"repeating mantras in the mirror is great and all but that isn’t going to help you radically shift and transform your relationship with food"
Q & A with Sara Loomis, a certified food freedom coach and personal trainer
happy tuesday!
I am so excited for you all to read my Q & A with Sara Loomis, a food freedom coach I found through social media a few months ago. Sara’s Instagram (linked below!) is full of insightful and educational content about Intuitive Eating, eating disorder recovery and fostering a better relationship with food and your body. I hope you enjoy learning about her journey and what she does for her clients as a coach as much as I did!
Take good care of yourself this week,
Julie
Q &A with Sara Loomis
Hi! Can you tell us a little about yourself and how you got started working in the intuitive eating/anti-diet culture space?
Hey there! I’m Sara. I am a certified food freedom coach and personal trainer. My interest for working in the Intuitive Eating space began when I decided to stop dieting forever in 2019. For the first time, I felt true freedom around food and so confident in my body. I knew that women who struggle with their body image and relationship with food and exercise deserved to feel as good as I did after I ditched dieting. So, I turned my pain into purpose and have now helped a handful of women reclaim back their power and feel guilt free when making food and exercise choices.
What is a food freedom coach? What do you do when you work with clients and what services do you offer?
As a food freedom coach, I help guide women to overcome their food fears so that they never have to stress about food, exercise, or their body image again. I also work with a lot of former female athletes who struggle with body changes and all the emotions that come with not looking like they once may have back in the day when they competed in soccer, cheer, bodybuilding, etc. When I work with clients, I use a bottom-up approach (which guides clients back into their bodies). Repeating mantras in the mirror is great and all but that isn’t going to help you radically shift and transform your relationship with food. I believe that healing happens from within and it’s impossible to heal your relationship to food and your body if you have been so disconnected from yourself for years and years (which is very common in dieters.)
I teach clients to re-wire their belief systems and take them through a very intimate experience in which they learn to re-connect to their bodies by navigating through limiting beliefs, self-sabotage, and trauma so that they can get to the root cause of their true food and body struggles. This teaches clients how to understand their bodies innate cues and recognize that their body works for them, they don’t have to work for their body. Developing trust and safety from within is a key aspect of my coaching. This process looks different from client to client and is NOT a one size fits all approach because every one of my clients is unique and comes from a different background. I am currently offering 1:1 coaching BUT I am in the process of creating a course for women who want to transition from calorie/macro tracking to eating intuitively + moving mindfully.
What gaps in health care and wellness does an ED or intuitive eating coach fill? How does it fit in with someone’s overall health ‘team’?
My personal coaching style fills healthcare and wellness gaps because my clients experience shifts within the body on as deep cellular level. My work is somatic (body work) that addresses one’s physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. This style of coaching fits great into someone’s overall health team because it allows clients to understand and tap into their physical body rather than talk therapy which is heavily based on listening to the mind. The mind is filled with thousands of daily thoughts and is often where stories, fear, anxiety, and chaos live. I teach my clients how to un-hook from the mind and get into their bodies through meditation and breath work techniques.
I know from following you on social media that you used to be very into fitness culture - bodybuilding, counting macros, all of that. How did you realize that it was maybe unhealthy? What advice do you have for people who might be in that same situation? Yes. I am still very pro-health and as a personal trainer I believe movement is super important with the proper intention. However, I realized that the bodybuilding lifestyle I was living was completely unsustainable and doing more harm to my overall health than good. Weight cycling is not healthy and increases one’s risk for cancers and other diseases. I personally realized it was unhealthy when I passed out one night and the ER doctor told me I had kidney damage. That was a HUGE wake up call for me. This is why your external appearance is not a good indicator of how healthy you really are. I always ask clients, “Do you truly believe X (whatever they are participating in) will be able to be sustainable in 1 year, 5 years, or even 20 years?” My advice is to create habits that you can see yourself sustaining over the long term vs. quick fixes. Having an “all or nothing” mentality is not a way to create healthy + sustainable long-term habits. Also, I know it can be hard but don’t beat yourself up! You are doing the best you can with what you have. This is a journey. It isn’t something that happens overnight. Give your body what it truly needs. Hint: often it’s the opposite of what we think it needs. Example: My body needed a lot of rest and slowness after I left the bodybuilding community, but I was so used to go go go mode (you know, that hustle mentality?). If your body needs rest, love, or slowness, give it was it needs.
This next question is two-fold: How has social media been harmful in your own struggles with body image/fitness/diet culture? And how has it been helpful?
Social media was harmful during my eating disorder days because it’s an illusion. It can give off a false sense of reality which can lead to comparison and feelings of guilt and shame for not looking like your “favorite IG influencer”. When I was struggling through my eating disorders, I was so confused. Do I listen to the influencer who is promoting macro tracking, or do I listen to the woman who is doing an IG live on what she ate in a day and then try sticking to those foods? There’s SO much noise on social media so proceed with caution and care, keeping your mental health at the forefront. On the other hand, there has been some good that has come out of social media. When I stopped dieting, I started following accounts that made me feel seen, heard, and validated. They made me feel like I wasn’t struggling alone. The messages I choose to consume are very uplifting and encouraging. Coming from the bodybuilding world I was so used to the force and the hustle mentality so stepping away from those types of “fitspo” accounts was really refreshing for my mental health.
What is your advice for someone who “doom scrolls” on social media and is constantly consuming content from accounts that make them feel bad about themselves?
1) Stay off of social media. More times than not, scrolling can perpetuate feelings of guilt, shame, anxiety, and fear. Instead, try closing your eyes and turning on a mediation or doing some deep/relaxing breath work. Trust me. I have spiraled down rabbit holes way too many times and it’s not worth your mental health!
2) Do a social media detox and delete every account that no longer serves you or makes you feel like you aren’t good enough just as you are.
If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing, what would it be?
You don’t need to reach to the external world for validation. You are already born worthy and don’t have to prove anything to anyone. Weight does NOT equal worth.
(My favorite question to ask!!) What is your current favorite snack?
Kodiak Cakes w/Syrup!! (Working from home has made it very convenient to whip up pancakes as a mid-day snack) (;
If readers are interested in working with you or connecting with you, where can they find you online?
IG: saraloomis_
Facebook: Sara Kay Loomis
give me suggestions
What do you want to see in this newsletter? Who do you want me to talk to? What do you want me to write about? What questions do you have about eating disorders/disordered eating/diet culture/“wellness” culture/mental health? Email me (juliegall95@gmail.com) or DM me on Twitter (@_JulieGallagher)