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5 mistakes you're making ⤵️
eattypelive.com/op/mistakes

Lucy Carey | Disordered Eating Dietitian & Educator for Health Professionals
Nutrition professionals and health coaches are making disordered eating worse without realizing it.

16/12/2025

🪴 You can't coach someone who’s basically a houseplant without sunlight...

Many years ago I was sitting across from client who kept telling me: “I know what to … I just can’t make myself do it."

So I did what any well-trained, evidence-informed, definitely-overthinking practitioner would do:

I gave her MORE tools.

Meal plans? Oh, I could produce a 7-day masterpiece before my morning cup of tea cooled.

“Healthy swaps”? Want a spreadsheet? Colour-coded? You got it.

Portion guides? Don’t even get me started- I basically spoke in palm sizes and cupped-hand metaphors.

Motivational check-ins? Please. I had 17 ready to go.

And every time she’d come back like: “Yeah, I loved those… but I didn’t actually do them.”

I’m sure you’ve been there. The feeling of why won’t this intelligent adult do the thing that will help them? And then you spiral into “Is it me? Am I the problem?”

Then she mentioned a little detail that made my whole brain short-circuit.

A detail that made every single tool I’d given her suddenly make ZERO sense.
A detail that explained:
— the “resistance”
— the self-criticism
— the emotional dysregulation
— the binge urges
— the “I know what to do but I just can’t” spiral…

And here’s the kicker:
It wasn’t about trauma.
It wasn’t about mindset.
It wasn’t about motivation.
It wasn’t even about nutrition knowledge.

It was...

If you want the answer - the wildly obvious, forehead-smacking answer - check out this week's blog post. As one reader email me this morning...

"... an awesome article, so good, it's like a punch to the nose... thank you"

And other things we forget as health professionals...

08/12/2025

You spend all year helping clients break free from dieting...

… only to sit down to Christmas lunch and immediately be met with:

“I’ve been saving up all morning for this”

“That’s it, I’m starting keto again in January”

“We better walk this off later”

“Can I get your professional opinion on *insert Tiktok diet trend here*?”

So this year, instead of silently absorbing the diet talk (or internally drafting a DSM-5 addendum), I put together something a little more fun:

10 unhinged ways to shut down diet talk these holidays (health professional edition)

We all need a little laugh at this time of year, so I hope this light, festive blog post scratches that itch for you. Think: boundary-setting with humour, therapeutic sass, and evidence-based chaos hehe

I even used Chat GPT to help me name them. Some of my fave are: The Motivational Interviewing Uppercut, The Seasonal De-escalation, and The Grandma Energy…

I hope this post gives you a much-needed laugh this holiday season!

This year we're taking no prisoners

18/11/2025

When a client stops restricting their food, we expect relief... But what often shows up first is grief 👇

Restriction isn't just a behaviour. For many clients, it becomes a relationship 👫

A source of safety.
A sense of identity.
A coping strategy.
A "friend" that's always been there.

So when we ask clients to eat more regularly, to introduce feared foods, etc., we're not just changing their nutrition...

We're asking them to walk away from a toxic friendship they still feel loyal to.

This explains so much of what health professionals see in the consult:
- the hesitation
- the "I know what to do but I can't do it" feeling
- the fear of losing control
- the swinging between progress and stalling
- the grief that looks like resistance

I wrote a full blog post breaking down this emotional process, and how to support clients through it.

https://eattypelive.com/2025/11/18/letting-go-of-food-restriction-is-like-leaving-a-toxic-friendship/

(And... This might sting a little... Most nutrition professionals and health coaches are unknowingly doing things that keep clients stuck. Check out the link in my bio for the cheat sheet that breaks down the 5 Mistakes That Make Disordered Eating Worse, and learn what to do instead to help your clients unlock food freedom)

A must-read for health professionals supporting restrictive eaters

28/10/2025

If you’ve ever tried (like I have) to introduce intuitive eating to a client before they’re ready for it, you’ll know how it can backfire drastically.

And my drastic, I mean you’ll never see them again. Ghosted.

They’re not ready to eat when they’re hungry, because they don’t even know what hunger feels like anymore.

