Client Story: Vanessa

Hey everyone! I am so, so, soooo excited to be sharing with you all a special post from one of my very dear clients who was so generous with her time and efforts to write this post for you all with hopes that you'll learn from her experiences with food and body and learning how to better have a healthy relationship with both through working together. I know that Vanessa's story is so similar to a lot of yours, so I hope you'll enjoy and learn from her wisdom and the insight that she's grown to have through her own experience with disordered eating and be encouraged in the fact that, no matter where you're at, healing and freedom is possible! Vanessa...you go, girl!

"Hey guys! My name is Vanessa and I am a 23-year-old mental health counseling grad student, currently living in New York! First off, let me start by thanking Victoria for allowing me to share a post on her blog, I am so excited! I stumbled upon Victoria’s instagram around Christmas time and just fell in love with her philosophy around food and wellness as a whole. As you probably already know, as a reader of her blog, she is passionate about health and wellness but without having diet mentality. I remember scrolling through and reading her posts and thinking, “YES!” to everything she was saying because it all resonated so much with me.

I tend to ramble but I promise to keep this short and as interesting as possible…

My relationship with food hasn’t always been a negative one. Growing up I never felt pressure to diet, or eat a certain way. My family did choose to eat healthfully and most meals were cooked at home.I grew up eating vegetables and fruits so naturally I craved them and still to this day love my veggies, whole grains, and fruits of all sorts. That being said, I also craved (& ate!) ice cream, entemann’s donuts, the occasional McDonald’s run and even drank soda on occasion. I did this all without thought or concern of my body and how it looked. I was an active kid and danced through high school, attempted sports (LOL) and always kept busy. I do remember there being a lot of negative talk within my household about weight and food. But, at the time I shrugged those comments off and put them in the back of my head until one day they came front and center.

Fast-forward a bit to college. College was an interesting time for me and now, two years post-graduation, I am able to say that overall my college experience was a good one. I met amazing friends, started dating my boyfriend, joined a sorority, was on the executive board of a peer health education group and created my own little life down south away from everything I knew up north. I was especially proud of myself for that. But, all that being said, I faced some demons during college, which really took away from being able to look back and say, “College was the BEST four years of my life.” It was a great four years for the most part, but it’s when my relationship with both my body and food were not so great. Freshman year I was extremely homesick and cried basically 24/7 (I wish I was exaggerating…). In order to make myself feel better I would go on long runs or to the gym and eat “healthy” and “clean.” Without going into too much detail and making this post a year long…all of that ended up becoming an obsession. I forced myself to workout 7 days a week no matter how I was feeling and resisted every sweet/”junk food” that came my way. I lost way too much weight in a very small amount of time. I was constantly tired and moody, my anxiety was worse than ever, my hair was falling out, I wasn’t sleeping and worst of all I.was.starving. Food physically scared me and I remember viewing it as the enemy. To me, food equated to weight gain unless it was low calorie or “clean.” I was eating next to nothing but hiding it so well. I smiled, I went out, I pushed through but inside I was struggling.

After about a year or so of keeping this all to myself I finally opened up to friends and family, which led me to see a nutritionist and therapist for the first time. It was scary but the best thing that could have happened to me. I gained weight, I felt good and I started feeling like Vanessa again. Then I graduated and no longer was following a meal plan and being told what I should eat, how and when. It was like I had forgotten how to eat! Sounds silly and hard to understand but I found myself really second-guessing everything and subconsciously restricting because that's all I felt I knew how to do. After a few months of struggling again with food I realized that I did not have true food freedom. I was at a healthy weight, could go out to eat with friends, have a drink with my boyfriend, and eat enough BUT food still came with overthinking and guilt, and I thought about it in such a negative way.

I decided one day that I was truly sick of food being the enemy. I wanted to eat whatever sounded good regardless of its nutritional breakdown. I wanted to go out to eat and see that a salad was on the menu but choose the burger because hello, yum or choose the salad because that’s what actually sounded good at the time. I wanted to enjoy sushi with my boyfriend and not worry about how I was going to make up for it later (aka: stuff all the veggies in my pie hole a.s.a.p.)

This is when I found intuitive eating, which led me to Victoria. I remember being so nervous for our first discovery call. Besides my boyfriend, no one really knew how much I was still struggling to get away from diet mentality and I was afraid of opening up to someone new. But I did! I remember being very honest with her my first call and telling her exactly how I was feeling and where I wanted to be in terms of my relationship with food. And guess what? She listened, did NOT judge and validated every single thing I said. I remember getting off the phone and thinking, “WOW, someone gets me.” I knew right after our first phone call that working with Victoria was exactly what I needed at this point in my life and I was so right.

Over the course of three months my relationship with food has gotten stronger than ever before. Victoria helped me realize that food is not just for weight gain or weight loss. Food is to nourish your body and your mind. It is meant to be enjoyed always and all foods fit. Victoria was there for me each week, even through text message on random days when I felt I was struggling a little more than usual. I appreciated this so much and I always felt so empowered after talking to her because she always told me “you can do this.” She helped me reframe my thoughts around food and substitute positive thoughts for the negative ones. For example, instead of “this pizza is so unhealthy” I would think “this pizza is exactly what I am craving and it is going to taste delicious!”

I believe that Victoria’s work is truly a blessing, especially in today’s diet-obsessed society. The diet industry is a million dollar industry, except 95% of diets do not work. Victoria helped me learn how to stop depriving myself, or forcing myself to count calories or macros. Instead my focus began shifting from what can I remove from this meal to make it less calories to what can I add to this meal to make it more satisfying and satiating so that I am not hungry in 20 minutes. And if for some reason I am hungry in 20 minutes, then I can in fact EAT. Victoria approaches nutrition in a very gentle way. She emphasizes the importance of eating nutrient dense foods while also including those fun foods that we all love! So while yes I eat a “diet” full of vegetables, fruit, whole grains, proteins etc. I also eat, all the carbs, chocolate, ice cream, pizza, and all the sushi, all things that once were written off as bad.

After working with Victoria for three months, I feel better than I ever have both physically and mentally. I have more energy and my brain is not constantly thinking about or obsessing over food. This has changed my quality of life because I am able to be more present, enjoy moments that were once blurred by my own anxieties around food, and my body thanks me each day for treating it well. Victoria is extremely knowledgeable, understanding and kind. She does not judge and is always there to listen. I truly believe that working with Victoria changed my life for the better!"

I am sooo sooo proud of Vanessa! Working with her has been such a blessing to me as well! As you all know, my own history with having an unhealthy relationship with food and my body kept me feeling so lost for so long, and to be able to help other women in this way is so life-giving! Did you resonate with Vanessa's story? Do you crave that freedom? The freedom to not count calories anymore, or macros, or stress and spend endless thoughts and endless energy on trying to control your weight? Let's talk! I'd love to set up a time for you to hear more of how coaching will make a life-long difference in your life! Schedule your discovery call (or coffee chat, or whatever makes you feel more comfortable!) today!And thank you, Vanessa, for sharing your story! I believe in the power of hearing one another's stories and the freedom that that brings each and every one of us!