Debra Benfield, CEDRD, RYT

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Winston-Salem, NC
Debra Benfield, CEDRD, RYT

Nutrition Therapy & Body Image Coach at the Intersection of Anti-ageism and Body Liberation.

Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist with 40 years of experience, passionate about blazing a new path to a respectful, nurturing relationship with your aging body. I am a Registered and Licensed Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist with 35+ years of experience, as well as a Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT)

If your relationship with food and your body is a struggle (a little or a lot), I am passionate about helping you:

• Experience the PLEASURE of eating again,with permission and confidence!
• Choose foods so that nutrition is optimal and satisfaction comes with ease
• Let go of fear and anxiety around food and body
• Compassionately cultivate a body that is well fed by an intentional mind
• Nourish yourself so that you will feel vital and have the energy for all of the ways you play! Offering Nutritional Therapy and Coaching for individuals, couples and families as well as Classes and Workshops. Nourishing Yoga and BodyLoveRevolutution Yoga Classes, Workshops and Individual/Family sessions

10/28/2025

While I was researching and writing UNAPOLOGETIC AGING, I found that within the menopause, “pro-aging” and longevity spaces, a familiar message persists: you are never doing enough.

What began as encouragement to move our bodies has evolved into something more demanding-heavier lifting, faster intervals, stricter routines.

The tone has shifted from support to scrutiny.

For many of us in midlife and beyond, especially those with a history of disordered eating or body image dissatisfaction, this “never enough” messaging can quietly reignite old wounds.

Fitness becomes another arena where worth and belonging are measured by performance, appearing youthful, or thinness.

In Chapter Three of my book, I explore how fitness and diet culture intertwine with ageism, how even well meaning advice about “aging well” can morph into a moral mandate to defy aging itself.

Movement can support our mental health, strength, wellbeing, playfulness, connection to our bodies and others.

But when it becomes about control, comparison, or calorie math, it loses its healing potential.

This week’s Substack gets into it and includes an excerpt from Chapter 3.

If you’re interested, here’s the link to the full article:

https://open.substack.com/pub/debrabenfield/p/never-enough-midlife-fitness-culture?r=16vgx&utm_medium=ios

I’m so glad you’re here!
Deb💕

10/22/2025

As we enter perimenopause, menopause, and post-menopause, many of us experience a renewed sense of urgency to “stay in control” of our bodies, to eat cleaner, move more and “age well”.

But underneath that drive for control lives-
•fear of aging
•fear of loss of relevance
•fear of losing a sense of belonging in a culture that idealizes youth, thinness, and ability

The 2nd in my “Countdown to Pub Day Series” includes an excerpt from chapter two-
Food and Eating Rules: Fracturing Body Connection

This excerpt explores that fracture and the invitation to mend it.
To replace control with curiosity.
To replace self-surveillance with self-care.
To remember that your body was never the problem to solve.

Read the full excerpt in this week’s Substack. Link in my bio or a drop a ♥️ and I’ll send you the link.

10/21/2025

We live in a culture that praises conformity and control-not connection.

It normalizes disordered eating, calls it “discipline”, and applauds you for sacrifice and staying small.

This week’s Substack, includes an excerpt from Chapter Two of UNAPOLOGETIC AGING, exploring how food and eating rules fracture your connection with your body-which ripples out into disconnection and no longer trusting yourself.

Along with how you begin to mend this fracture.

✨Reflection prompt:
What food or eating rule feels safe but might actually keep you disconnected from your body’s wisdom?

I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

If you are following my Countdown to Pub Day Series, this is week 2!

You can find the link to the Series in the link in my bio or Drop a ♥️ in the comments and I’ll send the link directly to you!

10/17/2025

I made this Venmo diagram, “The Body Project and Me”, because I can’t stop thinking about how differently packaged products send the same message, YOUR BODY IS NOT ENOUGH.

On one hand, we have Skim’s new “build-a-bush” selling out within hours of its arrival. A response to the decades long push to remove every trace of p***c hair. Now we’re told that bare is out and bush is in, but you may need to buy one.

Our bodies grow hair and are capable of building a bush. Still, that’s not enough.

On the other hand we have weighted vests marketed to women in midlife and beyond as bone-saving longevity tools. The irony? We’re told to shrink our bodies, lose weight, and then strap that weight back on, in a more socially acceptable form. Weight we can take on and off. That’s fat phobia y’all.

Different products.
Same project.
Same old harmful message:
That our natural, living bodies always need correction or enhancement to be worthy.

Your body is not the issue. Making your body a project is.

I’m writing about this in my next Substack piece. If you’re interested, you can subscribe at the link in my bio or drop the word PROJECT in the comments and I’ll send you the link.

What is making you tired of your body never being enough?

10/14/2025

I can’t believe I can finally say this: in 10 weeks, Unapologetic Aging will be released into the world!

I’ll be sharing excerpts from each chapter weekly over on Substack - a Sneak Peek Series and countdown to Pub Day.

This week, I released an excerpt from Chapter One:
Where Ageism and Your Body Story Meet

Each excerpt will also include a Practice or Journal Prompt to help you process or apply ideas to your life.

Read the full excerpt and weekly practice on Substack at the link in my bio or drop the word BOOK in the comments and I’ll send you the link.

10/12/2025

I have such vivid memories of seeing Diane Keaton in “Looking for Mr. Goodbar” and “Annie Hall” the year I turned 18.

She gave so many of us a vision of womanhood that helped to define us.

