Lisa Turner is an author, chef, nutritionist, and psychology of eating coach. Through her food coaching practice and website, Inspired Eating, Lisa not only teaches people what to eat, but also helps them understand why they eat they way they do – and shows them how to heal a troubled relationship with food.
With more than three decades of professional experience in nutrition consulting, body-mind therapies, martial arts training and spiritual practices – ranging from meditation and pranayama to fire walking and sweat lodges, – Lisa helps clients explore their relationship with food from a deeply spiritual perspective. And her own early battles with weight and eating disorders give her a profoundly personal vantage point, from which she can offer experience, strength and hope.
Every Great Person Has A Good Story Behind Her!
I’ve been smitten with food – for better or worse – for as long as I can remember. I grew up in the South, where food was elevated to a quasi-religion. Every day was a food-drenched event, starting with hot biscuits and homemade butter, and ending with the inevitable pecan pie, made with nuts scooped up from the tree in the side yard. Sunday afternoons, our post-church ritual centered around “dinner,” as the mid-day meal was called; friends gathered around tables groaning beneath baskets of cornbread, platters of fried chicken, pies and cakes by the dozen.
Most of the food came from our backyard: the beans and corn from the fields, tomatoes from my grandmothers garden behind the kitchen, eggs from the chicken pen and baskets of blackberries and pecans gathered by my small cousins and me.
All the reverence for food, along with some darker issues, took their toll, and by the time I was 9 years old, I was fat. Not plump, not childhood chubby, but fat. My should-have-been-carefree elementary school days were lessons in despair. I hid in the back of the room, the corners of the gymnasium. Recess was a nightmare; games of dodgeball culminated in my being the target. The monkey bars were as unattainable as Mount Everest. Summers were worse: while my friends splashed in the pool or zipped down the slides, I wrapped myself in a towel and pretended to hate the water.
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When I turned 13, hormones and a sudden growth spurt spread my weight more gracefully along a suddenly longer frame; simultaneously, I discovered starvation as a dieting tool. I learned to go for weeks with little more than a slice of toast or a cup of yogurt a day. I reveled in my ability to deny my body’s desires. An apple was an extravagant indulgence; a tuna sandwich was a Bacchanalian feast.
So, by the time I graduated from high school, I was a mess. Outside, my body was thin; inside, I was the same fat little girl who hid from bullies on the third-grade playground. And the effects of erratic eating took their toll in a nearly devastating illness in my late teens. That experience, coupled with the chance meeting of several deeply influential people who taught me about life, love and the power of food, changed my life forever.
I spent the next 20 years devouring information about food and eating with the same enthusiasm I’d once reserved only for my grandmother’s blackberry cobbler and homemade peach ice cream. And through the fabric of my learning was woven a thread of spirituality.
Read Lisa’s HOW-TO Feel Your Hunger & Make Peace With Food HERE
I studied nutrition and culinary arts while living in ashrams; I traveled with famous musicians while writing my first books on food and nutrition; I started and sold companies while researching the psychology of eating; I appeared on nationally televised cooking shows and taught nutrition classes around the country while getting professionally certified in five different body-mind therapies. I walked on fire, did dozens of sweat lodges and silent retreats and earned a second-degree black belt in martial arts, while trying to heal my own troubled relationship with food.
And you know what? It worked. I found a path, one that led me to a vast field of peace and acceptance.
I learned that numbers don’t work, whether it’s the number of calories in a donut, the number on the bathroom scale, the number of crunches you did or miles you ran.
I learned that I don’t have to be a certain size or shape to be happy, right now.
And I learned that, when I stopped using food as entertainment, or pain relief, or spiritual fulfillment, I got better. And so can you.
Read Lisa’s HOW-TO Feel Your Hunger, Listen to Your Body, and Make Peace with Food HERE
12 thoughts on “Lisa Turner, The Inspiration Behind Inspired Eating”
That’s a really interesting way to understand your body and does make sense. She’s an inspiration and it’s nice that she’s sharing her knowledge and helping others live healthier.
Loved reading your post. Going to share with friends.
It is so hard to move on from a really tight relationship with food for sure. You’re story is a proof that we all can.
I have a friend from the south who is smitten with food as well. I think she would really connect with the inspired eating family.
It’s a good place to stay in the field and plant vegetables and fruits. For if we want to harvest it we have to sow it. Such an inspiring story. Thanks for sharing!!!
Such an inspiring story!! It’s nice to live in a farm full of vegetables and fruits when your own crops.
Even though we live in a ‘city’, we make space for our own garden. It’s easy to love it when you grow it yourself!
What an inspiring story! I completely understand her struggle and love of food!
Definitely reading Lisa’s book! I have a love-hate relationship with food myself, and I would love to learn more about this ‘inspired eating’. 🙂
I’ve always wanted to live in a place where we grow our veggies and fruits. My grandmother’s place back in the day was like that before our city got urbanized.
I guess we all need a little whelp form an expert in this journey called life. And yes food can be a way to reward ourselves for lost causes or issues. Good to know that there is help available.
I like that she teaches people what to eat and helps people understand why they eat they way they do. Knowing why you eat is so important!