Ellen Berry | Nutrition Archives

Labels (Food and Otherwise): How I Identify My Approach to Wellness

Hello all,

It’s been a while since I’ve done a post about some of my personal experiences and my own journey with health and wellness. So here’s what’s been banging around in my head lately.

I’ve written before on here about my past (and to some degree, they will always be current) issues with eating and body image, but the ways in which I am talking about them and identifying with them have changed over time. I’ve also written on here about my tendency towards plant-based eating, but again, the ways in which I am talking about and identifying with this have shifted recently and are still in flux.

The Breadth of Intuitive Eating, the Holidays, Referrals, and Specialties

Sometimes eating is -sacred- you savor every bite, pay attention to the eating experience, and are grateful for your food.

Sometimes eating is -utilitarian- you shovel down whatever is available to satiate hunger now or overdue hunger/skipped meals due to busyness OR to prepare for hunger and a lack of availability of food in the future; it doesn’t matter if you’re multitasking or calling 3 different kinds of chips a meal; the goal is simply to get some fuel in your body to keep going because eating is the last thing on your mind in your busy life at this moment.

And sometimes eating is -fun- maybe there isn’t even hunger or responsibility involved, but you just want to eat a lot or a little of something fun and carefree just because.

Upcoming Events & Resources

I wanted to make you aware of a handful of things!

First, my fellow personal trainer, health coach, and co-leader of our Intuitive Eating and Intuitive Movement workshops, Pam Finney has started a blog including her own personal experiences with intuitively diving into her health and her journey over the years. I highly recommend you read and follow along, as her story is a fantastic one. You can find her first blog post here.
Second, we just finished up the October session of our Intuitive Eating workshop over the weekend, the second of our IE workshops, and it went amazingly! We are excited to keep building and introducing more information, as well as building a solid foundation for those new to our workshops and these concepts at our upcoming workshop events. Here are the upcoming dates, so please shoot myself or Pam an email if you would like to join our community of other awesome participants!

Intuitive Eating Workshop & Now Offering Online Exercise Programming

I’m very excited to announce a new one-day workshop I have coming up with Pam Finney on Intuitive Eating, next Saturday, August 17th. This is the continuation of where we have been putting our energy into BeYOUtiful You and Live Your BeYOUtiful. See all the info below for more details, and feel free to shoot me an email if you have questions or would like to sign up to attend!

I’m also excited to announce a new way you can work with me through Personal Training and Health Coaching: online exercise programming. Meet with me initially to talk about your goals and physical limitations, and then together we can determine what’s the best plan moving forward. I will program a weekly schedule of workouts fine-tuned to your needs, injury history, and preferences (because the best workout plan is one you enjoy and can therefore stick to), and we can even add in a monthly online or in person meeting to discuss nutrition or other lifestyle habits that may be holding you back from reaching your goals and being your healthiest. Shoot me an email if you’re interested.

And finally, here is a bit of wisdom about meditation for your enjoyment if you’ve stuck with this post so far!

Revisiting Expansion vs. Contraction & Some Workout Resources

On the same lines as my last post, this will also be an amalgamation of resources (except this time my own resources), as I’ve been trying to post more workout content on my Instagram page as well as start using Instagram TV more often again to put out video explanations of concepts and such for people that learn better in that format.

Here is the IGTV video I created and posted this morning revisiting the concepts of Expansion vs. Contraction as well as some resources of past times I’ve discussed these same concepts in different formats. Choose whatever strikes your fancy!

Live Your BeYOUtiful: Round 2, Starting April 22nd

Join us for an 8-week program of health coaching and training for women. The group is designed to foster a supportive community environment of like-minded ladies to help motivate you towards your goals. We will work together towards achieving health goals found to be unsuccessful in the past by delving into fear, vulnerability, mindset, language, and accountability in the coaching sessions. The physical activity training sessions will put these discussions into action in fun team workouts.

Coming Back Home into Our Bodies with Gentle Nutrition After Emotional Trauma

For me, that meant doing something that is deemed culturally “bad” like eating out for every meal when really this is something that brings me joy and ease when interspersed randomly throughout my week. My point here is that cultural notions of health really rarely serve us as individuals. You won’t see any cleanses or massive lifestyle overhauls to “get back on track” here. Just gentle nutrition. Listening to my body. Trying to hear that intuitive wisdom that our society shuts us down to. Coming back home into my body. Infinite love and striving towards body acceptance.

Body Image and Gentle Nutrition Interview with Hannah Lowe of ROCKET Magazine

As promised, I have included the interview transcript where Hannah Lowe of The College of William & Mary’s ROCKET Magazine asked me about body image, body positivity and its roots in the fat positive movement, gentle nutrition, my experiences with my own body as a college student, my experiences becoming a personal trainer, mental health,…

Collaborations with The College of William & Mary's ROCKET Magazine

Today is a bit of a fun one aka a messy amalgamation of things.

More recently, I’ve nearly disappeared all over again for the last couple months, with only a post in November about my Self Love and Self Care for the Holidays Facebook group that I ran for one month with fellow trainer and coach Shannon Johnson and then a post in December to introduce my new Live Your BeYOUtiful health coaching small group with Pam Finney at acac Albemarle Square.

This lack of posting is largely because of the time and effort that I wanted to put into each of these larger collaborative projects and partially because I am a BIG believer in balance. But, another reason I took this break from posting frequently on this blog and sometimes on Instagram during the last couple months is because I’ve also been working alongside Hannah Lowe from The College of William & Mary’s ROCKET Magazine on both a shorter article in their Fall/Winter 2018 issue and a longer article on their website blog, both featuring excepts from Hannah’s interview with me on body positivity and gentle nutrition.

Live Your BeYOUtiful

I’m super excited to announce the group I will be starting with Pam Finney in January!!

This group is essentially the intensive version of the free BeYOUtiful You group we have been running every month for 2 years now. We will discuss health, fitness, and wellness from a MENTALLY and EMOTIONALLY HEALTHY perspective and work on a physical activity goal as a community. This group will meet every other week for 90 minutes over a three month period; each week the discussion and exercise portion will build on the last. We will cover topics like self love, body image, and self care. We want to make you fitter on the outside starting with the inside —mindset.

life is too short to hate your body

What it comes down to is:
Life is too short to hate your body. Life is also too short to not enjoy foods you love.

Talking about Health through the Lens of Expansion (as opposed to contraction/restriction)

Hello all, The difference between Expansion and Contraction when it comes to health is a concept I’ve been thinking and talking a lot about lately, and since I’m giving a talk on the subject on November 3rd, I thought it was time I wrote a more in depth post about this. Coming from a background…

Videos on IGTV for those Visual/Auditory Learners

I just wanted to share some links here for videos I have been doing through Instagram TV on my account @eehpuhbuh!

Also, be on the lookout for more information on a Body Image group I will be starting up at acac Albemarle Square in the near future, as well as some changes to my and Pam’s group BeYOUtiful You.

I’m also planning some cool collaborations with other amazing health professionals, so be on the lookout for information on those as I get things set in stone!

Now Offering: Body-Image-Focused Health Coaching

After getting certified as an ACE Health Coach in February & not really having the breathing room to figure out what I wanted to do with it until now, I’m happy to announce that I will now be offering body-image-focused Health Coaching!

"Intuitive Eating Mistakes" from Caroline Dooner

-EPB

Updates!

Hello all! This semester of graduate school (I’m working towards my Masters in Nutrition & Physical Activity from JMU) has been absolutely kicking me in the butt! But, it has also been one of the most exciting and interesting semesters of my time thus far in my graduate program (which will soon come to an…