Recover Your Life From Disordered Eating — With Amy Carlson And Allie Marie Smith

 

Are you consumed by thoughts of dieting, food rules, restriction, and body shame? Highly-respected dietician and creator of the Peace with Food app, Amy Carlson, joins Allie Marie Smith for a conversation to encourage you on your journey towards recovery and help you find freedom so you can recover.

Amy and Allie talk about

• Amy’s story of overcoming an eating disorder and her work as a dietician
• A life-changing invitation to “come back to the table” and recover your life
• The spectrum of eating disorders, disordered eating, and normal eating
• What intuitive eating is and how it can help you heal from disordered eating
• What’s at stake if we continue to be in bondage to food, eating, and body image issues
• Two practical steps you can take today to find greater freedom

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Recover Your Life From Disordered Eating — With Amy Carlson And Allie Marie Smith

Here at our ministry, we are passionate about helping girls and women like you experience total wellness in body, mind and spirit so that you can live a wholehearted life of freedom and a purpose. I want to open the episode by asking you a few questions. Dos you find yourself daily trying to control your eating and your body, only to find that it’s controlling you? Are you trapped by an eating disorder or an overall chaotic relationship with food? Do you long for food and body image issues to stop taking up so much of your head space and energy? If you are craving freedom from these struggles, like so many, millions of girls and women, our conversation is for you.

I’m so honored to introduce you to my wonderful friend a registered dietician Amy Carlson. Amy has a thriving practice in the Houston, Texas area and she has served the eating disorder population for many years. She holds a BS and a Master of Science in Nutrition and is so passionate about sharing God’s truth and equipping girls and women to find freedom.

She’s also a very sought-after speaker and she’s a Cofounder of the Peace with Food mobile app, which has allowed her to take all her years of experience and put it into a practical tool and a personalized app that anyone can use. I have used the Peace with Food app and I highly recommend it. Amy, we are so glad that you are a part of our community. I’m so excited about our conversation.

I was busting, like trying to hold back while you were talking. I’m so excited to be here.

Our paths crossed a long time ago, which I momentarily forgot as we connected and then you reminded me. That was at the Hungry for Hope conference.

Way back in 2013, even maybe before then. It’s been a long time. It was so much fun.

Amy, let’s open by having you share your story of healing from your eating disorder. I want to share with friends that Amy shared her story on our blog at WonderfullyMade.org. If you do search our archives, you will find it. Amy, will you go ahead and share your story with us?

We’ll share my story and I’ll give you the Cliff Notes. You can certainly ask me any questions about it but I’ll give you the highlights. I grew up on a farm in a small town in Minnesota with a wonderful mom and dad. I grew up in a Christian home with a mom that cycled in and out of dieting. From a young age, my understanding was that our bodies couldn’t be trusted.

I had a pretty normal weight, went through puberty and found myself in a body that I thought suddenly was aware of. I was a gymnast my whole life and my coach, a lovely woman, came to me at the beginning of tenth grade, pulled me aside and said, “If you could lose 5 pounds off your hip.” I always say that with laughter because of how funny that sounds that an adult would say that to a child and as if it was possible if I could lose 5 pounds off my hips. That’s called liposuction.

I’m not sure but she said, “If you could lose 5 pounds off your hips, the timing on your uneven bars would be so much better.” I went into the locker room and cried my eyes out. I made a pact with myself, an agreement that nobody would ever say that to me again. She might as well have said, “You need to lose 100 pounds because that’s what I heard.” I didn’t understand eating disorders. I didn’t know anyone that had one.

What I knew is I knew what my mom had done in her dieting life and that I somehow needed to pull back on what I was eating. I began that and very quickly was into a full-blown eating disorder. I had anorexia without knowing it. I lost 25 pounds very quickly and began all the things that go along with that. The fast-forward version is that with anorexia, I suffered and struggled privately, not knowing what I was dealing with but understanding that I was in complete bondage to this thing. It eventually turned into bulimia.

It was a long road where my parents finally handed me. I had lots of teachers who went to them and said, “It seems like we’re getting word that Amy’s not eating lunch and all these things.” I had my parents schnockered for a good while and then they took me to a doctor who didn’t understand eating disorders either. I began treatment in an adolescent unit of a hospital about an hour and a half away. There wasn’t a lot of good evidence back then. There wasn’t the words recovery. All of that was new. Speaking of a long journey for me, I was going to college and having to be in some groups in college. It was messy and imperfect.

