You haven't failed your diet. Your diet has failed you.
If you haven't found long-term success with dieting, join the club.
Diets fails for upwards of 90% of people. Yet, most of us blame ourselves when the plans fail. I need to try harder. Be more disciplined. What is wrong with me?
Psst, here is a secret: there is nothing wrong with you. You are not broken.
What is broken is diet culture.
Diet culture is a system that equates thinness with health, wellness, beauty, desirability, moral value, and superiority. It teaches us that the only way to improve our health and wellbeing is by losing weight. And this is simply not true.
The Anti-Diet Plan is here to help you heal from diet culture. Harnessing the power of mindfulness and mindful eating, you will work individually with Dr. Alexis Conason, a licensed psychologist and certified eating disorder specialist, to repair your relationship with food and your body. Are you ready to stop fighting against yourself and work together with your body on the same team?
Because you have more important things to do than worry about how many calories you just ate or what size pants you are wearing. It's time to stop fixating on shrinking your body and reclaim the space you deserve in the world.
A Message From Dr. Conason
In a culture that teaches us to hate our bodies, wanting to lose weight through dieting or a "lifestyle change" is a totally normal response.
9 out of 10 women are dissatisfied with their body and want to lose weight.
For most of my life, I was one of these women. I went on my first diet when I was 8-years old. It was a juice cleanse that I found in one of the countless diet books that lined the bookshelves in my family's living room. I remember waking up that first day thinking how grown up is this! I'm on a diet just like my mom. And I remember going to bed that night thinking I am starving and dreamed about the giant stack of pancakes dripping with syrup that I would eat the next morning. It was one of the first times I remember feeling preoccupied with food. But it certainly wasn't the last.
I spent the next two decades of my life in an endless cycle of being on the wagon and off the wagon. When I was off the diet, I ate everything that I wouldn't allow myself to eat when I was on the plan. If I had a few french fries, I may as well polish off the whole plate because the day was already ruined. Besides, I would be back on course again tomorrow so I better "enjoy" them now while I can. I often ate until I was so full that it was hard to breathe.
Then, one day, my life changed. I attended a mindful eating retreat where someone presented me with a simple fact: diets don't work.
What do you mean diets don't work. Of course diets work. They work for everyone except me; I'm just not doing it right. I just need to try harder.
But that statement rattled around in my mind; in fact, I just couldn't stop thinking about it. In all my years of dieting, I had never once thought to question the paradigm. But now that I had, it all made so much sense.
Working in "obesity research" at the time, I started to look at the data through a more critical lens. And to my surprise, I discovered that much of what I had been taught wasn't actually true!
I started practicing mindful eating and found that it changed not only my relationship with food but my relationship with myself. I started to relate to myself in a kinder, more accepting, and compassionate way. I found food freedom, but more than that, I found a greater sense of overall wellbeing. For the first time in my life, I felt at peace with myself and the deep shame that I carried for so many years lifted.
I'm not sharing my story to say "I did it and you can too." We are each in unique circumstances and I had many privileges that opened doors to healing. But I am sharing my story to say:
If you are stuck in this vicious cycle, know that you are not alone.
Here’s the good news:
There is a way out!
When we learn to recognize diet culture, we can work to reject its harmful messages. We can place our anger where it rightfully belongs--not on our body but on the system that convinced us our body was bad in the first place. We can repair our relationship with our body and start to hear and trust the deep wisdom that it holds to guide our eating.
And most importantly, we can stop thinking about food all of the time and get on with our lives.
Here's what previous participants have to say about The Anti-Diet Plan...
The Anti-Diet Plan Participant, 2022
When I found The Anti-Diet Plan about 18 months ago, all I knew was that I wanted to stop binge eating and I could not “do another diet,” and there had to be a better way. I wasn’t as convinced about this plan as I was desperate. To my surprise, it changed me in ways I never imagined. What I never anticipated was everything that I would gain. I don’t think I actually realized how many food rules I had or how limited my food world was. More meaningfully, I realized that because every bite of my food was either eaten with a heavy dose of anxiety or guilt, I had stopped really paying any attention to taste or finding any joy in eating long ago. Mindful eating is giving that back to me. I have lots more work to do I think, but if you asked me 18 months ago, I would have never imagined me where I am today!
The Anti-Diet Plan Participant, 2022
I read the book then decided to take the course. The mindfulness component has been the missing link for me. I am aware and curious and have noticed huge freedom around my relationship with food. No guilt, no shame. It is wonderful.
