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Sally - Cornwall

Collaborating with others with the same goal, working to help people towards food and body ease, supporting Nutriri as a not for profit organisation are all reasons I want to be a facilitator here.

Ask Sally...

What was your lived experience of diet/judgement culture?

Growing up in the 1980’s, diet culture was rife, thinness was the goal and extreme measures were taken to get there. I remember the time when my Mum fainted from the Cambridge diet and exercise was for weight management. 
I obsessed over food; it was a massive form of pleasure– it became part of my identity “Sally Loves her Food” being a common saying. I loved cooking sweet treats from an early age, food was my friend and comfort at boarding school (soothing the homesickness at the tuck shop and evening toast with butter instead of parental hugs). 
I studied food at university, got my dream job of being a food taster and then retrained to be a food teacher. 

After years of working with and teaching food, healthy eating & lifestyle change to children and adults, dishing out advice such as ‘move more and eat less’ and concentrating on what to eat, I began to realise it isn’t that simple. I knew there must be a missing puzzle piece as I was still obsessing with food and weight – despite being ‘slim’. 
I was also still seeing loved ones yoyo diet and be slaves to the scales and slimming clubs with no long-term ‘success’.  I had friends and clients who hated their bodies and restricted their lives, activities, and wardrobes because of their size and what they thought they should or should not be doing or wearing. 

I stumbled across HAES® and then studied eating psychology and putting this into practise with compassionate intuitive eating has helped me and others transform our relationships with food and our bodies. I now feel less guilt, shame and judgement and am more at ease and peaceful. Old habits die hard, but I am definitely on the right road. 

What made you decide to facilitate for Nutriri?

Collaborating with others with the same goal, working to help people towards food and body ease, supporting the not for profit organisation are all reasons I want to be a facilitator for Nutriri. Knowing that we are stronger together and that there is so much to be learnt listening to others, hopefully enabling positive change. Personally, I love the weekly group sessions, it is great to chat to like minded people who have the same struggles. Reminders of how to install helpful habits are really useful and its good fun too! 

What are your hopes for the future?

Where every -body is respected and treated with compassion and kindness. 

Where we leave judgement aside and don’t determine our worth by the number on the scales. 

Where our self-esteem and confidence are raised so we can learn the best ways to self-nurture. Where we feel better physically and mentally, radiating energy from good nutrition and movement, enabling us to live life to the full. 

Sally's Bio

Sally grew up in the 1980s, so the obsession with diets impacted her as an impressionable teenager. As a child, she had been obsessed with food, and loved baking, as she enjoyed the results herself and they also pleased her family. She studied food at university and worked as a food taster and then as food teacher. She spent years teaching food, healthy eating, and lifestyle change to children and adults, dishing out advice such as “move more and eat less”, and concentrating on what to eat, but she began to realise it isn’t that simple. As she says, “I resented yo-yo dieting, being a slave to the scales, and the way slimming clubs profit from teaching us to mistrust ourselves.”

Discovering Nutriri’s programme of compassionate self-nurture and size inclusive principles, helped Sally enormously. She trained as a Nutriri facilitator and now practices as a food and wellbeing coach as well as working for the NHS as a health and wellbeing coach.

Sally’s own relationship with food and her body has been transformed. As she says, “I now feel less guilt, shame and judgement, and am more at ease and peaceful. Old habits die hard, but I am definitely on the right road! And now, both in my consultancy work as the Food and Wellbeing Coach and as a facilitator with Nutriri, I’ve been able to help other people to transform their relationships with food and their bodies too.”

Furthermore, Sally has felt the benefit in her professional life. As she says: “My training with Nutriri has been an incredible way of enhancing my professional practice. As a health and wellbeing coach, I am much more compassionate and understanding towards all my clients. I’m committed to promoting inclusivity and supporting vulnerable people to access healthcare for the benefit of their mental and physical health. Being non-judgemental to people’s circumstances is key to the empathetic care that individuals deserve.”

Sally’s commitment to working weight neutrally and using weight inclusive language is such that she has already shared the Nutriri message with her NHS colleagues and other health professionals. As she says, “The Nutriri training and workshops also increased my understanding of intuitive and mindful eating, with practical tips and takeaways to enhance our life experience. The training was also lots of fun and delivered in a user-friendly way. Anyone helping people in the community to access healthcare, nutrition and fitness would definitely benefit from Nutriri’s training.”