Eating disorders are serious but treatable mental illnesses that affect people of every age, sex, gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic group. The cause of eating disorders is complex, with genetic, psychological, and environmental factors all playing a role in someone developing an eating disorders. People typically think of an eating disorder as an issue that emerges only in adolescence, but eating disorders can occur at any age.

At Mindful Eats Nutrition, we believe that those struggling with eating disorders and disordered eating can achieve full recovery no matter the complexity or severity of your struggles.

We are part of a unique group of professionals in Houston who have been specially trained to work with eating disorders and disordered eating. We love using a team approach. If you are looking for a treatment team, we would love to help you find people to perfectly fit your needs.

You can start by looking for professionals who are a part of Houston Eating Disorder Specialists, a group of professionals who have been vetted as having specialized training for the treatment of eating disorders and disordered eating, here.

If you or a loved one are struggling and wondering if you have an eating disorder, we would love to help you. If you aren’t ready to commit to scheduling an appointment, we’d love to chat over a free 10 minute phone consultation to help you determine if we would be the right fit. You can fill out the form here to schedule this consultation. You can also visit the National Eating Disorders Association to learn more about eating disorders, and feel free to take advantage of their free eating disorders screening tool.

We use an “intuitive eating”, “all foods fit,” mindfulness approach to working on food and your relationship with food. The latest research overwhelmingly supports that dieting doesn’t work. It is the one product/industry where the person purchasing the product fails over and over, and the individual person is blamed for the failure, rather than the actual product or process being to blame.

Ninety-five percent of those who diet will regain the weight they have lost plus some, then go on a new diet and get the same results, being trapped in a perpetual dieting hamster wheel. The reasons why dieting doesn’t work are complex, involving biology and environment. Our brains weren’t wired to sustain long term deprivation.

Most everyone, when told they cannot have something, will respond with becoming preoccupied with that food and likely overeat or binge eat that food one “will power” has broken down. The biggest lie the diet industry sells is that it’s all about finding the “right program” or having the right amount of “will power” leaving you feeling like a hopeless failure.

You may be thinking, there’s no way I can let go of dieting and also maintain my health! We promise this is possible. Weight cycling through dieting can actually be just as harmful physically as it is emotionally. We will discuss nutrition and health and how to achieve health while letting go of dieting.

If you are tired of being stuck in the diet cycle and want to make peace with food, we would love to help you do that. We promise not to sell you any gimmicks or put you on restrictive food plans in the process!

If you would like more information on the intuitive eating approach, please check out this Intuitive Eating website.

Intuitive eating is a process, and not a “one size fits all” approach. We tailor the concepts of intuitive eating to each of our client’s individual needs, diagnoses, and situations.

WOMEN'S HEALTH

Sometimes women face particularly challenging health issues where the nutrition messages can be confusing, overwhelming, and inconsistent. At Mindful Eats Nutrition Counseling, we take our mindfulness approach and apply it to the specific health concerns women face.

PCOS

Often, people experiencing polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) are placed on very restrictive diets and told this is essential for weight maintenance and health. This creates a lot of fear and, quite frankly, is miserable. Our approach centers on incorporating intuitive eating principles while developing a healthy relationship with food and body. If you have just been diagnosed with PCOS or have had PCOS for a while and are still feeling frustrated and confused, we would love to walk with you.

One of our dietitians, Abbie Madden, hosts a weekly virtual support group for those experiencing PCOS. If you’re interested in this group please register for free on our Group Classes page.

FERTILITY AND PREGNANCY

If you are struggling with fertility issues, sometimes nutrition can play a role. There is a lot of conflicting information out there. If you are interested in having someone help you wade through the science and know what is real and isn’t, we’d love to help you do that.

Similarly, if you are pregnant and overwhelmed with the amount of information out there about nutrition while pregnant, and wanting to know what’s real and what isn’t, we are here for you! We are happy to provide a one-time consultation to give you the information you need, or, especially if you have special health concerns while pregnant, we would love to follow you throughout your pregnancy and help you tailor your nutrition to your specific needs.

PICKY EATING AND CHILD NUTRITION CONCERNS

Picky Eating can be an overwhelmingly frustrating experience for families and children alike. The clinicians at Mindful Eats Nutrition Counseling have received specialized training to help you help your picky eater. We have helped children at all levels of the picky eating spectrum. If your child is experiencing picky eating that is affecting his or her health and happiness as well as your family’s happiness, we are here to help you problem solve and come up with strategies and solutions to restore peace at the dinner table. We usually will start with meeting with the parents first, then will ask you to bring your child at a subsequent visit. If you have any questions about this and wonder if we are the right fit, please email or call to schedule a free 10 minute consultation.

A few of my favorite books for picky eating:

• Child of Mine, Ellyn Satter

• Fearless Feeding, Jill Castle and Maryann Jacobsen

Sometimes picky eating becomes more than your typical picky eating. It's normal for most toddlers to go through “picky” phases that we call food jags.

THE FOLLOWING SITUATIONS INDICATE THAT YOUR CHILD’S PICKY EATING HAS BECOME SOMETHING MORE SIGNIFICANT:

• only a handful of accepted foods,

• severe anxiety at meal times,

• severe picky eating that extends beyond the toddler years,

• nutrient deficiencies from lack of food variety, and a

• significant drop in weight, height, or both on your child’s growth chart.

If your child is experiencing any of these things, PLEASE do not wait to see if he or she grows out of it. Picky eating at this level does not usually resolve on its own and requires the attention of trained professionals to increase food variety.

OTHER CHILD NUTRITION CONCERNS

Our team is trained in pediatric nutrition. If your pediatrician has indicated that there is a reason to be concerned about your child’s nutrition or weight (i.e. falling too low on the growth chart, gaining too much weight or being too high on the growth chart, medical diagnosis with a nutritional component), we can help you come up with a plan to help your child.

Nikki Estep, Practice Owner, MPH, RDN, LD, CDE, CEDRD, is currently the dietitian for the Houston Ballet and enjoys helping people come up with individualized plans for sports performance.

We provide customized plans for helping people better understand how nutrition and sports performance interact, while maintaining our mindfulness and all foods fit philosophies. Being a good athlete doesn’t have to mean having a super restrictive diet or following a long list of rules. We are here to simplify the recommendations for pre and post nutrition to help you improve your spots performance while maintaining flexibility with food.

Nikki Estep, Practice Owner, MPH, RDN, LD, CDE, CEDRD, is a Certified Diabetes Educator and has received specialized training and supervised clinical practice to specifically help those with Type 1 Diabetes, pre-diabetes, Type 2 Diabetes, and Gestational Diabetes.

We provide customized diabetes management. We use the principles of mindfulness in our approach with diabetes as well. We don’t believe in using restrictive plans to manage diabetes. Instead, we help our clients come up with realistic goals and plans that can improve glycemic control and be maintained for a lifetime.

A book that we refer to a lot when working with our clients with pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes is Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat with Diabetes.