Welcome to Abstinent Kitchen

Recipes for a Life Beyond Food Addiction

Welcome to Abstinent Kitchen. Pull up a chair, bestie. I’m really glad you’re here.

If you’ve ever felt like you don’t have a “normal” relationship with food, you’re in the right place. Maybe you binge, graze, eat in secret, or find yourself thinking about food far more than you would like to admit. Maybe you turn to food when you’re stressed, lonely, bored, overwhelmed, angry, or simply looking for a little comfort. And maybe you’ve spent years promising yourself that tomorrow will be different, only to find yourself right back in the same cycle of obsession, guilt, shame, and frustration.

I know that cycle, because I lived it myself.

For years, I tried to fix my relationship with food the way most of us were taught. I tried diets, detoxes, exercise, self help books, restriction, and an awful lot of willpower. I kept thinking that if I could just find the right plan or finally muster up enough discipline, I would be able to control myself around food.

But it never worked for long. Underneath all of it was what I now call food noise. That’s the constant obsession with what I was going to eat, when I was going to eat, what I should or shouldn’t eat, what I had already eaten, and how I was going to make up for it afterward. Food took up far too much space in my head, and honestly, far too much space in my life.

Eventually, I came to understand that this was not simply a matter of needing a better diet or trying harder. I had a food addiction. This realization changed the direction of my life.

My recovery through compulsive overeating, binge eating, exercise bulimia, and other food related behaviors eventually led me to a sugar-free and flour-free way of eating, and into 12-step recovery for food addiction. What I discovered was so much bigger than a food plan. For the first time, I began to experience what it meant to live without constantly being ruled by food.

The food noise got quiet, but that wasn’t the only thing that changed. Through abstinence, the 12 steps, spiritual connection with my Higher Power, and learning to live one day at a time, I began experiencing a transformation in my body, my mind, my relationships, and my spirit. Recovery didn’t just change what I put on my plate. It changed the way I live my life.

And that’s why I created Abstinent Kitchen.

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More Than Just Recipes

I created this space as a place to find practical tools, spiritual practices, encouragement, and recovery resources that can help us build a life beyond food addiction. Because recovery doesn’t happen only when we’re sitting at a meeting or reading a book about the steps. It happens in our normal, everyday lives, including what happens in our kitchen.

My goal is to make recovery practical, and do-able.

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Your Kitchen Can Become Part of Your Recovery

For many of us, the kitchen has been a battlefield. My certainly was.

I’ve come to believe that the kitchen can also become one of the places where our recovery takes root. When we begin clearing out the foods and behaviors that keep us trapped, we create an environment that supports the life we’re trying to build. We learn to plan our meals, nourish our bodies, make decisions before we’re hungry, and create a kitchen that works with our recovery instead of against it.

And something interesting happens along the way.

As we begin cleaning up our kitchens, we often discover that we’re cleaning up much more than what’s inside the refrigerator or pantry. We’re learning to become honest with ourselves. We practice willingness. We’re asking for help. We’re learning how to make different choices. We’re beginning to live intentionally instead of automatically.

For me personally, the kitchen became one of the places where my recovery became real.

That’s the heart of Abstinent Kitchen.

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You Don’t Have To Figure This Out Alone

I’m not here to sell you on another diet, convince you that you simply need more willpower, or tell you that recovery is going to be easy.

I’m here because I’ve been “there“.

I know what it feels like to wonder why you can’t just eat normally. I know what it’s like to start over on Monday, to make promises you genuinely men when you make them, and to feel like everyone else has somehow received the instruction manual for eating that you never got.

I also know what it feels like to discover that there is another way.

My hope is that Abstinent Kitchen becomes the kind of place I looked for in my early recovery, but couldn’t find. A place where we can talk honestly about food addiction without shame, where recovery is practical and spiritual, and where we can learn from one another as we figure out how to live this new way of life.

There is no judgement here for where you are today. Whether you are just beginnign to wonder if food addiction might be a part of your story, you’re newly abstinent, you’re struggling with a slip or relapse, or you’ve been living in recovery for years, you’re welcome here.

We won’t shame you about your food. And we don’t shoot our wounded. We help each other get back up.

Because none of us has to do this alone.

So welcome to my kitchen. Pull up a chair, bestie. There is always a place for you at our table. And I’m really glad you’re here.

Let’s do this together.

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Visit us on social media, try one of our abstinent recipes, or simply reach out! We are so happy you’re here!

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