Hey, ATHLETE!
Are you tired of food fears, restriction, binge eating, purging, digestive issues, and/or endless dieting that gets you nowhere? Are you tired of fatigue, frequent injuries, and declining athletic performance? Are you tired of feeling trapped?
Then stop dieting and find food freedom with a therapist specialized in the treatment of eating disorders and athletes. Recovery is possible. Ditch the diet, end restriction, and reach peak performance! Schedule a FREE 15-minute consultation call today!
DOES THIS SOUND LIKE YOU?
You struggle to eat enough, whether that is due to food fears, a fear of gaining weight, and/or a lack of knowledge and clarity surrounding sports nutrition.
You have been stuck in the endless cycle of binging and restricting.
You are tired of tracking, measuring, weighing, and toting around your pre-prepped meals. You have tried every diet with little to no results.
You struggle with hormonal imbalances, irregularities in your cycle, extreme fatigue, digestive issues, and/or poor performance.
You feel frustrated, lost, confused, and/or controlled by food.
You are constantly thinking about food and social events give you anxiety (or you just skip them all together).
ARE YOU LOOKING FOR...
Freedom from the endless cycle of dieting and the endless cycle of binge eating and restriction.
The ability to eat any food that you want without anxiety, shame, guilt, or a fear of gaining weight.
Confidence in yourself, your body, and your ability to fuel properly.
An end to digestive issues, including bloating, pain, heartburn, constipation, and/or diarrhea.
Restored energy, improved athletic performance, and higher rates of recovery.
A restoration of your period.
A peace of mind in your relationship with food and your body.
WELL THEN… I HAVE GREAT NEWS!
HERE IS WHAT RECOVERY CAN DO FOR YOU:
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Active eating disorders and low energy availability can severely hinder your athletic potential, leading to muscle loss, chronic fatigue, frequent injuries, and poor muscle recovery. Eating disorder recovery can help restore proper glycogen stores, improve hydration, and provide nutritional balance, leading to increased speed, power, and endurance. In addition, eating disorder recovery can help reduce brain fog, restore mental clarity, decrease your reaction time, and improve your focus. By properly fueling, you can train consistently and achieve peak performance. Stop running on empty.
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Within the eating disorder, food becomes a source of anxiety, control, and guilt. Likewise, the body becomes an object to be criticized and modified. Eating disorder recovery can help you reframe food as fuel, nourishment, and a source of pleasure rather than an enemy. Learn to shift from rigid rules and obsession with body composition toward body neutrality and appreciation. Recovery can help you to value your body for what they can do rather than how they look.
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Disordered eating in sports often stems from deeper emotional wounds, such as intense perfectionism, high-pressure environments, a loss of control, career-ending injuries, or past trauma. In turn the eating disorder serves as a protective coping mechanism for those overwhelming feelings. Thus, eating disorder recovery involves processing the underlying emotional wounds, building true self-compassion, and expanding your tolerance for distress. The recovery journey can help you to better manage pressure, failure, and life stress without turning to food restriction, purging, or compulsive exercise.
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Prolonged energy deficits can wreak havoc on your body. Eating disorder recovery can allow your body to heal. In addition, recovery can help reduce anxiety, irritability, and depressive symptoms that are caused by starvation. Recovery can lead to increased energy, improved sleep quality, and an overall improved sense of well-being.
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Eating disorders thrive in isolation, often pushing loved ones away due to mealtime anxiety, mood swings, social withdrawal, or a hyper-fixation on training. Through recovery, you may regain the mental clarity and emotional energy needed to connect with others. Recovery can help you to participate in social meals, team gatherings, and family events without fear or distraction, leading to restored relationships with family, friends, teammates, and other support systems.
As a lifelong athlete, a Mental Health Counselor, a Certified Nutrition Therapy Practitioner, a former coach, and someone who has recovered from an eating disorder, I understand the additional challenges that athletes face and the ways in which these challenges can impact one's relationship with food and body. The intersection of athletic performance, body expectations, and eating disorders requires a specialized understanding and a specialized approach. I bring both professional training and lived experience to this work.
ATHLETE-SPECIFIC RISK FACTORS
Athletes have an increased risk of developing disordered eating habits. In fact, one study found that disordered eating affects up to 62% of female-identifying athletes and 33% of male-identifying athletes in aesthetic and weight class sports. And, another study found that 42% of high school athletes reported disordered eating habits, those of which were 8x more likely to incur injury.
In addition, 35% of female college athletes are at risk for developing anorexia nervosa and 58% are at risk for developing bulimia nervosa. This is compared to the 10% of all women (including non-athletes) who will suffer from an eating disorder at some point in their lifespan, meaning that athletes are at an elevated risk for developing disordered eating behaviors.
With that said, these staggering statistics shed light on some of the very real problems that lie within athletics. I mean, if 33-62% of our athletes are developing disordered eating habits, then we evidently have a serious problem.
So… what gives? Why are athletes at such an elevated risk for disordered eating?
