Sarah Berneche

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Sarah Berneche Toronto-based, she has worked with clients virtually around the globe since 2014.

Sarah Berneche is a nutritionist, Certified Intuitive Eating Counsellor, and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner specializing in disordered eating and body image.

Recovery realities that might be hard to hear (and may just change your life?)1. It's tough to get freedom from food noi...
10/01/2026

Recovery realities that might be hard to hear (and may just change your life?)

1. It's tough to get freedom from food noise if your idea of "recovery" looks like keeping the behaviours you like (ahem, food restriction and over-exercise) while ditching the behaviours you don't want (like binge eating).

2. Body acceptance isn't a light-switch or a simple yes/no answer. It's a process of unlearning that often feels uncomfortable, deeply challenging, and may take longer than you think. (And it's worth it!)

3. You will always need to think about food in some way. This isn't pathological; it's a sign of aliveness.

4. You may need to eat more than that you think you "should."

5. Your body may change even if you're doing everything "right."

6. You can understand why you restrict, binge, or purge, and still do it. Insight and action aren't one in the same.

7. Weight loss/thinness is not a long-term regulation strategy. People often talk about "food addiction," yet the endless quest for a smaller body is never talked about this way.

8. You don't have to "earn recovery" by being sick enough.

9. Sometimes eating more is the solution, not the problem.

What am I missing?

And if you're still with me, I'm Sarah -- anti-diet nutritionist, Certified Intuitive Eating Counsellor, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, and straight shooter. If you are looking for support on your recovery journey, I have spots for a couple of new clients. Simply click the link in my bio to schedule your complimentary 30-minute discovery call.

Do you believe you can shift the way you see your body?Before I knew about body image work, I thought fitting into a spe...
09/17/2026

Do you believe you can shift the way you see your body?

Before I knew about body image work, I thought fitting into a specific clothing size or hitting a goal weight were the only ways to feel better about my body.

I totally understand why I felt the way I did, and why so many feel the way they do (maybe you, too.)

But none of that improved my body image in an enduring way. On top of that, I was constantly anxious about what I ate and how I looked, even if I didn’t realize it at the time.

When my body changed rapidly and unpredictably due to endometriosis a few years ago, I was so grateful that I had done so much recovery and body image work leading up to that point.

I’m not saying that I never struggled with my body image; trying to find comfortable pants with 24/7 endo belly is no pic-nic. But through those changes, my connected relationship with food, my personal sense of style, my hard-earned therapy work, and my view of my body as a living piece of history remained intact.

It is completely understandable to want to lose weight in this culture. And a body size or shape is not a long-term regulation strategy.

If you want to develop the skills to improve your relationship with food and your body for the long-term, I’m accepting a couple more clients into my private practice. For more information on how to shift from feeling helpless to hopeful, book a complimentary call (link in bio.)

Have you ever been called "non-compliant" because you couldn't follow a meal plan? 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️Yes, eating enough foo...
08/26/2026

Have you ever been called "non-compliant" because you couldn't follow a meal plan? 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

Yes, eating enough food is super important. And! Recovery isn't just about eating enough food, hitting a certain weight range, or even allowing yourself to eat a wider variety of foods. It's primarily about having a different experience with food, your body, movement, and everything else in your beautiful life.

Here's some of the things I work on when following a plan feels tough:

🧷Support trust & safety (with me!)

☕️Build up resources - let's get you some nervous system-informed strategies that work for you.

🍽️Notice what else is at the table. What's food and what's NOT food, but showing up there?

🥅Talk about obstacles. Maybe you need skills, a system, support grocery shopping, treatment for an underlying medical condition, or something else entirely.

😱…And about the fear. Let's see if together we can reduce some of the distress you feel.

⭐️Start slower. Maybe the changes proposed were too much or too fast for your system. While nothing changes if nothing changes, *all* progress is progress.

📚Nervous system education. Geeky, but true! When you understand the language of our disordered eating patterns and how they're trying to keep you safe, it's a lot easier to "witness" them rather than following the impulses each time.

