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Home » Diets that Work » Pushing back against diet culture: Tonya by the Spoonful seeks to help women live authentically – WRAL.com

By Sarah Lindenfeld Hall, Go Ask Mom editor

Like a lot of women, Tonya Beauchaine grew up with some unhealthy thoughts about weight and body image and dieting. Having kids put the problems with that way of life into focus.

"I was learning about adjusting to my postpartum body through a lens of acceptance rather than feeling like I had to bounce back to what size or weight I was before having children," Beauchaine tells me. "I started working on my own relationship with food and body, undoing a lot of what I had learned to be normal ways of caring for our bodies."

Beauchaine, who has a master's degree in nutrition from Meredith College and is a former junior high health teacher, became a certified intutitive eating coach and launched her business, Tonya by the Spoonful, in 2019. She also has started a podcast called "We're Not Weighting," where she and a friend dive into topics like intuitive eating, finding joyful movement, ethical plus-size fashion, mental health and more."Im working to break the mold of who and what a nutritionist is through providing clients with intuitive eating support, nutrition advice, and setting up an intuitive kitchen," she tells me.

I checked in with Beauchaine, now the mom of two girls, to learn more about what she offers and how she got started. Here's a Q&A.

Go Ask Mom: Tell us about your journey with food. You share on your website that you grew up around a lot of diet culture. How did that shape your early relationships with food and your feelings about yourself?

Tonya Beauchaine: As I was growing up, I was influenced by both women and men to think that food was the enemy. I thought I would need to fight against my body and work hard to fit into a certain size to be accepted. I learned early on to view any type of celebratory eating or calorie-dense eating as having punitive measures in the future with either restricting or exercising. This skewed my ability to listen to my body and accept my genetic destiny. I became obsessed with diets and exercise, always yo-yoing between dieting, losing weight, going off the diet, and gaining the weight back (sometimes more). This only left me feeling frustrated and discouraged. I was ashamed about not being able to become this ideal size I thought I needed to be. I felt guilty I couldnt ever quite get that before and after photo that everyone chases.

GAM: What was the aha moment that something needed to change?

TB: It was the perfect storm of a few things. When I had my first daughter, I kept thinking of all the things I could do to make her relationship with food and body easier than mine. I wanted her to learn how to have a healthy relationship with her body. I started having a lot of conversations with my friend and podcast co-host Tracy about Intuitive Eating and Health at Every Size, and we both realized this is a common struggle for women of all sizes and ages. We particularly felt compelled to speak to the idea that we dont have to wait to live our lives. We permitted ourselves to show up exactly as we are.

I watched my daughters inner Intuitive Eater and learned a great deal from her initial instincts with food. She hadnt had the influence of diet talk, shame about her body, or guilt from her food choices. We have raised our daughters following the Ellyn Satter Institute model of the Division of Responsibility. The Division of Responsibility encourages caregivers to take leadership with the what, when, and where of feeding and let your child determine how much and whether to eat what you provide. Focusing on our role as food providers has given my daughters the autonomy to listen to their bodies and trust their intuition. I hope this will also help them embrace their genetic destiny, as well as celebrate their heritage. I remember when I first realized this myself after looking at a photo of my granny in her 20s. She was standing with her arms crossed and had the most delightful smile on her face. It occurred to me that my arms look just like hers, and it was the first time I actually celebrated that instead of feeling like I needed to change.

GAM: You're a proponent of intuitive eating. What is that? How does that play out during the day to day?

TB: Without Diet Culture, Intuitive Eating would just be called eating. Were all born with the intuition to know when we are hungry and when we are satisfied, even our bodies are designed to crave the nutrients we are lacking. What often happens though is an external influence of health and body-obsessed sources confuse our ability to listen to our own body and understand what it needs. When I say sources, I am thinking of day-to-day things that surround us like TV, the internet, social media, caregivers, medical professionals, and even family members. How many of us recall shows where the fat person is the lazy unsuccessful character and often is the person being mocked or ridiculed? Or recall our aunt saying, you have your mothers thighs, so lay off the ice cream?" Or has a co-worker that started a new diet and everyone has congratulated them on their weight loss? Or being told you have to finish your plate before you can eat dessert? Experiencing these messages has influenced our ability to care for ourselves, whether it be consciously or subconsciously.

Intuitive eating is a compassionate, self-care eating framework that treats all bodies with dignity and respect. It was first introduced in 1995 by two dietitians, Elyse Resch and Evelyn Tribole. They were struck by how frustrating it was to see their clients experience yo-yo dieting and emotional upheaval because of feeling like a failure because they couldnt stick to their diet. Elyse and Evelyn used some of the current research about our relationship with food and the body to develop the 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating. These 10 principles help us to work through our relationship with food and body to reconcile how we want to define our authentic health.

GAM: Tell us about your work and what you offer to clients.

TB: I offer clients private coaching through tele-health or in-person if they are in the RDU area. Together we set wellness goals focusing on the process more than the outcome. We create strategies to overcome obstacles, triggers, and challenges. Clients learn tools (not rules) to manage mindless and emotional eating. Ive seen clients develop ways to appreciate and treat their bodies with respect, gratitude, and kindness. This is truly life-changing work!

I also offer grocery store tours and intuitive kitchen setup. After years of dieting, I felt lost on how best to feed my family and stock my kitchen. When I finally went through and organized my kitchen and set up effective systems, it was a game-changer. I coach clients through creating sustainable habits that take the frustration out of grocery shopping, planning meals, prepping meals, and cooking.

GAM: A lot of women, in particular, spend their days counting calories and fretting over their weight. What is your pep talk to them? There is a better way, isn't there?

TB: First of all, I have so much compassion for women who are still under the guise of diet and wellness culture. The pandemic brought forth a lot of stress on our bodies, and we need to understand that caring for our health does not just include weight. Weight is just an outcome, not a behavior. If we focus just on the numbers on the scale, the number of calories weve eaten, or what size of clothing we wear, these numbers will influence our ability to listen to what our body truly needs at that moment.

Throughout history, women have been told to be small, be quiet, and be pretty to be liked and loved. This is just not true, and we need to push back. As women, we need to speak up, take up space, and show up exactly as we arewithout apology. The more we see other women permitting themselves to show up in their present body, present state of mind, present state of life, the more we will see that living authentically brings freedom and joy to our own lives.

Learn more about what Beauchaine offers on her website.

Go Ask Mom features local moms every Monday.

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Pushing back against diet culture: Tonya by the Spoonful seeks to help women live authentically - WRAL.com

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Home » Diets that Work » Pushing back against diet culture: Tonya by the Spoonful seeks to help women live authentically – WRAL.com