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Break free from the rigidity of dieting to discover a sustainable way of living that feeds your unique mind, body, and soul.

 
 
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hello beautiful!

I'm Lindsay Sparks, a registered dietitian on a mission to help others move beyond the numbers and recognize that their value and beauty comes from within. Life is more than just going through the motions, it's about getting in tune with your mind and body to live a life well-nourished.

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Services

 
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It's time to ignite and radiate confidence from within by creating the happy, healthy life you deserve. Together, we'll redefine the way you view what healthy is and help you make peace with food and your body.

 

Inspiration to Spark Your Life

 
 
 
 

Ignite Your Inner Spark

 
Good morning, from my half-burnt-pancake-stack. 🙃 Not only did I about burn one of my pancakes to toast, but I also took a sip of maple syrup from a dish I was using to heat it up, thinking it was my coffee. 😅🤪 Just a wee bit sleep deprived today because Miss Virginia thought it would be cool to be a wild monkey last night. 🤦🏼‍♀️ Hope it’s not a sign of sleep regression I have heard much about at this stage...😬 How’s your Thursday going, friends?! 😆 P.S. I’m still avoiding dairy while BFing my dairy-sensitive babe and was stoked to find this non-dairy pancake mix that even packs in a little extra protein, from @birchbenders. Heck yes for convenience, nutrient density, and deliciousness! 👍🏼
How often have you tried to stifle a food craving or tried to replace it with something diet culture has deemed “good” or “better” for you, only to find your mind running back to what you really wanted in the first place? How often have you been disappointed with the “diet substitute” version of what you wanted? You’re not flawed or lacking in “willpower"! Food is meant to be pleasurable and satisfying. If satisfaction is missing from your eating experience, you will likely continue to feel out-of-control around food. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Dieting keeps you living by external rules, instead of turning inward to explore your own needs and preferences. It may feel awkward at first to tune out all the diet culture noise, and instead tune into yourself. Satisfaction with what you eat is not only crucial to healing your relationship with food, but for living a more full, rich life. As with many things in life, if we aren't satisfied, we aren't happy! Here are some questions to ask yourself, to help you explore satisfaction with food: ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ 1. What do you REALLY want to eat? What tastes, textures, temperatures, flavors, aromas sound appetizing? 2. How can you satisfy both your mind and body with your food choice? How much of the food will you need to feel full + satisfied? 3. How can you enjoy and savor your food better? You might try to go into a meal/snack with gentle hunger (vs. being ravenous), remove distractions, sit a the table, slow down, chew well or take a pause during the meal or snack to check in with yourself to determine your fullness level and if the food actually tastes good to you. 4. How often do you let perfectionist thinking get in the way? Remember that intuitive eating is not about perfection. It's not realistic to have your food be 100% satisfying, 100% of the time. It’s all about what we do *most* of the time, to nurture both our bodies and minds. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ You have the right to a healthy relationship with ALL foods. You have the right to love eating/food. You have the right to eat, without guilt or judgement.
There’s something about growing food that is so satisfying and exciting to me! 🍅🌱 What a privilege it has been to have our very first garden this year, now that we have the space to do so. Hubs is really the mastermind behind it all. Honestly, the dude knows more about growing things and cooking things than this here dietitian does half the time. 😆🤷‍♀️ I’m learning though! And excited to teach Virginia one day too. . Share with me: do you have a garden? What are you growing in it this year? Any gardening tips or advice to share from seasoned vets out there?
We aren’t born hating our bodies. Body image develops over time, starting in childhood. It is influenced by one’s culture, peers/family, experiences, media, and even healthcare providers. When you tack on the weight stigma, weight discrimination, and fat-phobia that is pervasive in our culture, it's easy to see why we have a poor body-image epidemic. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Statistics suggest that nearly 91% of women are dissatisfied with their body and resort to or have resorted to dieting as a means to improve their self-esteem or confidence. Unfortunately, weight loss does not heal poor body-image. We can literally spend a lifetime at war with our body, with it never being “good enough.” Is this really how we want to spend our lives? Is this really what we were put on Earth to do? ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ “But I need to lose weight for my health” — my response to that is that we can’t tell how healthy someone is based on weight alone. The pursuit of weight loss often breeds disordered behaviors around food + exercise and result in harmful side effects both physically and emotionally. The vast majority (research suggests up to 95%!!) of dieters regain weight lost within 1-5 years. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Additionally, research tells us that instead of the weight lost causing the perceived or actual health improvements, it is really the *behaviors* we engage in that have an affect on our well-being and overall health. Many indicators of health can be improved without weight loss. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I 110% understand the desire to change body size/shape. I am not shaming anyone who is or who has engaged in the attempt to “manage” their body size/shape. I also have so much compassion for those who are marginalized because of their body size. I am not ant-weight loss. I am anti- the pursuit of the idea that weight defines our worth, value, or health. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ How much of your life have you spent focusing on your weight/body size? What would it be like to focus on healthy behaviors instead of external factors like appearance or the scale? What are the negative thoughts you have about your body? Where did these thoughts or beliefs come from? How does it feel when you speak kindly to yourself vs negatively?
My relationship with food postpartum has been interesting so far. My appetite has been OFF THE CHARTS and I feel like I'm never really full. It's also a challenge to sit down and enjoy a meal half the time because, ya know, gotta take care of a now very busy, nap-fighting, tiny human. 😆😅 . "Snack plates" (like the one pictured), leftovers, cereal, *very* quick-easy recipes, bars, and frozen meals have been key to keeping me nourished. To add even more fun to the mix, Virginia has recently developed a GI sensitivity to dairy in my diet* 🤱🏼(this picture was taken back in the "good old days," pre-dairy elimination). Throughout my life, I've been fortunate to not have to eliminate foods from my diet due to a food allergy or sensitivity. Removing dairy has reminded me how much the deprivation/restriction of food(s) can cause the brain to think about them even more! I'm not going to sugarcoat it. Being without dairy (which was a group of food I LOVED and consumed daily) flat out sucks. My heart goes out to those who have had to give up a food(s) they once enjoyed. I share all this personal stuff to bring light to the fact that our relationship with food is not black-and-white and can experience changes. Just like any other relationship. All the more reason as to why I love the framework of intuitive eating and am grateful to be an intuitive eater. Instead of obsessing over food and having it take up more brain space than I have capacity for right now, it is just one small part of my life and well-being. I view food as a form of self-care. I do my best to take the time to nourish myself, embrace my unrelenting hunger, incorporate gentle nutrition, etc. And move on. How has your relationship with food changed over the years? . *Note: if you are pregnant/nursing, I highly recommend to work with your healthcare team or a lactation consultant before eliminating foods you suspect may be problematic to your little one.
A common theme that came up this week with clients was the topic of calorie counting. How does calorie counting fit into intuitive eating? Can they co-exist? The short answer is: No. If someone is promoting calorie counting + intuitive eating, they are confused and misinformed. Calorie counting is dieting behavior and obsessing over every calorie you eat is counterproductive to forming a healthy relationship with food. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Calorie counting perpetuates the harmful notion that “calories in vs calories out” is the secret to manipulating or controlling our body size. Our metabolism is much more complex than a simple math equation. We aren’t computers. For more on this, check out the blog post from @marcird that is linked in my bio (and is where I pulled the above quote from). ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Of course, we can’t avoid knowing the calories in foods. It’s on food packaging, plastered on menus at restaurants, and we may even have this information stored in our brain from years of dieting or disordered eating. We also cannot dismiss the importance of calories for what they are: units of energy necessary to sustain life. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Through the process of making peace with food + the body, calories become data you can take with a grain of salt. Instead of worrying over whether or not your meal or snack fits into an arbitrary math equation, you can tune into the messages of your body to guide your food + movement. You can view food and consuming adequate calories as an act of self-care. You can ask yourself, what foods sound satisfying + nourishing? How will this food(s) make me feel physically and emotionally? Is exercise/movement compensatory and punishing or life enhancing? ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ If you have transitioned away from calorie counting, how has this positively affected your life? If you are still caught up in the counting game, what do you imagine you could do with that energy/time/brain space instead?