Episode 77 - Part I: Mindfulness in Traumatic Times with Fiona Sutherland

Dietitians Unplugged Podcast

Recorded mid-April of 2020, Aaron and Glenys welcomed their friend Fiona Sutherland, a Health At Every Size® and non-diet dietitian and director of The Mindful Dietitian in Melbourne, Australia. She is host of the podcast “The Mindful Dietitian” and teaches across Masters Level Dietetic training programs at several different Universities in Melbourne specifically in Counseling Skills and Weight Inclusive Approaches in Dietetics. Fiona is also a dedicated mindfulness practitioner and Yoga Teacher, bringing a particular emphasis on embodiment, mindful eating and body image into her work and training. She is a great lover of ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) and trauma-informed approaches to Dietetic work.

In the first of this two-part episode they discussed:

• Fiona’s story of becoming an anti-diet, weight inclusive dietitian
• Her early experiences working with diverse populations in different countries
• How working in a weight loss setting awakened her to the realities of weight cycling and diet failure
• The cognitive dissonance she experienced working in eating disorder, weight loss and sports nutrition settings, and how one behavior was treated in one group but prescribed in another
• The need for more weight inclusive training in dietetics education
• What mindfulness is and isn’t, and how she came to incorporate mindfulness into her practice
• How current events challenge our fundamental need to be safe and sound

Show Notes:

Visit Fiona at The Mindful Dietitian

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction programs

Full Catastrophe Living by John Kabat-Zinn

On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler