You’ve been working so hard to improve your relationship with food.

You’re exhausted and overwhelmed. Eating disorder recovery is hard. Making peace with food is hard. Multiple times per day you’re making decisions about what, when, and how much to eat.

You’re tired of feeling worried about making the wrong decision.

Sometimes, it seems like it doesn’t even matter… because whatever you choose to eat, you still feel bad afterwards.

You’re making progress, but it feels like a constant struggle

You’ve realized that as you change your thinking about food, the world around you stays the same. You’re beginning to free yourself from food thoughts but it seems like everyone else is still stuck in diet culture and focused on fad diets- hello whole 30, cleansing, detoxing, restricting carbs, talking about how sugar is the devil, eating gluten free, and organic and it makes you question everything you’re doing. You want to be free from food thoughts!

You have hope in the process, but then this happens…

You go to dinner with your friends and all you hear about is how bad carbs are, while you eat your sandwich and chips- which you know you need to have…

You get ice cream with your family and your Mom says, Oh…I’m being so bad.

You go to class and your teacher is showing a film about how the food you eat is killing you…

You get an email from your grandmother telling you that you have gained weight and that you should probably change your eating. ( this one actually happened to me, the rest are from clients I have worked with.)

You begin to question everything you have done to change your eating.

You go right back to doubting what you have learned and all the work you have done- are carbs bad? Do you really need that fat? Should you really have dessert? Aah!

You’re scared to move forward, but you don’t want to go back, and every couple of hours you have to eat. AGAIN.

Body Guard Is Here To Help

Body Guard is for you if you’re frustrated with everyone around you reinforcing dieting, restrictive eating patterns, and weight focus, while you’re trying to improve your relationship with food. That constant stream of conflicting nutrition information that makes you feel confused and uncertain about what to do is diet culture. I’m so excited to tell you about Body Guard! It’s a program I have created to counter all those annoying and harmful messages. It makes it easier to improve your relationship with food. It makes it easier to connect with your body and take care of you.

Clarity

You know food isn’t supposed to be this complicated but you don’t know what to do. Body Guard is strategically designed to walk you through all of the confusing messages from diet culture to provide clarity, to calm your anxiety, and to separate who you are and your self-worth from your eating and your body. Diet Culture says that you are bad for not eating a certain way. I say diet culture is bad for trying to make you feel that way to begin with.

Support

When someone is openly talking about dieting or commenting on your eating choices you felt uncertain, anxious, and even ashamed about your eating or what you are doing. Like you’re wrong- like you need to hide or be smaller, or do something to change right now. Body Guard is here to help support you when this happens. While I wish we could dismantle diet culture and stop this from ever happening, it’s just not possible, yet. In the mean time, let’s work on making this process easier for you and together work to end diet culture.

Community

Does it ever feel like you are the only person working to improve your relationship with food, rather than focusing on weight, shape, or size? Good news- not anymore! Body Guard provides you with an online community that is directly counter to diet culture- a community all about self-care, body positivity, well-being and happiness. All are welcome here and all are united to embrace a life free from food and body obsessions.

About Body Guard

Body Guard is an online, self paced, 10 module program being released SOON. Each module includes a video lesson and transcript, quick reference guides, worksheets, journaling activities, affirmation cards (with alternative thoughts to replace your automatic diet culture thoughts), and access to an online community. Materials are available at your convenience and can be used whenever you need more support.

Specifically, Body Guard provides:

Clarity on carbohydrates, proteins, and fats: understanding the unique benefits they each provide. (Yes, they all provide benefits.)
Freedom from food thoughts. Less time thinking on your food choices all day long and more time living life.
Confidence with eating ALL Foods.
Facts about digestion and metabolism: simple and easy to understand explanations that clarify diet culture beliefs. (hint: no more detoxes or cleanses.)
Peace of mind from good/bad, healthy/unhealthy food thoughts.
Decreased guilt and shame from eating (and thus, increased pleasure in living).
Tools to keep your peace when others comment on your food or eating.
Tips and tricks to decrease panic when you feel like you have eaten the wrong food.
Satisfaction and enjoyment with eating.
Relief from diet culture pressure to eat a certain way.
Awareness about diet culture and how to reject it.
Connection with others who are working just like you to improve their relationship with food
Courage to push back against diet culture and know you are enough as you are
Truth about vitamins, minerals, and supplements. How they work in your body and what they do.
Clarity about how your body works to use energy and how all foods provide nourishment.

Diet Culture Defined

What it is, How it effects you, and how you can separate from it

Digestive Clarity

Digestion from the beginning to the end so that you no longer feel like you need to “fix” your eating, cleanse, or detox.

Carbs, Carbs, Carbs

All things carbs. What they are, the benefits they provide, ways to challenge diet culture.

Dietary Fats

Clarity on dietary fats, the benefits that they offer, and tricks to challenge diet culture messages for guilt free eating.

Protein

What it does & what it doesn’t do. The benefits it provides, but also perspective.

MicroWhat?

Vitamins & minerals A-Z where they go, & what they do. No supplement sales included-just balanced intake.

Metabolism Demystified

What it really is, how it really works, and direct dismantling of diet culture messages.

All foods fit

Freedom from food thoughts. No more good, bad, healthy, unhealthy food thoughts.

But I still Feel Guilty

Tips and tricks for creating truly guilt free eating.

But I still Don’t Like My Body

Decoding tools to get to the bottom of food & body thoughts.

BONUS MATERIAL:

The power of biology, learning my likes, self compassion, comebacks for direct diet culture messages, cheat sheet to replace diet culture keywords and phrases.

**All modules include a video lesson and transcript, quick reference guides, worksheets, journaling activities. Challenge exercises, affirmations to replace automatic thoughts, and bonus material are placed throughout the course.

Hi There! I’m Sara Upson, a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, Licensed Dietitian and Certified Eating Disorder Specialist. I know first hand how difficult it is to go through the recovery process and make peace with food while being immersed in diet culture. In the beginning, my weight was fine, but I didn’t think that. I followed the rules of diet culture and found my way to a very miserable and lonely place where constant food thoughts ruled my life and eating behaviors were out of control. I was miserable and diet culture told me what I was doing wasn’t enough, that I just needed to do more. It wasn’t until a good friend ~~forced~~ encouraged me to get help that things started to change. I started working with a treatment team and learned about challenging messages from society. It wasn’t called diet culture at that time, but having that word to describe it now makes it much more accurate. As my eating and behaviors improved, my body changed. Diet culture pushed back hard when a family member told me I was fat and needed to lose weight. Normally I would have been right back in behaviors, but this time was different. I pushed back against diet culture. Through this I discovered how to directly challenge diet culture messages and get to the root of the problem. What I figured out is that there are two messages we have to challenge, what diet culture says and what you say to yourself. What this did for me was give me the freedom to separate from diet culture to enjoy food and life again. I didn’t plan initially to become a dietitian, but the desire to help others changed my career path. It’s not just my life that has benefited from this knowledge, it’s also my clients. Through the years, while working with individual clients, I have seen how much harder diet culture makes the recovery process and I’ve had enough! Diet Culture Sucks! It only makes food thoughts and behaviors worse, which is the exact opposite of what you are trying to do. That’s why I created Body Guard: Defense Against Diet Culture. It’s here to support you in moving forward to directly counter those messages from diet culture. I’m so excited to help you!

My Promise

I guarantee that if you complete all the modules including videos, worksheets, journaling exercises, challenges, (and provide evidence of completed worksheets, exercises, and challenges) and participate in the online community that you will see an improvement in your relationship with food. I do my best to keep you happy and support you in the process of improving your relationship with food. If for any reason you are unhappy, let me know so that I can help you get the results that you desire.

Questions Or Concerns?

Disclaimer: The information contained on this site, or delivered via email or downloads from this site, is general in nature and not meant to substitute for any professional medical advice. If you are in need of specific advice please contact your treatment team or a competent medical professional. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure a disease. This information does not and should not replace treatment from a medical professional. If you need advice or assistance, you should consult a physician. If you are experiencing a medical emergency, DIAL 911.