What I knew for me is that I no longer wanted to have an eating disorder. In my relationship with the Lord, I was begging the Lord to help me out of this. I had no practical tools for helping me get out of it. The adults in my life were saying, “You need to eat,” and that was evidence of getting well, which as anyone who struggled with an eating disorder knows is not the only thing to getting well.

The Lord graciously and kindly took me on a pretty windy journey of recovery that included I backpack through Europe where I was allowed to see other people eating. My first introduction to real intuitive eating was when I packed through Europe and then I came back. I worked at a Dude Ranch. I didn’t have enough money to go back to college. It was like the Lord fabricated this inpatient treatment for me. It was this resort I worked at in Colorado but the food was provided for us three times a day so I didn’t have to do anything with food.

The Lord kept giving me all these opportunities to get well. Eventually, I went back to school and became a dietician. I didn’t plan on working with eating disorders. I started in corporate wellness and worked in high-risk pregnancy. I loved all those things. One day, by chance and by the Lord’s graciousness, I had a client sit across from me who had an eating disorder. Sometimes people say the heavens part and the angels start singing. I see that the years of struggle and the years that the Lord has brought me through are not wasted.

I’m going to cry. He graciously brought me that ministry and I’ve been doing it for many years. He’s so kind and gracious. I was walking into that freedom and then the opportunity to speak life into girls and women in this area, including raising four children of my own. Having these intuitive eaters, these normal eaters and being able to walk that road with women and girls has been such a gift.

Amy, thank you so much for sharing your story. You see time and time again how God continues to use the most painful part of our lives for beauty and to come alongside other people and help them find freedom and healing. Your story is such a testament to that. We’re grateful for the wisdom you have to share with us. Amy, God has given you this very unique and powerful message about what you call coming back to the table. Can you share what this means to you? Why are you so passionate about sharing this anthem message with girls and women?

Let me echo how true your words are of the way that the Lord uses the most painful experiences in our life. One of those painful experiences for me was a difficult miscarriage. No miscarriage is easy. I was in the 2nd trimester of my 3rd pregnancy. At that time, it was such a painful loss. What it allowed me to do was continue to practice because I was going to take some time off. I happened to get a pastor’s daughter who is the middle of three girls as a client.

As I continue to speak the truth into the family, into this sweet girl, the mom looked at me and said “You have to speak like you have to talk.” I don’t know how you’re going to do it. We got on our knees in my office. This was many years ago. She said, “I’m going to pray a blessing over you that you’re allowed to speak and bless him.” This is a pre-podcast world. I didn’t even have an iPhone. There was no iPhone. Put it that way.

She prayed over me. I went to my church. I have no idea what it would look like but something is birthing in me needing to speak to moms and girls. What I was finding is that I may be inviting these girls back to the table and they get there and nobody’s there, especially these Christian girls. Culture as a whole is walking away from the table and it is no different for Christians. I was finding that I’m inviting these girls and we went back to the table. They get there and were like, “Nobody’s here. Everyone’s dieting. My parents, neighbors, friends and my friend’s mom is dieting.” I was like, “I’m going to run to the top of the mountain.”

I have a wonderful church that advocates for using our gifts. They were so gracious. They had no idea. They never heard me speak. I had done tons of speaking in the nutrition world to doctors, med centers and all that stuff but to a Christian audience, I hadn’t done that. They said, “What do you need?” We put on invitation mothers and daughters. The first time was 150 women, which was shocking to me. It was amazing. God did this amazing thing. What I found was these women had no idea. These were women with eating disorders but they had no idea that they’d stepped away from the table.

This continued. A pastor’s wife came up to me afterward and said, “We do a huge music minister’s conference in Dallas every year. I want you to come and speak there.” I came and spoke there. These women are on their knees bawling. I couldn’t imagine. What I recognized was that the enemy was using the same lie over and over. It was the same lie when the gymnastics coach said to me, “You need to lose 5 pounds.” It was as though the enemy affirmed in me what I already believed. I was both too much and not enough.

This lie was pervasive among women. Their body and personality are too much. Their history and baggage are too much. They’re not enough. They don’t have enough of all the good things that they wanted. Dieting, restricting and using those things was a way to manage and control that. What they were missing out on was the table where all this table fellowship happens. Not only that but they were replaying the message for their girls and teaching their girls when they get older like, “You could eat whatever you want now but when you get older, that’s not going to work.”

