I’m Whitney, a nurse practitioner, metabolism specialist, and lifelong foodie.

My relationship with food started out easy and fun. I loved buffets and weddings for the food. I was the girl cleaning everyone’s plates, the one always in my friends’ cupboards.

In college, an innocent attempt to look better for a dance audition turned into food restriction. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that decision would shape my relationship with food for the next thirteen years.

I earned a bachelor’s degree in exercise science and nutrition. I even taught wellness and nutrition at a community college. I understood the science. It didn’t matter, though. I cycled through restriction, then swung back into overeating. All my weight fluctated. 

Clearly, this was not a knowledge problem.

After years of restricting and overeating, I finally hit my breaking point in 2018. I’d just gone on the hardest diet of my life and nearly lost some of my dearest relationships in the process. My mental, emotional, and physical health suffered.

That was my wake-up call. I stopped restricting and started taking a root-cause approach. I worked with an eating psychology coach and learned about nervous system regulation, emotional health, and the patterns driving my eating.

That shift is what finally helped me stop overeating, stress eating, and emotional eating. I learned to eat according to what my body actually needed, which allowed me to return to my natural, lean weight. And I’ve sustained that change for years, including through two pregnancies in my late 30s.