I wanted to approach the transition into a new year differently. For the past couple of years, I felt like it was more somatically aligned to explore a feeling word for the year rather than resolutions. This feeling word could then be a guiding light throughout the year toward actions or food or environments or hobbies that support you in feeling the way you want to feel. But, I decided to move away from that this year because I sensed it could be used as another way to disembody ...

This holiday week might have been really hard. Surrounded by family, arguments, familial patterns, working on staying connected, trying to enact different patterns with food, and feeling overwhelmed and dysregulated. And for others, ​this week may have included huge wins. You noticed yourself regulating your nervous system, staying connected, choosing other options besides food to connect with yourself, and you got to witness just how far you've come in your food recovery. ​But to...

One of the aspects of food recovery I wished that I had greater guidance around (and had to learn for myself) was discovering how to listen to my body. Even within different food recovery approaches, there are still all of these rules about what to eat to "prove" recovery or what to do to ensure recovery. I've seen more confusion over the years about what will or will not lead toward a decrease in food coping mechanisms because there is still this idea that there is a right ...

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) are traumatic events that occur in childhood and affect your sense of safety. ACEs have been found to be higher in prevalence among those who struggle with food and body image. As the experience of safety diminishes, the likelihood of binge eating increases. This is why you can't shame yourself for your food behaviors. They are not your fault. You’ve been made to believe that your food choices are your decision and that if you can’t “control” yourself...

The number one question I often get asked in sessions is, "What is the somatic practice I should be doing to calm myself down?" Somatic and nervous system work has been completely misconstrued and misrepresented, and I get why. If all you're seeing on social media is a list of suggestions on practices you can do to make things better or calm yourself down, it can feel like there is some magical tool you can utilize to hack your body. Then all the discomfort would go away, which would pe...

We were all taught how to eat and move and exist in our bodies. The “shoulds” that you learn from your parents, diet/wellness/fitness culture, magazines, media, movies, family and friends can keep your nervous system stuck in a sympathetic response. When you live in chronic stress or survival states, your system prioritizes safety over sensation. That means you may default to habits that feel familiar and not ones that feel nourishing. You may be engaging in “healthy” acts and feel abso...

​I remember the very slow realization as I started to embody my binges that food was never going to give me what I was looking for. It felt crushing to face. I'd been utilizing food as a way to try to help myself feel better, safer, more grounded and I felt so much grief that this strategy was never going to work. Over the years in private practice, I noticed almost every single person I worked with experience this moment of deep grief. I now have a term for this called Food...

I'm currently visiting family in Connecticut where I grew up. I was here until I went off to college and then I moved back for about a year before I moved west to go to graduate school. Connecticut has been a witness to every stage of my food recovery. From the beginnings of starting to choose food to self soothe, my diet culture years, stuck in the binge-restrict cyle, a short stint into orthorexia and over exercising, and now in full recovery. My body remembers where and what I ...

In this week's Satiated Podcast episode, I chat with Jay Moon Fields, MA, Coach, and author about: How to build more self trustThe felt sense of self worthEnhancing your decision making skillsThe embodiment of emotionsThe process of stepping into self trust: presence, guidance, service, and trust, and how these elements contribute to personal growth and emotional regulationYou can also read the transcript to this week’s episode here: https://www.stephaniemara.com/blog/building-self-trus...

In this week's Satiated Podcast episode, I chat with Béatriz Victoria Albina, MA, Somatic Master Coach, and author about: What emotional outsourcing isHow it affects physical and mental healthThe impact of codependencyThe journey toward self acceptanceUnderstanding emotionsHow to approach change through gentle regulation and kitten sized stepsYou can also read the transcript to this week’s episode ​here​: www.stephaniemara.com/blog/breaking-free-from-emotional-outsourcing There are 4 da...

I've been reflecting recently on how much I talk here about the reasons food behaviors like binge eating have nothing to do with the food, but the state you're eating the food in. As I've explored here many times, there are so many somatic, trauma, and nervous system layers to your food patterns. But part of food recovery has to include explorations around food itself. In this week's Satiated Podcast episode, I chat about: How food can be a role model for the felt sense of safetyW...

Happy Satiated Saturday! I find it fascinating to explore the layers and layers of connections between trauma and food behaviors. Trauma alters the way you experience bodily sensations. A racing heart can feel like panic rather than excitement. An empty stomach might trigger fear rather than curiosity about food. Over time, the body learns to suppress or disconnect from these cues in an attempt to stay safe. ​Body detachment provided you​ with short term safety, but affected...

Happy Satiated Saturday! After years and years of navigating food cravings, it was the field of somatics that started to shift my perception of them. I used to think of cravings as something I had to do battle with and couldn't listen to until I realized that I was defining listening to cravings as abiding by them and that listening to my craving meant I needed to eat the food some part of me was telling me to eat. I now experience and teach that cravings are bodily messenge...

Happy Satiated Saturday! When a focus on food and nutrition feels like it starts to take over your life, where you're not eating if you can't find what you've been taught are the cleanest, purest foods, and experience high anxiety whenever interacting with foods outside a set list of internally approved foods, you might be navigating orthorexia. In this week's episode, I chat with Sabrina Magnan, Certified Holistic Health Coach founder of the Food Freedom Academy, about:&nbs...

Happy Satiated Saturday! Something I've noticed in any body image healing exploration is how private body image concerns are. About 84% of women struggle with body image, yet something so prevalent is often kept hidden. I wonder what could change if how hard it is to live in a body could be openly discussed and supported, where conversations could look like: Person 1: How are you today? Person 2: I'm actually having a really hard time with my body image today. Person 1: Than...

Happy Satiated Saturday! Fitness culture has made body image recovery even more confusing. I've seen people year after year question if it is alright to want to lose weight, or lift weights, or increase muscle. What I like to return to is the intention behind these desires and how they feel in your body. Any intention approached from a place of self hate, of disrespecting the body, or pushing the body beyond what it can handle, compromising its health, is not a goal that will lead...

Happy Satiated Saturday! At twenty-one, when traveling abroad, I was so nervous about what to eat and eating around others that I did not nourish myself well. I flew home on an 8 hour flight with a fever of 103. Talking about regulating your nervous system and eating to support your body during travel and vacations is now one of my favorite things to share. So, I knew in this body image series that I wanted to bring someone on to chat about navigating food and body image dur...

Happy Satiated Saturday! I'm excited to tell you that today marks a month long focus on the podcast on body image healing. Every summer, I have noticed an uptick in body image conversation on social media and in my sessions and programs. So last summer, I started a little podcast tradition of offering a whole series focused and dedicated to supporting you in navigating body image during the months where more of your body is being seen, more vacation pictures are being taken,...

Happy Satiated Saturday! Anyone else notice how much noise there has been recently about carbohydrates and protein? Protein has to be in everything. I literally just got an email this morning from a company that is now making protein granola. 🤦🏻‍♀️ And the continued arguments between those giving nutrition advice about eat carbs, don't eat carbs, don't eat the wrong kind of carbs, don't eat the wrong kind of carbs in the wrong order, could all make a person's head spin. So w...

Happy Satiated Saturday! Labels like stress eating and emotional eating need some updating. By tacking on the words stress or emotional to eating, it gives the perception that the "problem" is stress or emotions, and if you can fix being a stressed person or person who feels (an impossible task), THEN the food behavior might go away. Stress and emotions are a part of life. Because of this, the practice can be to see the presence of stress or any emotion as body communication...