Private Practice RD and Intuitive Eating Counselor Safiyya Suleman

What is your current position?

Registered Dietitian and Intuitive Eating Counselor for my Dietitian Saf (my own practice)

How did you get started in your career?

I worked as a Clinical dietitian and loved every aspect of it but as someone who struggled with her eating behaviors and confidence as a teenager, I always wanted to specialize in disordered eating. In 2020 I decided to start online coaching using my professional education and personal experience so that I could help women who feel stuck in unhealthy eating pattern and that want to break the cycle of dieting and binging.

What advice would you give to someone new to the field?

If you want to work in the eating disorder space you first need to reevaluate your food beliefs and if they are rooted in fatphobia or weight stigma. We live in a society drenched in diet culture, it is so important that any professional in this space is able to extract diet ingrained thoughts so that they can help their clients recover fully.

Some resources you can turn to include:

  • Health at Every Size by Lindo Bacon
  • Intuitive Eating by Elyse Resch and Evelyn Tribole
  • Anti-Diet by Christy Harrison

There is a lot of weight bias, thin privilege and internalized fatphobia that one needs to unpack before they are truly of service in this space. Once you are able to identify and process your biases, only then do you have the full picture of how you can support and help someone else.

This is my Instagram: https://instagram.com/dietitiansaf

Email: [email protected]