💕Focus on what is working. Because something's always working.

For those who are eating regularly, what helped you do get there? For those who are struggling, what would you love from a practitioner?

"But how do I accept a body I don't like?"The good news: body acceptance isn't built on your appearance matching your pr...
08/14/2026

"But how do I accept a body I don't like?"

The good news: body acceptance isn't built on your appearance matching your preferences. It's built on learning how to be in relationship with your body.

It makes sense to believe that weight loss/thinness = improved body image, because that’s what we’re taught.

But one thing I know for sure after studying body image for 10+ years is that it is far more complex than that.

What the research says:

💡Those who are driven primarily by appearance-based goals tend to experience persistent body image concerns compared to those motivated by health goals

💡Weight loss doesn’t automatically remediate underlying mental health concerns, such as anxiety, depression, and internalized weight stigma

💡Sometimes, losing weight actually intensifies body image and mental health concerns, because it removes an external “explanation” for distress

💡When folks do feel negatively about gaining weight, research connects it to frequent stigmatizing experiences during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.

In other words, weight-based discrimination and cultural beliefs about weight fuel negative body image, *not* the weight gain itself.

Food always on your mind, even when you've just eaten? Yes, "food noise", or non-stop thoughts and preoccupation with fo...
08/11/2026

Food always on your mind, even when you've just eaten?

Yes, "food noise", or non-stop thoughts and preoccupation with food, often occurs in response to some form of restriction (physical, emotional, or mental.)

Striving to eat *enough* food (usually more than you think) and a wide variety of foods is always the play.

But food noise can occur even in well-nourished people. Even though it is less common, not everyone who struggles with food or an eating disorder has a history of dieting or chronic food restriction.

Trauma, neurodivergence, mood disorders, medications, emotionally immature parenting, attachment injury, food insecurity, fatigue, stress, weight stigma and discrimination, and more can all impact or shape our experience with food and lead to food preoccupation (or food avoidance, the other side of the coin.)

If you're interested in decreasing the food noise you experience, I'm accepting a few new clients in my private practice. Click the link in my bio to schedule your free 30-minute call.

Let me guess: you want to start recovery or get off the diet rollercoaster...except for one nagging thought."I just feel...
08/07/2026

Let me guess: you want to start recovery or get off the diet rollercoaster...except for one nagging thought.

"I just feel more comfortable in a smaller body."

It's true that the world is horrible to higher weight people and judgmental toward weight gain. I'm not going to say weight never matters and that there aren't any perks to holding thin privilege, because that simply isn't true.

- And - you might feel better in a smaller body for reasons that have little to NOTHING to do with your appearance, especially if you have a trauma history.

1. Your body is a container for feelings, emotions, memories, and so on. Talking negatively about your body can be a way of communicating experiences that you either lack words for or feel too big to talk about.

2. Body size can become an identity. Because women, especially, are seen as bodies first and people second, what you look like can feel like who you are.

3. Sometimes a smaller body is associated with increased safety. This is especially true in the context of trauma (weight stigma is also trauma).

4. It can feel like your body size is the only thing you have to offer. This culture objectifies everyone, especially women, and it makes sense to place such a high value on appearance. But this doesn't make it true.

5. Clothes! I don't know about you, but so many of us have been conditioned to buy the smallest clothing size we fit into, regardless of whether it's how you want the garment to fit. Is it that you feel more comfortable in a smaller body or that you prefer your clothes to fit differently?

___
If you're ready to feel better in your body regardless of what happens to your size, I'm accepting new clients in my private practice. Book your FREE 30-minute call using the link in my bio (Sarah Berneche | MA, RHN, CIEC, SEP) to learn more.

Food noise won't stop even when you're doing "everything right"? You might be trying to solve the wrong problem. Let's s...
08/06/2026

Food noise won't stop even when you're doing "everything right"? You might be trying to solve the wrong problem.