These girls were starting down this road and the moms wanted their girls to get better while they were stuck and not free. The Lord kept multiplying this message. What I was finding is that women thought because I was a dietician, they were going to hear one message. When I spoke, they were like, “I had no idea.” This particular pastor’s wife said, “I’d like for you to come to speak but I don’t want to say you’re a dietician. I want you to come and share this message.” Maybe there’ll be 30 to 50 women. They have multiple campuses. She came back to me and said, “I feel that we need to open this up.”

We don’t usually do women’s conferences but I feel this message. Even if 50 more people come, the message will need to be spread. They had to cap it at 1,100 women who came to that message. What happened was, in the end, we did this call. Women were coming to the altar and weeping, saying, “I didn’t know what I was coming to.” What I recognize is that my life has been in bondage to this. What we’re missing out on is all that the Lord asks for us when we’re caught up in this. C.S. Lewis talks about, “We’re playing with mud pies when what God has to offer is a holiday at the sea.” He’s so gracious.

When you say an invitation to come back to the table, you’re talking about experiencing freedom day to day and the food but I also get this picture of you saying, “A holiday at the sea, an invitation to a full life, to the abundant life God invites us to fix our eyes on the greater thing. The enemy of our souls would love for us to be ineffective for greater things.” We’re so focused on these things that are not lasting. They’re temporary.

In my journey, I was never diagnosed with a clinical eating disorder. Around the time of high school, I started trying to restrict my body and lose this amount of weight. I took diet pills and overexercise. When you say come back to the table, it’s this beautiful invitation to live the life God has given us to the fullest, to be free, love, serve and bring other people along. That’s what makes me think of that.

I tell this story about when I was pregnant with my second kiddo, Gunner. I was hormonal. I felt that we needed to sell everything and go be missionaries in Africa. I was reading a book from a missionary and I told my husband, “We got to sell it.” He was like, “Can we wait until we have the baby? We can talk about it again.” I was journaling asking the Lord, “What am I doing with being a dietician? What do you have for me?” Clear as anything, which I don’t say very often and I wrote it in my journal, I felt the Lord say “Your mission field is in Christian women and girls that are caught in this bondage and are ineffective for the kingdom. They’re missing out on what I have for them. This is your mission field.”

That was many years ago that the Lord gave me that message. The Lord is so faithful in calling his people back. That invitation to the table is exactly what you said. “Live a full life.” I get text messages, emails and all of that from people. Old clients who have walked in freedom are saying, “This is what I experienced.” I didn’t ever think this was possible. This is what God’s doing. This is how I got to share this message. This is the Lord multiplying. It’s a ripple effect when we are free.

One of the things I always say to women is, “Imagine your sphere of influence. For a second, imagine who the women are in your life. Picture the women in their life.” Picture that ripple effect of, “These are my women. They have a sphere of influence.” When we get free, it has a ripple effect. When we’re walking in freedom, there is a ripple effect on those around us. They are curious. They want to know. Sometimes they’re not sure but what happens is freedom is contagious. That’s the gospel. That’s what’s at stake.

When we get free, it has a ripple effect. Freedom is contagious. Click To Tweet

It doesn’t always look like instantaneous freedom. It is a slum, slow and gradual process of going, “I don’t know what this looks like but I know I want it. I don’t know quite what it looks like but I know that I want to experience that.” The Lord is so good. He’s kind and loving. He doesn’t give us something and then not show us how to get there. He doesn’t invite us to something and then goes, “I’m going to invite you but I’m not going to give you directions here.”

It’s so neat that with you creating this Peace with Food app, you’re using years of experience to give girls and women a tangible tool. You get to be part of the solution. One day God can take your struggle, use it for so much good and help other people find freedom. I want to share one little paragraph from my book, Wonderfully Made because it speaks to what we’re talking about.

This is in the chapter Made with Love and Wonder. “One day, if we’re forgiven for many years on this earth, we will be covered with wrinkles from head to toe. For those of us who spent our lives in constant body angst, we will finally realize our legacy is not measured by the size we wear but by the life we have led. We’ll come face to face with the truth that we are not only our bodies. We are a soul in a body that is temporal and deteriorating until it will one day be healed and restored in heaven.”

I write to discover what is true and to be reminded of what is true. That’s been a reminder for me. I have experienced freedom and wholeness in the area but at the same time, we still live in this culture that is screaming so many lies, is toxic and is focused on image and idolizing beauty and our bodies and neglecting God. I think of that verse in Romans, “For the exchange of truth of God for a lie, they worship and served, created things rather than the creator.”

