Intro
Chiara pronounced (key-are-uh) is a size inclusive, non-diet dietitian and body image coach based in Connecticut. Her practice is centered around helping climbers heal their relationship with food and fuel adequately to perform their best. I became acquainted with Chiara’s work on Instagram (@climbingdietitian) while looking for a dietitian to help us out with a workshop on fueling for climbing in a bigger body. I was incredibly stoked when Chiara agreed to work with us. This is a summary of the recent zoom workshop we did.
Chiara’s Nutrition Journey
“I’ll start then with just like just like a quick synopsis…my dad’s Italian, so, I’ve always been a huge fan of food. Food’s a big deal in my family. My mom was a personal trainer growing up, So I had a real interest in fitness and health. Looking back from like a much more like orthorexic lens, which like in some ways is, not super helpful but it is what it is. I worked in outdoor education in high school and as I was contemplating college, my mentor at the time recommended that I didn’t box myself into outdoor education, so I happened to find dietetics. Dietetics, which is nutrition science with the application becoming a dietitian. I did my undergrad in that. Then you match for a year of supervised practice somewhere. So that’s how I ended up in Connecticut. After that I was ready to sit for the exam, the credentialing exam, to become a dietitian. I worked in outpatient for a few years, which was like great experience, but something that I kind of increasingly grew away from. I started my business on the side in 2020 and it dovetailed nicely. I wanted to put in three years at the hospital and then leave and do my own thing. As far as like how practice has evolved, it’s really kind of the luck of the draw of what kind of program you land in. In terms of like whether that program is going to focus on nutrition from a completely weight focused lens. That’s how my program was, and I didn’t even hear about Health at Every Size (HAES) or intuitive eating until I was in my internship. That wasn’t through any of our curriculum, I just happened to hear these West Coast kids who were also in my internship program, we’re talking about this thing (intuitive eating) that I’d literally never heard of. I was in my own eating disorder recovery at the time. It’s been really interesting unlearning, while I’m also a practitioner, so I feel like I was lucky. A lot of this happened like right at the very, very beginning of my career when I was flat, pliable and fresh. you know, not super dug into one way of practice.”
Intuitive Eating
“Intuitive eating is basically a non-diet way of approaching food. Non-diet means a few things; there’s no rules, there’s no restriction and weight loss is not the goal. There are lots and lots of people just like me when I was a baby dietitian who have seen how dieting doesn’t work, but they’re still trying to make intuitive eating work as a diet. But the problem is that as soon as intentional weight loss becomes the goal in your brain, intuitive eating becomes a diet. Where it’s just now, the hunger fullness diet, where it’s like, I’ll eat when I’m hungry, I’ll stop when I’m full. While still having all these rules about like how you’re supposed to operate around food. in its most boiled down sense, intuitive eating is eating what sounds good, in a way that feels good with no rules, no restriction, no guilt, unconditional permission. As simple as that can be to say, it’s a little tricky to do. Especially when you’ve been conditioned by diet culture for decades. The way that our brains operate around food is like, oh, good and bad, portion sizes, calorie counting, all these things that can just become like, so second nature. It takes time to work a lot of that out. It sometimes feels a little bit like you’re jumping off the wagon and in some ways you are. “
Q&A Audio Recording
In this recording Chiara, myself and a few others discuss our struggles, wins, relationships with food and different coping mechanisms that can be used to create positive associations with food.
Open Spaces SLC 