"the first thing I talk about with my clients is the fact that diets really, really don’t work"
Q&A with Christine Byrne, journalist and dietician-to-be
let’s talk about intuitive eating
For this week’s edition of weightless, I talked with Christine Byrne about her journey as a journalist and becoming a registered dietician. She offers really great insight about intuitive eating and the Health at Every Size movement. If this Q&A is helpful for you, I encourage you to subscribe to Christine’s amazing weekly newsletter called Quit Your Diet.
Tell us a little bit about yourself. Why did you decide to pursue becoming a dietitian?
To quote my dad, I took “a pretty long and circuitous route to get here.” (Seriously, he said this a few weeks ago.) (Also he’s right. Even this explanation will be long!)
I never saw myself becoming a dietitian. I didn’t know what a dietitian was until about six years ago! I always wanted to be a writer — I truly can’t remember having any other career aspirations as a kid. And, I’m so lucky to actually be a professional writer! But even that wasn’t a straight path. I grew up as an expat in Singapore where the food is really fantastic and very central to the culture, plus my parents are both great cooks and I’ve always liked cooking, eating, and talking about food. When I finished college, I decided to try and pursue food writing. I didn’t have an “in” right off the bat, so I went to culinary school after college and spent a few years working in restaurant kitchens in New York. Then, I got lucky and got an assistant food editor job through a friend. Since then, I’ve been working as a journalist for the past 9 years in various capacities — first as a recipe developer and food writer, then as a full-time nutrition editor, and most recently as a freelance nutrition journalist.
Like so many people who work in food media (truly, so many), my interest in food was fueled in part by the eating disorder that I struggled with in my teens and early twenties. I love food and cooking, so no regrets about ending up in this realm, but it’s definitely an important thing to note. I started writing about nutrition early in my recovery, although I look back and see that my perspective was really disordered. It wasn’t long until I recognized the “disorderdness” of my behavior — in part because intuitive eating and body acceptance were finally clicking for me in my own life, and in part because writing all those “eat this, not that”-type articles made me realize how silly they were!
And so, I started taking a more gentle, inclusive, and anti-diet approach to writing about nutrition. That led me to all of these anti-diet dietitians, therapists, and other providers who were doing such amazing work on their own terms. They ran their own businesses helping people directly through coaching and counseling, and many of them also did lots of freelance writing and media work. I was getting antsy in my own full-time media job and had been thinking about freelancing for a while, but I didn’t want to be stuck constantly grinding out articles to make a living. So, I decided to make the (admittedly bigger than I realized) leap into becoming a dietitian. The whole process has taken me over three years so far, and I’m still three months away from officially getting my dietitian license. But, it was worth it. My writing has gotten so much better as I’ve deepened my knowledge. And, I recently started taking private clients in my intuitive eating coaching programs, which is beyond exciting. I feel like, 12 years after the start of my career, it’s finally coming together!
This may be a bit of a selfish question, because I want to follow a similar career trajectory, but how & why do you combine being a journalist with being a health provider? What are your career goals?
I actually started on this dietitian path unsure of whether I’d continue with journalism. It’s a tough way to make a living these days, and I was feeling pretty burned out. I just wanted to open a private practice and support in recovery from eating disorders and disordered eating. I thought maybe I’d do brand work (sponsored content, recipe development, nutrition consulting), because it pays well and I know many people in the food marketing and PR world from my years in media. But even three years ago, it didn’t seem like big outlets wanted an anti-diet perspective.
That’s totally changed. It’s cliché, but I feel like I’ve *come into my own* as a writer in the past year or so, as I’ve learned more and started working one-on-one with patients and clients. I get to tackle great topics in bi-weekly Outside column — food isn’t medicine, sugar isn’t addictive, “clean eating” is a lie, probiotic supplements aren’t necessary, etc. And I’ve written lots of anti-diet pieces elsewhere about things like intuitive eating, Health at Every Size, why BMI is the worst, the problematic nature of diet culture co-opting the anti-diet movement, and more.
So to answer your question: I’ve launched my own private intuitive eating coaching practice, and I hope to grow that over the next few years. In the meantime, I’ll keep writing for outlets like Outside and others. I do plan to write a book someday, but that’s several years down the line.
As someone studying to become a dietitian, do you encounter a lot of diet-culture beliefs or practices among your peers, or is the field generally becoming more body inclusive?
You know, I went into graduate school fully expecting to encounter a lot of diet culture beliefs among my peers, but I found the opposite. Many of my peers are just as interested in anti-diet nutrition as I am. The ones who aren’t as familiar with it are very open-minded and interested. The nutrition curriculum hasn’t quite caught up with the anti-diet movement, but educators are definitely making an effort by focusing significantly less on weight and bringing in lots of speakers who specialize in intuitive eating, Health at Every Size, and eating disorders. It’s given me so much hope — the shift is happening!
I should add that my cohort wasn’t exactly diverse. We were mostly white, mostly women, and mostly thin. That’s a problem, because in order for things to really change, there need to be more bodies and identities represented in the field.
Can you explain what intuitive eating is?
You know, I’ve interviewed Evelyn Tribole (the co-founder of the intuitive eating movement) four times now, and I still can’t explain this succinctly. Essentially, intuitive eating means eating without rules or guilt, tuning into how food makes you feel and using that information to guide your food choices, and giving up the pursuit of weight loss.
