Body Image & Food Struggles Therapy in Austin

• Preoccupation with Food and Weight: Constant thoughts about food, weight, and body shape, to the point where it interferes with daily life.
• Extreme Dieting or Eating Patterns: Engaging in severe calorie restriction, skipping meals regularly, or following extreme diets that significantly limit food groups or types.
• Compulsive Eating or Binge Eating: Regular episodes of eating large amounts of food in a short period, often accompanied by feelings of loss of control during these episodes.
• Purging Behaviors: Engaging in behaviors such as self-induced vomiting, misuse of laxatives, diuretics, or enemas, often after eating or binging.
• Excessive Exercise: Compulsive need to exercise, often for hours at a time, or feeling extreme guilt or anxiety when unable to exercise.
• Distorted Body Image: Having an unrealistic view of how someone sees their own body and/or feeling intense distress towards one’s body’.
• Avoidance of Social Situations: Avoiding social gatherings, especially those involving food, due to anxiety about eating in public or being seen by others.
• Physical Changes: Noticeable fluctuations in weight, dental problems (like enamel erosion), gastrointestinal issues, or menstrual irregularities in women.
• Emotional and Psychological Signs: Experiencing depression, anxiety, irritability, or low self-esteem related to body image or eating behaviors.
• Secretive Behavior Around Food: Hiding food, eating in secret, feeling shame or guilt after eating.

If you’re experiencing challenges with your relationship with food or your body, regardless of your exact symptoms, you are worthy of care and support and deserve a judgment-free space to heal. If you’ve arrived on this page, that may already be a signal that you could use more support.

It’s understandable to want a countdown, to know when you can expect to start feeling better, but everyone’s journey is far too unique to give an accurate timeline. While the length of therapy looks different for each person, it’s not uncommon for clients to meet on a weekly or bi-weekly basis with their therapist for at least 6 months. 

Keep in mind that recovery isn’t linear. Learning to leave diet culture can feel lonely, daunting, and scary, and there will likely be setbacks — that’s completely normal! It’s also one reason why having a supportive specialist by your side can make such a difference in the speed and ease of your recovery process.

The more willing you are to show up for yourself in therapy and courageously practice new skills, the easier — and, oftentimes, faster — the process becomes.

No, you shouldn’t feel the need to lose weight in order to feel better! We live in a weight-obsessed world. The pursuit of weight loss is all around us and often even prescribed by doctors. Diet culture tells us that the way to feel better in our bodies is through weight loss, however, research tells us that the pursuit of weight loss often leads to increased body dissatisfaction, decreased feelings of self-worth, and, ironically, greater long-term weight gain. 

With food struggles and body image therapy, the focus shifts from weight loss to respect and appreciation for your body as it exists now. This focus acknowledges that humans come in different sizes and shapes and health is not one-size-fits-all.

With the goal of weight loss set to the side, you’ll be more empowered to embrace and appreciate your here-and-now body. It’ll also be easier to adopt health-promoting behaviors that will help you feel better both mentally and physically, and will in turn lead to greater overall life satisfaction.