What is it like in our culture, there’s so much worship of the creation of humans of how we look and at our bodies but not paying regard or attention to our creator, to God who created all of us in his image. We can experience greater freedom but we’re still living in this tension of a culture that is speaking so many lies.

You bring up an important peace. Think of the Old Testament. Jesus brings it to full circle and the New Testament with The Passover and The Lord’s Supper but so much of the Old Testament is reminding us who we are as God’s people. He knows we’re a forgetful people. It’s like the Israelites would go and then the Lord would be like, “We need to remind you who you are. Remember who you are. You’re God’s people.” We live with that tension the way they did with cultural influences.

Daniel had a purpose in his heart not to be defiled by the world in that sense. He kept reminding himself who he was and he remembered his identity as one of God’s chosen. One of the things that are so interesting is when Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” When we take The Lord’s Supper, we’re reminded of who we are. I don’t think it’s a coincidence. That’s the communion table. The enemy would put his focus on distracting us from all of that, our place at the table. We get to remind each other. I always say “Nobody gets left behind.” We’re all in this together. We’re like linking arms going, “Let’s be reminded of who we are because as God’s people, we need to do that over and over.”

I started reading through the message interpretation of the Bible, which is written by Eugene Peterson. I’ve read from Matthew 6 and I want to go ahead and read the message interpretation here because it’s so spot on to what we’re talking about. Jesus says, “If you decide for God living a life of God worship, it follows that you don’t fuss about what’s on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There’s far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance and the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds. Free and unfettered, not tied down to the job description. Careless in the care of God and you count far more to him than birds.” That was what I read.

I love that interpretation. That spirit of self-forgetfulness of going, when we know who we are, we don’t have to manage and control those things anymore. That is the beauty of what you read. When my life is hidden in Christ, then those things that he describes there are, “I’m free.” I get to be free from those things. Truly think about how much we do need to be reminded of that.

As I read this, the invitation that we’re given requires faith. We have to believe in whom God says that we are and that there’s a better life awaiting us in life. We’re so much clinging onto maybe the restriction over exercise, the control of our body. It takes faith to believe that there’s something much better for you and that freedom is possible for you. You might be saying, “It’s possible for Allie,” but you have no idea how consumed I am with thoughts of food and body shame. We want to speak to you if you’re reading and say “Freedom is possible for you. Where the spirit of God is, there is freedom.”

Amen to that. I couldn’t echo that more because I have a list going down my arm of clients who came to me and said, “I didn’t believe it was possible and wouldn’t have believed it was possible.” It’s that slow and meticulous journey of recovering. I’m not talking about recovering a perfect body or perfectly eating but I’m talking about recovering our life in Christ. That’s what we’re after.

Recovery is about recovering our life in Christ as believers. Sometimes that takes a while. Sometimes it takes exactly where you are and it’s moving forward a little bit. You may hear this and this might be a little bit of movement forward going, “Lord, I don’t get it. I don’t even understand what that all means but I want what they’re talking about.” It’s that little movement forward. It gets me excited.

I’ve never heard it said that way but I love how you said, “Recovering the life God has for us.” Recovering our true identity and purpose is the ultimate recovery.

It’s so much better than the other.

Amy, maybe girls and women reading this are like, “I want that. I want to come back to the table. I want to recover the life that I have and who I am.” Maybe they don’t know where to go, what to do next or what that journey toward freedom looks like. What do you want to say to that girl or woman wondering where they go from here?

There are a couple of things I would encourage. One is with the website and all the material that you have, you have so much good information for these women. You’ve connected them with wonderful episodes like when you’re talking about intuitive eating.

For someone reading who’s like, “What does she mean by intuitive eating,” can you break that down for us?

For many years, I didn’t even call it intuitive eating. It was coming back to our normal way of eating. It was so gracious of the Lord that before I even had seen another hunger scale or anything out there, the Lord helped me teach girls and women how to listen to their hunger and fullness. If I’m laying down my food rules and commitment to dieting, then girls and women say, “Then what?” When we’re talking about coming out of a full-blown eating disorder, we don’t start here. If we were to put up a slide of an eating disorder and the spectrum, there’s a full-blown eating disorder, disordered eating and normal eating way over here.