Let's say you're doing everything you've been taught to do: eating regularly, eating enough food, letting yourself eat a variety of foods, and reminding yourself that no one snack or meal can make or break your health.

But regardless of what you do or how much time you spend in therapy, you just can't get a break from the non-stop food noise track. I get it; it's exhausting.

💧Sometimes it can feel like there are only two possible explanations for your experience, and neither really matches what you're feeling.

💧Food noise can happen for many reasons that may go untouched in traditional talk therapy and nutrition counselling.

💧For one, food thoughts can distract us from painful thoughts, feelings, emotions, uncertainty, memories, and more.

💧Your system may have learned that nothing bad happened to you while you were eating, so when you aren't eating, you feel unsafe. (The reverse may also be true.)

💧Maybe you shift between feeling panicked, overwhelmed, and anxious and feeling depressed, isolated, and numb. Eating may offer a reliable form of calm.

💧Food might be one of your only consistent sources of joy and pleasure.

💧Or maybe you truly have a long-standing diet history, and your body still doesn't trust that food will always be available.

💡See what I mean?

One of the problems with the term "food noise" is that it's often used to refer to ANY food thoughts. This matters, because different "problems" require different solutions and supports.

Food noise isn't a diagnosis, it's a symptom. The goal isn't to make it go away as quickly as possible, but to understand what your system is trying to communicate and to find a match that satisfies.

If you're unsure why you're still struggling with food noise, this is the kind of work I do with folks in private practice. To get started, schedule your free 30-minute call by clicking the link in my bio. Sarah Berneche | MA, RHN, CIEC, SEP

Reasons to follow me or unfollow me:👉🏿 I'm a weight-inclusive practitioner, and I don't help people to lose weight inten...
08/05/2026

Reasons to follow me or unfollow me:

👉🏿 I'm a weight-inclusive practitioner, and I don't help people to lose weight intentionally. And I talk about weight and body image concerns in my sessions every day.

👉🏼 I believe in understanding food behaviours before trying to change them...from a few lenses! Food is often used to (subconsciously) organize experiences we don't have the internal "infrastructure" to process, like trauma and emotions.

👉🏾 Food noise can be hunger, and it isn't necessarily only about hunger. For one thing, it can feel a lot safer to focus on food nonstop than to notice our internal landscape (e.g., emotions, sensations, memories). Your brain isn't broken. It's brilliant.

👉🏻 I believe counting, weighing, and measuring food can be a way we try to create boundaries when we don't know how to set and enforce them in life...or when ours have been repeatedly violated. It's easier to talk back to food and calories than it is to say "no."

👉🏼I care about health in a super non-obsessive way. I believe there are multiple ways to meet our nutritional needs. And sometimes? What you might really need is to let yourself eat more chocolate/chips/cookies/etc.

👉🏿 You might hear me use really horrible puns, like "You have to risk it for the biscuit."

👉🏻I think it's so sad that we're viewed as bodies first and people second. And we can break the cycle.

I'm so glad you're here! If you're looking for support, I am accepting new clients in my private practice. Ontario + Intuitive Eating coaching worldwide. Click the link in my bio Sarah Berneche | MA, RHN, CIEC, SEP to book your free call to find out more.

Is my body wrong…or are today's beauty standards immature?
07/29/2026

Is my body wrong…or are today's beauty standards immature?

Some people start their Sundays with a book and a coffee..and some people wake up scouring PubMed studies. 🤷🏻‍♀️By no me...
07/29/2026

Some people start their Sundays with a book and a coffee..and some people wake up scouring PubMed studies. 🤷🏻‍♀️

By no means exhaustive or complete, but some initial thoughts on what's missing from the conversation, especially in relation to eating disorders & disordered eating.

What do you think is missing from GLP-1 conversations?

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55 Stewart St
Toronto, ON
M5V2V1

Opening Hours

Monday 3pm - 6pm
Tuesday 8am - 6pm
Wednesday 8am - 6pm
Thursday 8am - 6pm
Friday 8am - 2pm

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