About Me

I'm a Registered Dietitian, recently retired from clinical practice in Eating Disorders at Kaiser; enjoying the freedom to expand my work in EBT. I love to cook, hike, read, swim and do yoga. I feel lucky to live in the foothills of central California, close to friends, family, forests, ocean, mountains and year round Farmer's Markets. I'm involved in progressive political action dedicated to social justice.

What Brought Me To EBT

I got fat when I was 11. No, I got the message that I was fat when I was 11. My skinny child's body was chubbing out. An entirely predictable and appropriate physiological preparation for the profound transformation of puberty. But, outside my body, it was the 60's. Twiggy-inspired anorexic models in every magazine made it clear that I was fat. Five pounds of flesh was the identified obstacle to being the perfect teen. This early dose of American Female Body Shame would precipitate decades of self-abuse, judgement and angst. I lost the weight in one summer, with swim team and starvation, but the distorted body image remained stuck in the bottom of my brain. 20 years later, as a Registered Dietitian with a busy private practice specializing in Weight Management, I felt the frustration of my highly educated, disciplined clients, following the best advice on healthy diet, exercise and lifestyle, losing 20 and 30 and 80 pounds ...only to regain all the weight a year or two later. I knew that the missing piece in treatment was emotional eating, but my smart, successful patients resisted referrals to therapy, stating, "I'm not crazy, I'm just fat". "The Solution", Laurel Mellin's book, came out with the answer. I read it, loved it, recommended it... yet managed my own weight with constant, punishing control of food and exercise. I ran five miles every morning before work, and calculated every bite. My side gig, lecturing at Covert Bailey's Fit or Fat seminars, kept me in the public eye, providing motivation for this relentless effort. The Solution was waiting, I wanted to do the work, but was just too busy, busy, busy with my complicated life. Finally, I met Laurel Mellin at a Dietitian's Conference, and signed up for Provider Training in the Solution Method (now EBT) ...to help my patients. I did the work. It changed my life. The 40 year battle was over. All the excellent knowledge I had about weight, diet, food, exercise, eating behaviors... had not done what Emotional Brain Training did for me in the course of the next two years. I learned, for the first time in my life, how to connect with myself, to know how I felt and what I needed. No longer was I preoccupied with "What should I eat? When? How Much?, and For God's Sake, Why did I eat THAT!" All that noise quieted down. I acquired the skills I needed to love my body and myself. As Laurel says, the practice of EBT is Simple, but not Easy. The beautiful part is, if you do the work, it works. Not just in the moment, but cumulatively, increasingly: perpetually. In the last 20 years, as an EBT Provider, I have watched hundreds of participants transform the structure of their lives, the shape of their bodies, and the depth of their Joy in this experience of living. It is the most rewarding work I have ever done, and continues to sustain me in my own life.

My Professional History

1976 - completed combined academic work and RD internship at UC Berkeley. For the next 45 years I did a wide variety of jobs , including hospital Dietetics and out-patient clinical. I started a private practice with an Internal Medicine group in Sacramento, taught nutrition at Community College in Lake Tahoe, then at UOP, did CME lectures for Merck, and CE seminars with Covert Bailey. I wrote a cookbook, did media work for the CA Dietetics Association, spent five years flying around rural NV and CA with consulting contracts for small hospitals. I had my own business; NutriVisuals, publishing and marketing audio-visual teaching programs for medical professionals, did radio shows for local news stations... and now I get to do what I like best; EBT.