Winter can be a challenging time for many people. Less sunlight, colder temperatures, and unpredictable weather can make it difficult to keep your mood up. One of the ways you may be looking for comfort is through food, and that is normal! People often think that emotional eating is automatically bad or negative, but the truth is it is a coping mechanism just like scrolling on your phone or journaling. With awareness you can begin to understand why you reach for certain foods when you feel a certain way.

And it is usual for your cravings to change with the seasons! Cooler temperatures can have us reaching for mashed potatoes and creamy soups. The warmth, texture, and carbs feel like a hug when the Winter feels cold and isolating. Many would agree that a salad or smoothie that was so refreshing in July just isn’t as tempting in January.

Learning to go with the flow of your food preferences is a great way to also help manage your emotional eating. This process has you gently check in w...

Every January we see more and more messaging about a New Year diet, cleanse, or detox. As a society, we’re pretty vulnerable after holiday celebrations in December that it feels like a given that we should restrict and punish ourselves when the calendar flips to the new year.

If you’ve been caught up in this experience, know you are not alone. New Year’s resolutions to lose weight are incredibly common. But have you ever stopped to think about how this need to diet comes back around *every* year? That means it isn’t working in the first place! This is the truth behind diet culture: it wants to keep you feeling negative about yourself so you keep buying the new plan, app, or book because it keeps them in business.

If you’re tired of yo-yo dieting and constantly feeling bad about how you look, we have 3 things you can add to your routine that won’t make you feel like you’re failing. This is the opposite of a new diet that takes away things you enjoy, telling you to give up carbs or tha...

There is something about the holidays that bring out our perfectionist side. From the ideal tree to picture-worthy cookies, flawlessly wrapped gifts to lights decorating your home, it seems there is only one vision of the holidays... And it is a very detailed, expensive, and time-consuming vision. It might be a magical season, but that magic is created by us!

That also means you get to decide what makes the holidays special!

Think of this blog as your permission slip to celebrate the season in a way that feels good to you… not just look good! We grow up with all kinds of traditions of what we’re “supposed” to do to celebrate, but the truth is, there is no wrong way to celebrate the season!

Here are some ideas to get you started: 

• Decorate when and how you want. If twinkle lights hung in November makes you feel joyful and cozy, put them up! If it stresses you out to decorate right now, you can wait or only pull out only a few decorations when you feel like it.
• Have a potluck with
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The snow isn’t the only thing swirling as we face the holiday season: emotions can feel all over the place as we’re faced with more things on our to do list that usual. Plus, there are so many opportunities where we are faced with food: dinners, potlucks, parties! If you’re an emotional eater you might dread this time of year.

But you don’t have to feel helpless. Below are three key things you can implement right now to start feeling calmer around food.

This time of year might bring with it specific family recipes you look forward to or limited-time store-bought items you crave. But this mindset can have you believing that these foods are scarce and you have to eat them every chance you get to make sure you take advantage of them being available.

• Try this: Start by giving yourself permission to eat the things you really enjoy. Practicing this means you’ll be much more satisfied by what you put in your mouth. And an interesting mental shift can happen when you know you can eat what
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As an emotional eater you might feel like you can identify emotions as either good or bad.

Hope, joy, satisfaction, those must be good because they make you feel positive and present.

Anxiety, sadness, anger, those must be bad because they feel uncomfortable and challenging.

This is called black-and-white thinking or sometimes referred to as all-or-nothing thinking. Chances are you learned this way of thinking from family and society. Were you ever told to hide what you were feeling to make others more comfortable? Or maybe you were told that emotions are weak or to “put your big girl pants on.” Just like labeling foods as either good or bad, approaching emotions the same way doesn’t allow for the truth: that there is a much more neutral, or grey, area.

Let’s reframe! What if instead of thinking of certain emotions as bad, you replace that thought with a neutral one like “there are no bad emotions.” This neutrality means we’re not pretending to be happy or applying a toxic positivi...

