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About Dr. Alexis Conason

I'm Dr. Alexis Conason and I'm a clinical psychologist, certified eating disorder specialist and supervisor, author of The Diet-Free Revolution: 10 Steps to Free Yourself from the Diet Cycle with Mindful Eating and Radical Self-Acceptance, and I'm the creator of The Anti-Diet Plan mindful eating program. 

You can read more about my professional accomplishments below but I also want to share with you some things that you may not find on my resume. 

I grew up in a home surrounded by dieting and disordered eating. This was in the 80's and 90's, when there was even less awareness than there is now about the harms of dieting. I was raised on Snackwell cookies and Diet Coke because, you know, hEaLtH (insert eye roll here). I went on my first juice cleanse when I was 8 years old--largely because that was just what I thought grown-ups do. I spent nearly two decades of my life going on and off diet plans, feeling out of control around food, and blaming my body.  During this time I never once thought to question whether diets worked--I was positive that dieting was the solution and my lack of discipline to stick to the plan was my problem. 

It wasn't until I had completed my doctorate in clinical psychology and set myself up for a career working in weight management and "obesity research" that I had a life changing moment when I was introduced to the Health At Every Size (R) movement and started practicing mindful eating. Through my lens as a psychologist and researcher, I started looking in a more critical way at the data on health, weight loss, and dieting and discovered that much of what I had been taught wasn't actually true! 

For the past 10 years, I've dedicated my career to helping people heal from the wounds of diet culture and empower themselves to regain a sense of trust in their bodies. I've worked with hundreds of people in therapy and my virtual coaching program who are struggling with binge eating, chronic dieting, feeling out of control around food, and spending way too much time feeling like crap about their eating and their body. I've seen people who have struggled for decades make radical changes in their relationship with food and their body. 

Changing your relationship with food is about so much more than changing what you are eating. As Naomi Wolf says in her book The Beauty Myth "a culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women's history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one."   

I truly believe that each person has a profound impact on the world around them; each one of us who rejects diet culture is helping dismantle the oppressive system. 

As a mother of two daughters, I want my children to grow up knowing that their value is so much deeper than the size of their pants and that they have way more important things to do in the world that worry about how many calories they ate at lunch.

Isn't it time we stopped trying to shrink ourselves and reclaimed the space we deserve?  

 

Please note that the psychoeducational and coaching services offered on this site are not a replacement for psychotherapy and should not be construed as psychotherapy. Participation in the psychoeducational and coaching services offered on this site, including but not limited to The Anti-Diet Plan signature course, does not constitute a treatment relationship with Dr. Conason or any of her employees, staff, or constituents.