A lot of us are camped out in this disordered or dysfunctional eating, which means we’re using external cues to help us decide what to eat. What does the scale say? What does the diet book say? What is my neighbor eating? What did I hear? What are they doing? In all these other fabricated ways of eating, we’re using external cues.

We’re going back to listening to internal cues to help us know when to eat, when we’re hungry and when we’re full, what sounds good, what tastes good and what nourishes our body. Intuitive eating falls under the umbrella of listening to our body’s cues for hunger and fullness. It’s laying down our commitment to dieting and picking up our commitment to honoring our body’s hunger and fullness.

One of the things of recovering is giving up the goal of weight loss. “I want to recover but I have to get to this certain weight to recover. I want to let go of dieting but I’ll do that when I get here.” Part of when I talk about recovering and what’s at stake if we don’t recover is we will get caught in this hamster wheel of always trying to find this version of a perfect body. That beginning place is going, “I’m going to lay down all these right rules, whatever they are or my fabricated version of what I should be. I’m going to listen to my body. I’m going to become a student of my body. What does my body need? What is it asking for?”

One of the things I have you people do my clients if they come in is I have them tell me their story. If I could have everyone start somewhere, it would be to write down their story. It can be a bullet list. I say, “Write down your food and body story.” When I was young, this is how I understood food and body. When I was in high school, a coach or a doctor said this. How did that change the way you ate? You’re getting a beautiful timeline to go, “When did I exchange internal cues for external cues? Whom did I start believing to know more about my body than I did?” You get that timeline and it’s a great place to start this journey.

I want to recommend going to the app store.

That would be a great place to start.

You do have a simple-to-use tool that girls and women can go to on their phones every day. Will you tell us how we can find that app?

It’s both on the Android, Google Play and the App Store under Peace with Food app. What’s cool about the app is that it helps people recover those cues and helps them pay attention. You can set how often you want the app to remind you and it asks a simple question, “Be present. Where are you now?” You’re trying to take a deep breath on the hunger scale that allows you to check in on the rhythm tracker. There’s a separate tracker that you can use when you’re eating, tracking, “How hungry am I when I start? How full am I when I finish?”

It gives you a simple rhythm that shows you during the day where you were and then under the learn tile, there are a ton of teaching clips. My colleague, Dr. Osborne and I, who are the Cofounder with me of the app, answer a ton of questions about intuitive eating and where to start this journey. We did some big videos and then broke them down into bite-size clips.

If you’re looking what’s the first step, go to the app store on your phone and download the Peace with Food app. It’s super easy to use. Thank you, Amy, for pouring so much time and energy into this tool because it’s great. Let’s talk a little bit more about what is at stake if we don’t accept this invitation to go back to the table.

Incredible things happen in people’s lives when they come back to the table. I’ve seen moms show up for their children in ways that they haven’t in years because their mind space is back. I saw this teenage client who came to me. She’d been a soccer player her whole life and she had a sports injury. She was a normal-weight kid who tore her ACL. The very first thought when she got injured was, “I’m going to get fat.” Rather than, “This has taken away from my soccer career and all these things.”

She came to me because she had gained some weight after the injury and wanted to see a dietician. One of the things that are so interesting is that people always come and expect one thing and the Lord gives them something different. A year later, she is shouting from the mountaintops, “I thought I had to diet for the rest of my life. I feel like a 100-pound weight is taken off my back. I had no idea this was possible. I am free in my body. I feel free when I come to the table. I feel free to make choices. My brain space isn’t taken up. I am going to college. I want the whole world to know this. I want girls and athletes to know this.”

People always come and expect one thing, and the Lord gives them something different. Click To Tweet

That story is what’s at stake if we are choosing to push back and believe the lie that the enemy is dishing us, which no pun intended. We have to control, manage and suppress our hunger when hunger tethers us to the creator. Our hunger is what reminds us that we’re created. Meanwhile, the enemy is trying to tell us to get the culture and the enemy’s trying to tell us to manage and control that. What’s at stake is our compelling, amazing story.

There’s story after story of girls, women and men who when they regain their mind space and are trusting their bodies, it’s like they’re freed up to do what they were called to do, which is incredible. It’s so exciting to me. It’s so easy to hear these stories and think that’s true for them but it’s not true for me or there’s no way it could be true for me. If that’s you, it is for you. It’s not just for the person next to you or the stories that I have or Allie has of girls and women that got free under her ministry.