The Anti-Diet Plan Participant, 2021
The Anti-Diet Plan course is excellent! Most helpful was the reassurance that there is no right or wrong way to eat. It changed my relationship with food and my body and helped me worry less about my eating and weight. I liked everything about the program and there was nothing I would change!
What is The Anti-Diet Plan with Individual Coaching Sessions with Dr. Alexis Conason?
If you scroll through the anti-diet world of social media, you'll see a lot of "diets suck" (which I agree with!) and "eat what you want" and "just listen to your body" (which I also agree with) BUT no one really tells you HOW to do that or WHERE to start. It can all be super overwhelming!
Trying to self-help your way to food freedom isn't for everyone; many benefit from professional support. In one-on-one coaching sessions, you'll work with Dr. Alexis Conason, a licensed psychologist and certified eating disorder specialist, to progress through The Anti-Diet Plan program under her guidance. In your coaching sessions, you and Dr. Conason will dive into the unique challenges you are struggling with, tailor solutions that work for you, and start enacting the changes that you want to see in your life!
The Anti-Diet Plan with Individual Coaching Sessions will guide you step-by-step as you plot your escape plan from diet culture, repair your relationship with food and your body, learn new skills from mindfulness and mindful eating to reconnect with your body's innate internal appetite system, and start eating in a way that is more peaceful, in tune, and pleasurable. Because yes, we deserve pleasure in food and our bodies and I hate that diet culture tries to steal that from us.
The Anti-Diet Plan with Individual Coaching Sessions combines The Anti-Diet Plan Signature Course, where you learn all the tools you need for your journey to food freedom, along with one-on-one individual coaching sessions to create an intensive, individualized, and supportive experience. You'll work one-on-one with Dr. Alexis Conason, a clinical psychologist with over a decade of experience working with people struggling with food and body issues.
This unique program gives you access to one-on-one coaching sessions with Dr. Alexis Conason, the creator of The Anti-Diet Plan, so you can work through the program together, at your own pace, stay accountable and moving forward, receive feedback tailored to your unique situation, get support that works with your schedule, and process your experiences in a private space with a coach who is also a trained mental health professional.
Dr. Alexis Conason only takes on a limited number of individual coaching clients who are best suited for this unique program and who are ready to invest in one-on-one support. Apply today to see if individual coaching with Dr. Alexis Conason could be a good fit for you!
The Anti-Diet Plan with Individual Coaching Sessions includes:
Lifetime Access to The Anti-Diet Plan Signature Course
A 6-week self-paced course designed to take you step-by-step from diet culture to food freedom with:
- 19 video lessons
- guided mindfulness meditations
- mindful eating exercises
- a bonus lesson with Jenna Hollenstein, RD
Individual Coaching Calls with Dr. Alexis Conason
At mutually agreed upon times, you'll meet via zoom with Dr. Alexis Conason for:
- either 3 or 6 one-hour one-on-one individual coaching calls with Dr. Alexis Conason
Between Session Support
There's no need to wait for the coaching calls to get a question answered or get some text-based support. Dr. Conason and her team are available to you throughout the week for support via:
- Text
- What's App
And you can connect with our anti-diet community anytime in our:
- Private members-only community
Is The Anti-Diet Plan with Individual Coaching right for you?
The program could be a good fit for you if you are looking for:
- individual coaching from a clinical psychologist with over a decade of experience treating people struggling with issues around food and body image
- a program that breaks things down step-by-step
- a truly weight-inclusive anti-diet approach to mindful eating
- a path to healing your relationship with food and your body so you can stop spending your time and energy not feeling good enough and reclaim your space in the world!
But the program isn't for everyone. The program may not be a good fit for you if:
- you prefer to do things on your own and you aren't looking for a support-intensive program (if that's you, check out self-paced The Anti-Diet Plan signature course here)
- You are struggling with an active acute eating disorder and your treatment team isn't in support of you doing this program or you aren't in treatment. (If this is you, please reach out to discuss further, we evaluate this on a case-by-case basis)
- You aren't able to invest financially in this type of healing right now (If you are in financial hardship, we offer pay-what-you-can options for The Anti-Diet Plan signature course)
Here is what we'll cover in The Anti-Diet Plan with Individual Coaching Sessions:
Week 1: Mindful Eating 101
- learn the basics of mindfulness and mindful eating, including tools and strategies that you can start implementing right away
- start developing a mindfulness practice that fits in with your lifestyle
- learn how to do a "mindful pause" to help increase awareness of the important signals your body and mind are sending you
- experience how mindful eating is different from Intuitive Eating and how mindfulness can help you if you've struggled to implement the principles of Intuitive Eating
Week 2: Plotting our escape from diet culture
- dig into the research on dieting and understand the science of why diets are doomed to fail
- Understand why one of the first steps to breaking free of the diet-binge-self-hatred cycle is deeply knowing that the solution isn't about finding the diet that is finally going to work for you; its about accepting that the whole paradigm is rigged!
- Learn what it really means to eat what you want when you want it--and how to start putting it into practice
Week 3: Connecting with our "internal GPS"
- Learn how to hone in to your body's "internal GPS" using hunger and fullness cues
- Practice identifying hunger and fullness using hunger and fullness scales
- Learn about the physiological cues for hunger and fullness and the range of these sensations--perfect for people who may have trouble identifying when they are hungry or full or always find themselves feeling stuffed or starving.
Week 4: Discovering pleasure in food (without the guilt!)
- Start to reclaim the pleasure in your eating experiencing that you deserve
- Explore the emotions that may arise around seeing food as a source of pleasure
- Learn how to make mindful choices around food and tackle the looming question of "what do I eat?"
Week 5: Learning to trust and accept our bodies (even when you don't like your body)
- understand what acceptance really means (and how it is possible to accept something even if you don't like it)
- practice cultivating self-acceptance and self-compassion through tangible exercises and mindfulness meditations
- reestablish trust in your body, even if you think you think it's impossible.
Week 6: "Emotional eating" and self-care
- Better understand the connections between your emotions and your eating experiences
- Learn a 3-step strategy to use with emotional eating
- Explore new tools and strategies to cope with uncomfortable feelings
- Identify what values are most important to you and how to live in better alignment with those values.
- How to care for yourself in the best ways possible (even if you have limited resources)
- How to reclaim your pleasure in life
- Bringing it all together and next steps
Meet Dr. Alexis Conason
Hey! I'm Dr. Alexis Conason and I'm so glad that you are here checking out The Anti-Diet Plan Foundations Group Coaching. I truly hope that you find what you are looking for here. And if you are looking to learn a little about me, look no further!
I'm a clinical psychologist in private practice in NYC, 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 founder of The Anti-Diet Plan mindful eating program.
I'm also a former chronic dieter who spent decades of my life stuck in the diet-binge-shame cycle. I'm not going to say "I did it and you can too!" because we are all in different situations, but I will say that I know what it feels like to spend way too much time thinking about what to eat and what not to eat and feeling like a failure because I couldn't stick to a plan. I also know what it feels like to tie my self-worth to the numbers on a scale and feel like all of my problems would be solved if I could just change my body...
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?
And for those of you who want a more traditional bio with all my qualifications, degrees, and that good stuff, here you go:
Alexis Conason, Psy.D. is a licensed psychologist, certified eating disorder specialist and supervisor (CEDS-S), author of The Diet-Free Revolution: 10 Steps to Free Yourself from the Diet Cycle with Mindful Eating and Radical Self-Acceptance (North Atlantic Books, 2021), a speaker, researcher, and the creator of The Anti-Diet Plan, a program to help people break-free from diet culture and embrace a mindful, peaceful, and compassionate approach to eating. She is the founder and owner of Conason Psychological Services, a boutique group therapy practice specializing in the treatment of binge eating disorder, disordered eating, body image, and psychological issues related to bariatric surgery.
Dr. Conason is a go-to expert for the media and has been featured in Oprah Magazine, Teen Vogue, Glamour, Health Magazine, Men’s Health, Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, Elle magazine, The New York Post, The Washington Post, the Huffington Post, U.S. News & World Report, Psychology Today, The Wall Street Journal's Market Watch, Fast Company, Scary Mommy, Darling Magazine, ABC News, CBS News, and more.
After receiving her doctorate degree in clinical psychology from Long Island University, C.W. Post, Dr. Conason completed post-doctoral training at the New York Obesity Research Center, in affiliation with Columbia University; at The Karen Horney Clinic; and earned a certificate in Eating Disorders, Compulsions, and Addictions from The William Alanson White Institute as well as a certificate in psychodynamic psychotherapy from the American Institute of Psychoanalysis.
Dr. Conason is passionate about helping her clients develop a more peaceful relationship with food and their body, enabling them to say farewell to dieting once and for all and live fuller lives. Her program, The Anti-Diet Plan, is a way that people located anywhere can access help to stop dieting and dramatically change your relationship with food, your body, and yourself.
Do you have any more questions?
If you've gotten this far and still have burning questions, feel free to reach out to [email protected].
And if you still aren't sure if The Anti-Diet Plan with Individual Coaching Sessions is right for you, don't worry. After you complete the application form, we'll schedule a time to chat and figure out together if this program could be a good fit.
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