Eating Disorder

At The Balanced Practice, we are committed to eradicating eating disorders and proving the power of healing. We support folks of all genders and ages who are ready to recover from their eating disorder. Recovery is not easy; however, it is possible, and you deserve to live a full life without ED.

Eating disorders are chronic mental health illnesses that impact over 1 million Canadians every year as per a 2018 study (though we would argue the numbers are much higher now).

Eating disorders are the result of various factors that include biological, psychological, and social components. The one thing we know for absolute certainty is that your eating disorder is not your fault.

Eating disorder recovery looks different for everyone. Here at The Balanced Practice, we specialize in the treatment of eating disorders and offer outpatient programs and services to help you recover.

Nutrition counselling is a crucial part of recovery. You cannot recover without food. We believe in an anti-diet and weight inclusive approach to nutrition. Our goal is to empower you in understand your body’s need, trust yourself with food and develop a healthy relationship with food that empowers you to live your fullest life.

Nutrition counselling at The Balanced Practice is offered by Registered Dietitians (RD) and follows the Food, Body Mind approach. The first step is to have nutrition assessment. In this 75-minute session, your RD will get to know you, understand your personal recovery goals, discover how your eating disorder  is currently showing up and start building a roadmap to recovery with you.  After this session, you will connect with your RD regularly for follow up sessions where you will continue to work towards your treatment goals.

Your RD will combine nutrition science, food psychology and body image to guide you through recovery.

1. The RDs at The Balanced Practice are NOT food polices. They will not judge or shame you for the way your eating disorder shows up. This is a safe place for you to land.
2. It’s about food, but it’s not just about food. We will absolutely talk about your nutrition and empower you to nourish yourself AND we know your food relationship goes beyond what is on your plate. Your RD will explore your thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and habits that impact your food intake.
3. The work we do together is SO important and requires time. Very rarely do we see clients for short term support. Most of the time, clients work our RDs for 6-9 months, usually starting with weekly session and then moving to biweekly. Our goal is to help you work through and maintain recovery, there’s unfortunately no quick fix.
4. Although a nutrition plan may be part of your treatment, we are NOT big fans of meal plans. We can understand part of you may really want to just *know* what you should eat AND, from our experience providing meal plans are a temporary solution that is unhelpful at best but the risk of triggering the ED is really high. This is not a one-size-fits-all approach, our intervention will be 100% based on your needs.

Our Eating Disorder Recovery Program™ is our outpatient program that is designed to offer a comprehensive approach to treatment from the comfort of your home. It combines nutrition counselling, psychotherapy, meal exposures and support, family support, group therapy and care coordination.

This program is recommended for folks who are ready to engage in their recovery from the comfort of their home. It’s ideal as a step up from one-to-one care or as a step-down from hospital programs. This impactful recovery treatment was designed to support folks in achieving sustainable recovery. We use a food-body-mind framework to address all aspects of the eating disorder.