Does this sound familiar: you’ve had a weekend of saying “screw it!” and have eaten every food you can think you want (even if it doesn’t taste amazing). It’s now Sunday and you feel overfull, your brain is foggy, and you’re beating yourself up for all the things you ate. You decide that tomorrow you’re getting “back on the wagon” and will “be good” by starting a new diet. Rules are back on Monday! No sugar, less carbs, all protein and vegetables and definitely an hour or more at the gym.

Stop. Re-read that paragraph. Notice how this example goes from what feels like a free-for-all/there are no rules to adding in ALL the rules? This is called the binge/restrict cycle and the whole system keeps you stuck because you get fed up with how you feel when you’re overeating (so you set rules) and then you feel deprived by such a rigid way of eating that it is only natural for you to want some freedom around food.

This is a really common situation, so if this seems familiar and maybe you’ve e...

We’re told that grief has stages that we move through, that there is an end to the process. But the truth is much more complex than that. While its intensity can lessen over time, there are often triggers, sometimes unexpected ones, that bring up feelings in new and painful ways.

And while grief is a common experience, it is still a topic many feel uncomfortable talking about. For example, if you’ve lost someone you love, others in your community might not know how to talk to you about it even if you want to keep the conversation—and memory—of your person present. Others often worry they are making you feel worse you by asking how you’re coping.

If you are struggling with grief right now, we want you to know there is no right or wrong way to move through it. To start, reach out to someone you trust or get support from a therapist to help guide you. You might be surprised how freeing it feels to have a safe space to cry or rage. This can create a release of emotions that you don’t hav...

Social media constantly gives us benchmarks to compare ourselves to.

Your Instagram and TikTok feeds are filled with picture-perfect videos and photos of happy kids, clean houses, and expensive vacations. These platforms are also overwhelmed with weightless “success” stories and details of restrictive diets to try to ‘give’ you the body of the influencer posing on the screen.

It’s tough not to get caught up in these images! It’s true that a picture is worth a thousand words, so even before reading the caption or hearing what they’re saying, the image they are projecting is perfection. They are trying to sell you on the idea that if you buy this, do that, you can look just like them, have a life just like theirs.

Talk about a comparison that is only going to make you feel bad about yourself.

But this slim slice we see of others online—a highlight reel—is no yardstick for your own messy, beautiful life!

Here’s the solution to social media comparison:

1. You’ve probably heard this be
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There is something about the Fall season that seems to bring about feelings of routine and reflection. Maybe it’s the back-to-school feeling we never quite lose, the colder weather having us slow down, or being aware that the calendar year is coming to a close. No matter what it is for you, know that you are not alone and that this time of year can have an impact on your mood.

To support you through these feelings and the sense of transition, we’ve got some journal prompts to help you reflect on what you might be experiencing and support you through it. Feel free to answer one or all of these in the way you enjoy journaling. That could look like full paragraphs, a few bullets, or even key words on a page with your doodling. There is no wrong way!

• What are some of your memories around Fall? How do they make you feel?
• What have you done in the past—hay rides, reading a scary Halloween book, baking with apples—that you’d like to try and do again this Fall?
• What is something you’re l
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One of the interesting (and powerful!) things of becoming an adult is realizing that you can continue to evolve as you age. It is through discovering new parts of ourselves—likes/dislikes, values, and desires—we start to grow into a new version of our identity.

The more time you can spend doing things that make you feel good—work that is fulfilling, friendships that support you, movement that revitalizes you, clothing that reflects your aesthetic—the less you are likely to reach for food to fill those needs. You’ll never be able to do away with all the unpleasantness of life (bills need to be paid), but having things you look forward to can help ease emotional eating when these stressors do come up because you have something positive to rely on.

But all this personal growth, leaning more into and learning more about yourself, can feel both comforting (you’re not stuck!) and destabilizing (it feels new and overwhelming). You might notice feelings of sadness or grief crop up as who you...