Eat Type Live

Home
New Zealand
Christchurch
Eat Type Live

Let's fix that.
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.

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

23/09/2025

I got myself jailed on Instagram this year. For over a month my content was not allowed to be shown to non-followers, I was not allowed to monetize and I’m still not allowed to go Live...

Why? I posted a video talking about a famous nutrition study and it went viral... And Instagram was not impressed. It’s a study I’ve talked about before and what I said was 100% true…

Maybe it was the mention of the fingers that got chopped off… Or the fact I started the caption with the provocative sentence “How to develop an eating disorder”…

I want to know what you think! Head on over to today’s blog post and let me know - did I deserve jail time for this? Or did Instagram lose the plot over nothing?

What do you think? Was I out of line with this take on eating disorders? It was going viral, of course. Raking in hundreds of thousands of views in a matter of days. Every time I opened the Instagram app on my phone, I was flooded with hundreds of notifications of comments, likes, and shares. […]

21/07/2025

I recently had a slight freak out over my weight.

It was just a bit more than I thought it would be. Not even a lot. Just a little bit. And I still freaked out.

Yes it IS embarrassing to admit it that it bothered me. As a disordered eating dietitian I feel a certain pressure to be 'above' things like this, you know?

But I also survived growing up in the 90s and early 2000s… Do you even remember how bad diet culture was at that time?

I watched Tyra Banks shaming supposedly plus-size models because they didn’t look heroin-addict-thin. My friends at high school would drink water before eating to fill their stomachs up so they wouldn’t eat as much. Every movie and TV show had a fat kid that was made fun of for always eating.

And I went down a dark path at 18 years old and came very close to anorexia myself…

Maybe diet culture seeped into my very DNA when I was developing or something, because when I weighed myself those diet culture thoughts I thought I had buried came right back up like bad sushi.

And I’m grateful they did.

Let me say that again: I’m grateful they did.

Because it made me stop and take stock of where I’m at. And it gave me a chance to practice the things I tell my clients to do every day. (And reminded me why I won’t be opting to weigh myself again).

Because I’m not an 18-year-old America’s Next Top Model fan anymore. I actually have the tools I need to understand why I gained weight, deal with the mental side of it, and get my body back to its happy place WITHOUT going on a diet.

If you want to know the 7 things I did when I gained weight, I’ve laid it all out in today’s blog post.

Weight gain can be triggering when you're healing your relationship with food - here are 7 practical tips from a disordered eating dietitian

Address

Christchurch

Website

https://eattypelive.com/op/mistakes

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Eat Type Live posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Practice

Send a message to Eat Type Live:

Shortcuts

Want your practice to be the top-listed Clinic in Christchurch?