What a blessing to see a truly unique and independent woman in the world from the 1970s until her passing.

Thank you Diane Keaton. We will miss you greatly. Rest in Peace and Power.

What Diane Keaton affected your identity and idea of womanhood?

10/08/2025

“I’m too old for _____“
“It’s too late for me to try to change now.”
“My best years are behind me.”
“I have to fight my body even harder now.”

Ageism is everywhere, especially in our own minds, and most of us don’t even see it.

If you’ve been here for long, you know this corner of Instagram sits at the intersection of Anti-ageism and Body Liberation.

October 9th is Ageism Awareness Day so let’s talk about it.

Ageism is one of the most socially accepted forms of bias, yet it quietly shapes how we see ourselves, how others treat us, and how society values us as we age.

It’s in our healthcare.
It’s in the media.
It’s in the way we talk to older people
-and even in how we talk to ourselves.

The truth is
👉🏼 Ageism can affect anyone at any age.
👉🏼 It begins shaping our beliefs as early as as 3.
👉🏼 And it limits opportunities, access, and contaminates how we see ourselves and others.

The good news is this is learned and WE CAN UNLEARN IT!
We can start unlearning by noticing it, naming it, and challenging it in our language, relationships, policies, and our own minds.

What action can you take today and every day?

❤️Save this post as a reminder
✨Share it to spark conversations
❤️And let’s rewrite the story of our aging, especially our aging bodies, together.

10/07/2025

Even after decades of feeling free of diet culture and healing from disordered eating and eating disorders, body changes in midlife and beyond can mean body image struggles sneak back in-especially with the constant, loud noise about GLP-1s “for menopause”.

The pressure to shrink.
The temptation of quick fixes. The old shame you thought you’d outgrown.

If this is you, you’re not failing. You’re human.

And there is another way to navigate this noise in your changing body.

In my latest Substack, I wrote a letter in response to ’s powerful piece about her experience as a midlife+ woman in the age of GLP-1 noise.

Read the full piece via the link in my bio or drop a ❤️ in the comments and I’ll send you the link.

I would love to hear about how the loud noise about GLP-1s for midlife body changes is affecting you. Please drop your comments below.

It helps to know we are not alone.

10/02/2025

If you live in the Triad of North Carolina, this is for you! My practice, , and are sponsoring a Body Respect Book Club and our first meeting is tonight, Thursday, October 2nd, at 6:30 pm. We’re meeting at (such a lovely spot!!)

Our first book is by .

I hear the comment, “I’m the only person I know who is not all in diet culture and hating their bodies. I feel so isolated.”

If that resonates with you, we created this book club for you!

It’s okay if you haven’t read the whole book yet, although we highly recommend it, it’s one of our favs!

And if you can’t make it tonight, we hope you’ll save the date-the first Thursday of each month, same time, same place!

*Please know this is not a replacement for working with a registered dietitian or therapist. This is not a therapy group. We are here for the conversation and community!

We would love to see you there! Feel free to DM us if you have a question.

All bodies welcome!

09/30/2025

I used to believe by the time I hit midlife and beyond, I’d have it all figured out, complete with peace around food, body image, self-acceptance.

But the truth? For so many of us, this stage of life is when struggles around body image, food and movement come back-or become louder than ever.

Our bodies are changing. Hormones are shifting. Our culture is telling us to reverse aging and fight our bodies.

And in the middle of all that noise, old patterns around food and body image sneak back in.

Here’s the thing though: it’s not a sign of weakness.

It’s not that you’re doing anything wrong.

It’s a completely human response to pressures, fears, and transitions that come with this season of life.

The good news-
Midlife+ also offers a powerful gift:

We start to care a whole lot less about pleasing everyone else.

Midlife + is the best time to stop shrinking, in all the ways, and live more fully on our own terms.

I wrote about this in my latest essay. If any part of this resonates with you, I think you’ll find support and maybe even some healing there.

Read the full piece at the link in my bio or drop the word NOW in the comments and I’ll send you the link.

Address

Winston-Salem, NC

Telephone

+13367731443

Website

https://www.debrabenfield.com/

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My Story and Passion

I am passionate about supporting Body Liberation as a Nutrition Therapist (CEDRD) with over 30 years of experience! I am a Body Liberation Coach, offering virtual and in person sessions, and a Registered Yoga Teacher, Certified in Curvy Yoga and am Trauma-Sensitive in all of my offerings. My work includes Re-Parenting your Eating and Body Image, Deconstructing Internalized Diet Culture, and somatic practices which support your calming and connecting to your body with compassion and curiosity! I am on a mission for all to know There Is No Wrong Way to Have a Body.#TraumaSensitive #EmbodiedEating #BodyLiberation #HealthAtEverySize #IntutiveEating and #YogaforEveryBODY If your relationship with food and your body is a struggle (a little or a lot), I am passionate about helping you: • Experience the PLEASURE of eating again, with connection, compassion and curiosity • Develop Ease and Peace around Food, Eating and Body Image • Nourish yourself so that you will feel vital and grounded and have the energy for all of the ways you play! Offering Nutritional Therapy and Coaching for individuals, couples and families as well as Intuitive Eating Groups, and Intuitive Eating and Yoga Workshops, Body Liberation Yoga Classes and Retreats, and offer a Body Liberation Book/Film Club which is open and free to the public. I own and supervise the care of fellow RDs in my private practice, offering Nutrition Consults for Eating Disorder Prevention and Recovery along with general support for your well-being with a Health at Every Size perspective.