CanvasRebel Magazine Interview : Stories & Insights

Local Stories: What Matter Most to You? A conversation with Ana Rodriguez

Check out the Voyage Dallas magazine article! Meet Ana Rodriguez, Owner and Counselor at Transcendence Counseling in Uptown Dallas.

“There has been a great deal of discussion lately about the Health at Every Size philosophy and how it can interface with the field of eating disorders. Some of the conversations have been quite heated with concerns that this approach grants permission to eat uncontrollably thus giving up any investment in obesity control. Others cite current research that challenges the assumption that being fat equates with being unhealthy. People with eating disorders explain their resistance to adopting a HAES approach for fear that they will never be thin; and others have tried to transform HAES into a new weight loss technique, which goes against everything that health at every size is about. With such a diverse range of reactions among people in the field of eating disorders, I was curious to learn more.” - Dr. Deah Schwartz

Normalizing food and different culture's way of cherishing food and community helps to encourage us to see the "all food fits" mentality and actually believe in it as truth.  Therefore, I really wanted everyone to get an idea of some of my favorite traditional meals from my homeland.

The first language our bodies ever knew was that of physical sensations and emotions. As babies we were attuned to our every need. We knew when we needed food, needing sleep, and how we needed comfort (whether it is physical touch, connection...etc). As we get older, the environment and impactful events tend to make us more disconnected from our internal body language. Emotions are just that, the language of the body. The better we learn to re-attune to this language, our own language, the more we know what our body is trying to tell us, how to best take care of ourselves, and how to relate better to others.