Well, there are several reasons for this fact, but a large portion of this elevated risk has to do with the intense pressures placed upon athletes, both in terms of performance and appearance. Now, obviously, participating in sports also has a lot of great benefits. As a lifelong athlete myself, my goal is to help people (particularly young girls) stay in sports. In fact, sports can even help athletes to feel empowered in their bodies.
However, when an emphasis is placed on an athlete’s appearance, size, shape, and weight, an unhealthy pattern begins to emerge. This is especially true in sports such as gymnastics, track, dance, swimming, diving, wrestling, and bodybuilding. In addition, rigid eating behaviors and restrictive dieting and fueling within athletics can create an unhealthy preoccupation with food and body.
Other factors that contribute to an athlete’s risk of disordered eating include:
A false belief that weight loss will improve performance, particularly in endurance sports
Coach comments about weight or appearance
Team weigh-ins and body composition testing
Comparison with teammates
A 'no pain, no gain' mentality that ignores body signals
An identity based solely upon being an athlete
An emphasis on athletic success rather than the athlete as a whole person
Moreover, many athletes do not even recognize that they have an eating disorder because the behaviors are often normalized and praised within athletic environments. Unfortunately, this reality has led to a common condition known as Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S).
RELATIVE ENERGY DEFICIENCY IN SPORT
In essence, Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S)—formerly known as the Female Athlete Triad—is a complex physiological condition caused by prolonged low energy availability. In other words, RED-S occurs when an athlete’s dietary intake is insufficient to support the energy expended during exercise and the baseline energy required for normal bodily functions. Low energy availability can happen intentionally (i.e., through restrictive eating) or unintentionally (i.e., intense training demands with inadequate fueling). Historically, this condition was associated only with female athletes. However, sports science now recognizes that RED-S affects athletes of all genders, sports, and competitive levels… Hence the name change!
When the body operates in a continuous energy deficit, it enters a conservation mode. The body begins to prioritize immediate survival over other critical biological systems. Health consequences include:
Low bone density (leading to stress fractures and early-onset osteoporosis)
Hormonal disruptions (such as amenorrhea in females and suppressed testosterone in males)
Impaired cardiovascular function
Decreased metabolic rate
Weakened immunity
Gastrointestinal disorders
Anemia
Depression
Brain fog and other cognitive deficits
In addition, performance often suffers. Athletes with RED-S often experience chronic fatigue, reduced muscle strength, impaired recovery, loss of endurance, and heightened anxiety or irritability. This creates a frustrating loop where working harder yields worse results.
That said, addressing RED-S and eating disorders within athletes requires early detection and a multidisciplinary approach. Treatment teams will typically include a sports physician, a registered dietitian, coaches, and a mental health counselor. This is where I can help!
Combining my background in nutrition therapy, mental health counseling, and athletics, I offer a holistic, body-centered approach to recovery. In addition, I work with co-occurring concerns such as anxiety, depression, trauma, and identity development. In doing so, I seek to create a safe space where you can improve your relationship with food and body and enhance your performance as an athlete.
MY APPROACH
My therapeutic approach is attachment-based, trauma-informed, and person-centered. My primary theoretical orientations include Emotion Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT), Somatic Experiencing, and Internal Family Systems. In essence, these approaches are experiential, “bottom-up” processing therapies that honor the wisdom of your body. These approaches help you to access, process, and transform the emotional experiences that are contributing to your eating disorder behaviors and body image challenges. In addition, my body-centered approach will help you to reconnect with your bodily signals, process your underlying experiences of trauma, increase your sense of body trust and safety, identify alternative coping skills, increase self-compassion, and improve your relationships with food, body, self, and others.
When working with athletes, I often:
Integrate my understanding of sport-specific fueling needs
Work alongside a sports dietitian and sports physician to address RED-S
Provide psychoeducation about athletes and eating disorders
In addition, I help athletes to:
Reconnect with their body signals
Rebuild trust with their hunger and fullness cues
Address the mental impacts of overtraining and burnout
Find sources of joyful movement outside of their sport
Explore their identity beyond their sport
Prepare for transitions (retirement, injury, graduation)
Build self-worth outside of their performance
Navigate coaches and team environments
Handle social eating situations
Manage performance-related anxiety
Develop life balance
Plan for return-to-sport after eating disorder treatment
Whether you're currently competing in sports, transitioning out of a sport, dealing with a career-ending injury, or simply a former athlete, I understand the UNIQUE RECOVERY NEEDS of athletes.
I UNDERSTAND…
The drive for excellence
The pressure to perform
The passion for your sport
The impact of coaching relationships on body image and eating
The power dynamics in coach-athlete relationships
The fear of losing your momentum
The fear that increased fueling will decrease your performance
The difficulty of listening to your body signals when you’ve been taught to simply preform through the pain
The identity crisis that comes with transitioning out of a sport
I also understand the importance of PROPER FUELING; the MENTAL FREEDOM found through eating disorder recovery; the improved STRENGTH, ENERGY, and PERFORMANCE because of recovery; and the overall improved QUALITY-OF-LIFE. Recovery is possible and your journey can start here. Schedule a FREE 15-minute phone consultation call today.