Nourish: How to Heal Your Relationship with Food, Body and Self — Heidi Schauster | BloomerBoomer

In this episode of “Boomer TV: Embrace Age, Empower Dreams Embrace Life,” Andy Asher, editor of BloomerBoomer.com visits with Heidi Schauster, MS, RDN, CEDRD-S EMBRACE EMBODIED EATING AND LIVING I am a nutrition therapist with over 20 years of experience in the field of eating disorders and emotional eating issues. I am a writer, consultant, and certified eating disorders registered dietitian and supervisor, based in the Greater Boston area. I am also the author of Nourish: How to Heal Your Relationship with Food, Body, and Self. My book is available here on my website and through Amazon and Barnes and Noble. In my work, I feel called to assist my clients and readers in improving their relationships with food and their bodies. There is so much conflicting information about nutrition. I work with my clients to sort through it all, and to use their own inner wisdom to develop a style of eating that works for their unique body and lifestyle. My training includes nutrition science, psychology, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), mindfulness-based and insight-oriented meditation, and elements of yoga therapeutics and dance. I hold a holistic view of nutrition, the body, and my clients. I completed my dietetic internship and masters degree at Tufts University and began my career at Children’s Hospital, Boston. After completing an Adolescent Fellowship at Children’s Hospital, I worked as Clinical Dietitian Specialist for Inpatient Psychiatry and the Outpatient Adolescent Clinic. Since leaving Children’s in 1999, I have maintained a full-time private practice and am the founder of Nourishing Words Nutrition Therapy. In addition to counseling, I have consulted with schools, universities, and professional groups, and lectured widely on the topic of disordered eating. I also provide individual and group clinical supervision for my colleagues in the nutrition field who work with emotional eating issues. I am an Adjunct Faculty at Plymouth State University in their graduate level Eating Disorders Institute. I teach a nutrition education and counseling course that is part of a unique training program for professionals in the health and mental health fields who want to obtain special training in eating disorders. One of my favorite parts of my work is facilitating the No Diet Book Clubs, therapeutic book clubs that become little recovery support communities. I am a professional member of the International Association for Eating Disorders Professionals (IAEDP), the Academy for Eating Disorders (AED), the Multi-Service Eating Disorders Association (MEDA), the International Federation for Eating Disorder Dietitians (IFEDD), and the Academy for Nutrition and Dietetics (AND). I am also an Approved Supervisor for those registered dietitians working towards certification with IAEDP as CEDRDs. I’m also a professional stilt performer for balance. (Really!) Personally, I live in Arlington and I am a proud mama of two teenage daughters. I enjoy dancing, gardening, exploring the outdoors, studying herbalism, and writing. I love to write about things I feel passionate about. My clients constantly inspire me to write about their healing so that I might inspire others on their journeys. Please check out my blog! I have also recovered from bulimia, food restriction, and binge-eating, which I struggled with in my late teens and early twenties. I was a dancer who was confused about how to feed my active, developing body. With love and some help from others, I worked hard on my recovery. I eventually studied nutrition in college because I wanted to help others to be less in the dark about how to feed themselves, and (at first) to do the last bit of healing of my own relationship with food. Now that I am approaching 50 and have been eating-disorder-free for over two decades, I love being in my body and in my life. I am passionate about helping others to get past obsessions with food, self-criticism, and negative body image. I enjoy eating, cooking, gardening, and being a nutritionist; but even for a born “foodie,” eating is still only one way that I nourish myself. You will see a lot of photos of natural beauty on my website and on my social media. Spending time in the natural world is one of the ways that I refuel. I do this work because I want to help my clients find their own ways to nourish body, mind, and spirit. Many clients ask what my personal eating style is like. I don’t follow any particular “way” of eating and strive to listen to my body and eat according to my own internal wisdom. I find that my eating naturally shifts seasonally and during changes in my body and lifestyle, and I strive to be present and listen. I write about how to work towards this way of eating in my book Nourish. I most enjoy food that is lovingly and consciously prepared, followed by a dish-washing dance party.

Category: Blog