

Trauma can play a role in binge eating and often does. Growing your capacity to sit with uncomfortable responses will likely be part of the process of healing from binge eating.
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And in my years of working with disordered eating and training in both eating disorder recovery and trauma, I have never seen a single case of binge eating where psychological and/or physiological deprivation wasn’t a factor.
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As counter-intuitive as it seems, allowing for more food, not less — ideally with support to assist with regulation — is necessary to stabilize your eating patterns.
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I have seen a lot of poor advice, including to “use more willpower,” count macros or use the diet du jour, try smaller plates, keep a house free of food, and so much more.
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I’ve watched binge eating labelled an addiction (no, food is not addictive merely because it lights up the pleasure centres in your brain) and so many programs discuss binge eating as though people who struggle with it simply lack self-control.
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I hold a lot of empathy for both practitioners and folks who are struggling because there is such misunderstanding around this issue. We don’t know what we don’t know.
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To admit that psychological or physiological deprivation could be at the root of binge eating regardless of someone’s body size requires that we outright denounce the harmful myth that we can change our weight if only we work hard enough. The fact that this reality is often painful doesn’t make it untrue.
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I get it -- it may be difficult to accept that you need to eat more, especially if you don't believe you have food needs, should have fewer needs and desires than you do, and don't think you need as much as other people do.
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And to really reduce your symptoms, improving your relationship with food and your body must be part of the picture….even with the finest trauma work.

08/14/2023

When recovery is something you need to "get right" or "do perfectly" (which so many treatment programs unfortunately reinforce), it makes sense to feel too scared or threatened to start.
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If your only experiences with making mistakes, messing up, and getting it wrong have been met with criticism and rejection, I get wanting to wait until you can commit at 100%.
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✨And there is no "perfect" way to recover from disordered eating. ✨
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Sometimes you move forward by "doing the thing", whether it's following a meal plan, completing a food exposure, or adding more variety to your diet.
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…And sometimes you move forward by knowing you can mess up, struggle, or feel afraid without losing care, connection, respect, and safety. 💞
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08/08/2023

Are you secretly hoping that body image work will help you to like or love the way your body looks?
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While it’s very possible that you will come to dislike the way you look a lot less, the goal of body image work is not to convince yourself that you’re “hot.”

The goal (if you ask me) is to feel less debilitated by your self-perception and to understand some of the factors influencing the way you see yourself.

It’s not just about liking the image you see in the mirror, but altering the way you inhabit and experience your body.
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For example, imagine…
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📸Joining family photos (or friend photos) and smiling because you’re able to be present
🏖Taking that vacation or heading to the beach with your loved ones
🚴🏻‍♀️Moving because it just feels good (or not because that feels better)
🥻Wearing clothes that feel comfortable to you in your today-body (and being in your body enough to know what those clothes might be.)
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀..if you ask me, that’s pretty powerful and can help you to like your body a lot more: not just the image looking back at you, not just the container — the *whole body.*
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💞Work with me: my practice is currently full. To get on the waitlist, please click the link in my bio and fill out the application. I’ll reach out once a spot becomes available.
📚Enjoy It All: Improve Your Health and Happiness with Intuitive Eating (2020) is available wherever books are sold. I’ve done a lot of training and my focus has shifted since the book was published, but I still think it’s a good introduction to this work!

08/02/2023

Recovery will ask you to get uncomfortable over and over and over.
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What you might not expect is that it will likely ask you to get comfortable over and over with the discomfort of ✨OTHER ✨people.
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👣People who feel ashamed of their bodies may have a tough time as you slowly accept your natural body size.
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🍕Chronic dieters may feel uncomfortable when you eat "forbidden foods" with unconditional permission.
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❌Those who carry anti-fat bias may take issue when you decide to stop dieting or trying to manipulate your body.

✋🏾Those who are accustomed to you holding back might struggle with your newly-minted boundaries.
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I would never ask you to put yourself in a dangerous or life-threatening situation.

-And- over the years I've noticed that many people conflate 'discomfort' with 'danger' or 'life-threat' (this often happens when we have a lot of “activation” going on inside.)

So getting “comfortable with being uncomfortable” applies to your own individual experiences (e.g. eating more food, increasing variety, changing sizes) and your interactions with other people.
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Asking for seconds, dessert, or whatever it is you need or desire may make other people uncomfortable. You can decide to neglect your needs to keep other people comfortable…or you can expand your range of resiliency to hold increasing amounts of discomfort -- yours and that of other people.
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