It really does look different for everyone. Unlike diets, there are no rules — nothing you can’t eat, no tracking, no portion control, no fasting, etc. Evelyn says often that there’s no right or wrong way to do intuitive eating, because any “mistakes” you make — say, not eating enough for breakfast and feeling famished during your commute, or eating more than feels comfortable and having to sit with that over-full feeling for a while — are just lessons in how food makes you feel.
Giving up the pursuit of weight loss really is the biggest part of it, I think. Once you can do that, you’re able to make food choices without constantly second-guessing yourself, and you really do stop obsessing over food.
What does it mean to be a "Health at Every Size" provider?
The Health at Every Size (HAES) movement centered around the idea that it’s possible to be healthy without changing your body size, and that trying to lose weight usually causes more harm (physically, mentally, and emotionally) than good.
So, being a HAES provider means helping people improve their health without changing their size. There are HAES doctors, therapists, nurses, physical therapists, dietitians, and more. As a HAES dietitian-to-be, I help people learn to eat intuitively, in a way that feels good for them. Typically, I work with people who have a history of eating disorders or disordered eating. But anyone can work with a HAES provider! There are HAES-aligned approaches to managing every health condition, from diabetes to heart disease to IBS.
What is your advice for someone who wants to start eating more intuitively?
It’s a multi-step process, but the first thing I talk with my clients about is the fact that diets really, really don’t work. Our culture makes it seem like intentional weight loss is possible if you have the willpower, but there’s so much evidence to prove that’s not true. It takes a while to fully understand and accept that. Once you do, it’s easier to eat in a way that feels good to you without always being tempted to diet or restrict.
What is your favorite snack?
It changes all the time! Now that I’m working from home all the time, I’m in the habit of just snacking on lunch or dinner leftovers when I get hungry mid-afternoon. Chicken curry, tuna salad, cold stir-fry, whatever!
How can someone in a larger body advocate for themselves with healthcare providers?
First, I’ll acknowledge that I don’t live in a larger body, and so I don’t have any personal experience with this. And I’m not very confrontational in person, so I’m sure I would struggle to advocate for myself in this situation.
The bottom line is that you deserve a doctor/dietitian/therapist/physical therapist, etc. who listens to you, and who helps you manage your health without telling you to lose weight. If you’re comfortable doing so, you can always tell the nurse that you don’t want to be weighed. But if you’re going to a very weight-focused doctor, you might still encounter some real discrimination based on the way your body looks.
If you go to your provider with a complaint — say, a sore knee or trouble breathing — and they recommend weight loss, you can say something like, “I have a bad history with dieting/disordered eating/an eating disorder, so going on a diet isn’t an option. What else can we do to address this problem?” Hopefully, they respect that and avoid recommending diets in the future.
How can people find a provider who believes in Health At Every Size, what questions should they ask to make sure their providers abide by HAES?
There’s a HAES provider directory that you can search, although it’s not super comprehensive.
The fastest and easiest way to know if someone is HAES-aligned is to ask them: “Do you ever recommend that your clients/patients lose weight?” If the answer is yes, they’re not a HAES provider.
What are three easy things people can do each day to examine or fix their relationship with food?
Be intentional about who you follow on social media. There are lots of intuitive eating influencers and experts out there who constantly post photos of their own very thin bodies. Many of my clients have said that following accounts like this actually makes them feel worse, because their own bodies don’t look like that. That can be counterproductive, and might lead you back to restriction. If someone makes you feel bad about your body, or if you’re always comparing your body to theirs? Unfollow them!
Pay attention to your thoughts when you make food choices. Within the intuitive eating framework, this is called “challenging the food police.” Say you read a menu and gravitate towards a certain sandwich, but then a voice in your head tells you to order the salad instead. That’s the food police talking! Ultimately, you want to tune that voice out. But the first step is just noticing it.
Stop reading diet and weight loss articles. Seriously! They’re everywhere. You might say to yourself, “oh, I’ll read this but I won’t take the advice.” But that’s hard to do when you’re in the early stages of intuitive eating.
How can readers learn more or get in touch with you?
My website has everything you need to know about me and my intuitive eating coaching programs, as well as links to my recent articles. I also have a weekly newsletter, Quit Your Diet, in which I talk about intuitive eating, eating disorder recovery, and why diets are garbage (similar to this newsletter!). And I’m active on Twitter and Instagram at @christinejbyrne.
Thanks so much for giving me the space to talk about this stuff here. The more people who can break free from diet culture, the better!
what nourished me this past week
To be totally honest, I’ve been in a funk the past few weeks. I have been in auto-pilot, doing the bare minimum to get through each day. I haven’t felt overly ~nourished~ but I think making sure you take care of your basic necessities is all you can ask for sometimes.
what nourished my brain: Therapy! It helps! See a therapist!
what nourished my belly AND my soul: Cooking dinner for me and my friend Ali. Eating meals with someone as often as I can has been so, so helpful in my recovery.
what nourished my body: Getting enough sleep. I worked overnights last week, and that was really tough. Allowing myself to get adequately sleep during the day was the kindest thing I could do for myself.