Nobody gets left behind. In the middle of a talk, I’ll have women write that lie that they’re believing or that thing that they think is preventing them from being at the table. At the end of the talk, I’ll have them fold that and write their name on it. I’ll say, “That’s your place card, the very thing that brings you back to the table.” Nobody can fill your place.

Your place card is that invitation of your talents, abilities, weaknesses, strengths, storyline and family of origin. Nobody else fills that seat but you. That’s what’s at stake. Your seat is being filled and prepared for the banquet table, which is going to be amazing. Lord, what do you have for us? Teach us. We want to know where we’ve gotten off. Lord, reorient our thoughts back to you because it’s so easy for us to get off.

Amy, if you could go back to your younger self and give her some words of wisdom, how old would she be? What would you say to her?

I’d like to travel back in time to several different. I would say to my younger self, which is exactly how the Lord led me, I would encourage her, “You don’t have to be all things to all people. You can’t do it. It’s not possible but go where the Lord is calling you, not where the Lord is calling somebody else.” Even in my twenties, I feel that everybody’s developing their careers and having different callings. You hear people say, “The Lord’s calling me to this.” That can feel overwhelming.

You don't have to be all things to all people. Go where the Lord is calling you, not where the Lord is calling somebody else. Click To Tweet

“What is he calling me to? What’s my passion?” I would say, “Seek him first and the rest will come.” I would say that to myself as a young kid. I also would have told my early eating disorder self, “This is not solved overnight.” I kept feeling that I was failing because it wasn’t getting better. I wish I could go back and tell her, “It’s not solved overnight. It’s okay.” I would tell that to all my sweet girls that come in here but I wish I could tell myself that too.

To hold ourselves to a standard of grace, not perfection and to realize that God has us on a journey. I know my journey towards greater freedom with food and body image has been full of detours, breakdowns and breakthroughs. It hasn’t been this perfectly linear path to freedom. If you’re reading, we want to encourage you to take it day by day, take it to breathe by breath, seek after God and seek after truth.

Another practical thing we talk a lot about is shutting out the noise. Let me ask you. If you’re a social media user, what accounts are you following? Whom are you looking at? What media are you consuming? What TV shows are you watching? If we can get rid of some of those things that are keeping us from believing what is true and walking towards greater freedom, that’s another practical step that we can take.

I could not echo more of that. My favorite quote is, “Comparison is the thief of joy.”

Let’s simplify it into two steps you can take. 1) Download Amy’s app, Peace with Food. 2) Take inventory of your life. What are you looking at? What are you listening to? What are you seeing? Get rid of those things that are reinforcing the lies, that you are not good enough and that you’re too much.

The litmus test is, “The gospel is good news.” If what is happening in relation to your body and food is not good news, then it’s not the gospel. Let’s ask the Lord.

That’s a good place to close on. Amy, thank you so much for being our guest and for your presence in our community. Friends, we love you. We’re cheering you on. We believe that freedom is possible for you. Thank you, Amy.

Thanks for having me.

 

Important Links

• Peace with Food
• Wonderfully Made
• Dr. Megan Osborne
• https://Apps.Apple.com/us/app/peace-with-food/id1358837136
• https://WonderfullyMade.org/My-Journey-Back-To-The-Table-Overcoming-My-Eating-Disorder/
• https://View.Flodesk.com/pages/60eddc9bc92867fc75819353
• https://www.Amazon.com/Wonderfully-Made-Discover-Identity-Created/dp/0802424368/ref=sr_1_1?crid=127T52Y3IR49B&keywords=allie+marie+smith&qid=1674763729&sprefix=allie+marie+smith%2Caps%2C309&sr=8-1

About Amy Carlson

Amy Carlson, RD (Registered Dietitian) has held a thriving private practice in Houston, Texas, serving the eating disorder population for nearly two decades. She holds her Bachelor’s of Science in Nutrition from the University of Minnesota, where she grew up, and received her Master of Science in Nutrition from TWU in the Texas Medical Center. Passionate about truth and equipping women to find freedom, Amy is a highly sought-after speaker who travels across the state of Texas and the country, speaks to groups of women for retreats and women’s conferences. Her longing to have a bigger reach with the truth and knowledge of food and the body became a reality with the co-founding of the Peace With Food App: the opportunity to pour years of her experience into a personalized application for anyone to use. Amy and her husband have been happily married for over 20 years, and together, they live a busy and active life with their four beautiful children.

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