They’re not ready to pick what food to eat because that kind of freedom feels overwhelming and chaotic!

The truth is, most clients aren’t ready for intuitive eating right away.

And that’s not a failure, it’s just physiology.

In today’s blog post, I’m breaking down why intuitive eating can feel impossible at first, and what to do instead. (Hint: it involves structure - but not in the way you might think)

https://eattypelive.com/2025/10/28/why-your-clients-arent-ready-for-intuitive-eating-and-what-to-do-instead/

And P.S. My signature course Disordered Eating Coaching Academy is still open for enrollment - but only until 5pm Friday! If you're ready to fall back in love with your career and get your clients real results that last a lifetime, head to eattypelive.com /de/academy for all the details!

Years of dieting have taught your clients to ignore their body - so how can they eat intuitively? They need a stepped approach...

21/10/2025

The weight loss side effect no one talks about...

I drove behind a bus that had a big sign on it for weight loss medication today.

At the pharmacy, they had a advertisement that was cleverly designed as an informational poster on display.

And a past client emailed me to tell me that her social media feed is flooded with weight loss injectable ads.

So I’m sure your clients have been asking you about them. They work quickly, which is so appealing to clients. They want that rapid weight loss. The quick fix.

But what happens when the body changes faster than the mind can keep up?

I’m seeing more and more clients who have been on weight loss medications or who have had weight loss surgery, and have lost a lot of weight… Yet they’re emotionally flat, they’re anxious, and they’re terrified of weight regain.

Their body transformed, but their relationship with food didn’t.

Today’s blog post is about the hidden emotional cost of rapid weight loss, and why a slower, trust-based approach (like the one I use with my Food Freedom Framework) creates lasting change without the emotional chaos.

Rapid weight loss looks appealing, but it comes at a dramatic cost

14/10/2025

Have you ever told a client to eat “everything in moderation”? I certainly have. And I really thought it was sound, balanced, reasonable advice 🤓

But it didn’t work 😫

My clients stalled in their progress and I got more and more frustrated that they just didn’t seem to “get it”. To be honest, sometimes I would hope for a DNA so I didn’t have to deal with them… And then I’d wonder if I had picked the right career because what kind of dietitian hopes their client doesn’t show up?! 😣

But the true culprit here wasn’t me, it was “everything in moderation”.

It sounds balanced but it actually reinforces the same diet culture beliefs we’re trying to help clients escape.

Here’s the truth: moderation isn’t something we teach. It’s something that happens when your client’s rel’ationship with food is healed ❤

In today’s blog post, I’m breaking down:

👉 Why “moderation” still leans into black-and-white thinking
👉 The psychology of why moderation feels impossible for many clients
👉 How food safety and trust naturally lead to real balance

It seems logical and sound, but telling clients to have everything in moderation may actually be the reason they are not making progress

06/10/2025

Most binge eating advice doesn't work.

That's because most health professionals have never been taught the true reasons behind binge eating...

And sadly, a lot of the advice I see (keeping triggers foods out of the house, pre-portioning things, thinking emotional eating is the only problem) actually makes things WORSE.

So let's talk about it! Today's blog post dives right into why these common 'fixes' don't fix anything and what to do instead.

Just because they are oft repeated, does not mean they work. These are the most common binge eating mistakes I see

30/09/2025

If you’ve ever counselled anyone on nutrition, you know that breakfast is an unavoidable topic.

A lot of people skip breakfast - maybe they sleep in too much or the idea of eating that early in the day makes them feel nauseous...

But have you come across clients who say they don’t eat breakfast because it just makes them hungrier for the rest of the day?

🚩🚩🚩

It seems like an innocent-enough statement, but it actually signals a much deeper problem with their relationship with food and their body.

They’re likely fearful of overeating and weight gain, and breakfast making them hungrier terrifies them… But skipping breakfast actually makes them more likely to overeat and gain weight!

I’m diving into why this is (and what to do about it) in today’s blog post - read it here:

If your clients say they don't eat breakfast because it makes them hungrier, this signals a much deeper problem with disordered eating

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