Hi. I’m Leemor Ellman.

This is my journey.

Diet culture tells you that people with bigger bodies lack discipline. Like most people in bigger bodies, discipline has never been my issue. I’m excellent at discipline, so much so that I’ve spent the better part of my life on food-restrictive diets.

Here’s what diet culture doesn’t tell you…

After a while, just like a pendulum, your body can’t sustain the hunger any longer. The dam breaks, and so does the diet. So you shame spiral, maybe binge eat a little, then lock yourself into another diet, and the cycle of disordered eating continues. 

I’ve been there, trapped in this cycle of shame and restriction, and I can wholeheartedly say now that I will never diet again! 

But as a parent in the thralls of that disordered mentality, I had no idea that my struggles were going to impact my kids, too. 

I struggle with normal parental concerns… How much sugar is too much? How can I get my kids to like vegetables? Why are my kids so focused on how their shirts hang on their stomachs? Won’t they stop growing if they don’t eat well?

Until I came head to head with my baggage and misinformation when I stumbled upon Intuitive Eating and Christy Harrison’s Anti Diet podcast. I dug beneath the surface of toxic diet culture to find that I was not actually delivering the loving and ‘healthy’ message I thought I was.

I wanted to make changes, but first, I had to reckon with my own anti-fat bias and learn about intuitive eating to create a better environment for my kids. 

I’ll be honest. Digging through this and healing your mentality around food and your body is hard. You have to face some really messy and, sometimes even dark, things. However, going through this is the only way to build family food freedom where your kids have a chance to thrive. 

The origins of Family Food Freedom.

After starting my own Intuitive Eating and anti-diet culture journey, I knew I wanted to help families like mine do the same thing I did. 

I have a Bachelor of Science from Union College and a Master of Science in Organizational Psychology from Columbia University. I also have thirty years of experience as a coach, workshop facilitator, instructional designer, community organizer, non-profit program director, supplementary school director, and Jewish educator. 

Combine my background, teaching skills, compassion, and a deep love of learning and research, and wah-lah! You have a perfect mixture for a revolutionary coaching program! 

So that’s what I did. I became a full-time coach to help other families start this empowering self-love journey. I love teaching parents how to approach the process of slipping away from dieting into a world with food abundance and abundant compassion. 

After years of learning, growing, and parenting, I developed my own parenting style that gently encourages nutrition without enforcing food restrictions. 

The fundamentals of my parenting philosophy.

I have a passion for teaching and I love coaching parents on how to raise their children with a neutral relationship to food and their bodies. 

We start by understanding where you are on this journey and then build the foundations of self-compassion. You’ll learn the basics of the intuitive eating philosophy and body neutrality to carry into your home and guide your kids down a path of empowering self-love. 

Together, we will eliminate the black-and-white, good versus bad mentality around food and work towards body neutrality for the whole family. Along the way, you’ll overcome oppressive diet messaging and help your children become intuitive eaters.