The Full Helping with Gena Hamshaw, MS, RD

 
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Episode 67 -

The Full Helping with Gena Hamshaw, MS, RD

by Karin Lewis, MA, LMFT, CEDS

In this episode, I am joined by Gena Hamshaw, MS, RD, recovered food blogger, recipe developer, cookbook author, and registered dietitian with nearly ten years of experience in nutrition counseling. Through her blog “The Full Helping,” Gena has created a space to find nourishing vegan recipes, reflections on mindfulness and self care, and resources to help you explore an informed and compassionate relationship with food. It’s Gena’s hope that this online space will offer permission to celebrate your appetites, one recipe at a time.

SOME OF THE TOPICS DISCUSSED:

  • How Veganism encompasses one’s life values, not solely eating disorder values.

  • How the recovery journey can be messy, muddled, and complicated.

  • The short term challenges and long term benefits of recovery.

  • The selective and eliminatory practices of Veganism can mask eating disorder behaviors.

  • If motivation is disordered, any eating paradigm becomes an expression of that.

  • The ways in which “balanced eating” leaves room for flexible eating….like cake for breakfast!

ABOUT GENA HAMSHAW, MS, RD:

Gena Hamshaw, MS, RD, like many of us, had a complicated food story. After struggling with eating disorders through her teens and early twenties, Gena finally committed to a lasting recovery. As she progressed through the recovery process, Gena became attuned to the suffering of animals within the food system and started to explore a vegan diet. Veganism allowed her to see that eating can be an opportunity to practice compassion. Becoming vegan was also Gena’s introduction to the joys of cooking, which she began to explore in her tiny New York City kitchen.

As anyone who has healed from an eating disorder can attest, it’s anything but a linear process. Gena’s early years as a vegan were still marked by food alarmism and dogma; she hadn’t yet learned how to embrace eating as a form of pleasure. Over her ten years of blogging, Gena came to embrace food as a source of both pleasure and nourishment.

In addition to her work as a blogger, Gena is also a registered dietitian (RD) with nearly ten years of experience in nutrition counseling. She earned her Master’s of Science in Nutrition from Teachers College, Columbia University and went on to complete her dietetic internship with Teachers College. Gena holds a premedical, post-baccalaureate degree from Georgetown University.


CONNECT WITH GENA:

ABOUT KARIN LEWIS:

Karin Lewis, MA, LMFT, CEDS has been recovered from Anorexia Nervosa for over 20 years and has been specializing in the prevention and treatment of eating disorders since 2005. Karin is the founder of the Karin Lewis Eating Disorder Center located in Boston, MA. You can visit Karin Lewis Eating Disorder Center online to learn more about Karin and her center’s services. You can also connect with Karin on social media by following her on Facebook and Instagram.