Carol Asada, Ph.D.,
Founder, Conscious Eating™
President, Conscious Eating™, LLC
CAROL ASADA,Ph.D., Biography
Dr. Carol Asada is a licensed clinical psychologist and has
been in private practice since 1981. Specializing in the treatment
of eating disorders since 1984, Dr Asada has worked extensively
with women confronting the issues of disordered eating, body
image, and food obsessions. She is the co-founder of DIETLESS®:
Discovering the Emotional Connection to Weight Loss (1992)
and is the co-author of Conscious Eating or How to Stop Eating
in Response to Everything (Peanut Butter Publishing, 1997).
Dr. Asada has a private practice office in La Mesa, California.
She is a member of the International Association of Eating
Disorder Professionals, American Psychological Association,
and San Diego Psychological Association. Dr. Asada lives in
San Diego with her two German Shepherds,
Alexandra and Taylor; and a one-of-a-kind, little black dog,
Misty.
If you are reading this, you are probably wondering about
me, as a person and my reasons for creating Conscious Eating™.
I know I would be asking the same questions.
First, let me tell you a little history. I really didn't have
a "weight problem" until I started graduate school. Looking
back on that time, I can see that I used food for many reasons.
Working in my private practice part-time, attending school
full-time and driving 90 miles 5 days a week to and from my
internship, I had very little time for anything else. I ate
on the run (many times while driving), I used certain foods
to keep me from falling asleep at the wheel, and I used other
foods to calm my anxieties around schoolwork. Needless to
say, the pounds slowly piled on. I tried numerous diets but
they never worked to keep my weight off. My "diet failures"
convinced me that I couldn't trust myself or my body. Eventually,
I stopped listening to my body, I ignored its sensations for
being tired, needing to move, wanting to relax.
Coincidentally, at the same time in my private practice, I
began to see the same struggle with diets and weight loss
in so many women. I had to check this out with my colleagues
"was I just seeing things?" The answer was a resounding NO!
There were hundreds and then thousands (now millions) of women
stuck in a cycle of dieting then bingeing then gaining weight
only to start another diet.
The sad thing was that many of these women hoped this new
diet would work, their problems would be solved and then they
could be happy - besides, that's what the ads told them! But
deep down inside they knew it would never work and they were
stuck in this body that was getting bigger and bigger, waiting
for their life to start.
One of my colleagues and I decided we had to do something
or be stuck in the same trap.
As a psychotherapist working with eating disorders, I saw
how Anorexics and Bulimics used food to deal with feelings.
With that knowledge, experience and awareness, my partner
and I began our search for a new solution to the diet disasters.
Our 3 years of extensive research revealed:
- Lasting change can only happen in a positive, loving,
supportive environment;
- Permanent change is the result of changes involving
the whole person (body, mind, heart and soul);
- Change is a process not a goal;
- There was no weight loss program available that focused
on any of the principles of lasting change mentioned above,
much less a program that incorporated all of them!
With attention to every detail and our hearts to motivate
each and every step, it took us 4 years to develop our unique,
no-diet, day-by-day method that is found in DIETLESS® and
now Conscious Eating™.
In the 10 years of doing groups in Southern California and
Seattle, Washington, and training and supervising the Conscious
Eating therapists I discovered another key ingredient for
lasting change, your heart.
Putting your heart into everything you do that is important
to you is the greatest motivation for any change. If you
don't believe me, try remembering a time when you said,
"I did it but my heart wasn't in it."
Did you feel like doing it again? Helping you put your heart
into all that is vital to you is one of the major benefits
you will experience in Conscious Eating™.
On my journey I have experienced a lot of hard soul-searching
work, but I have discovered that my own struggles with weight
has led me to the purpose of my life. The passion that twinkled
at the beginning of creating DIETLESS has now grown into
this all-encompassing energy that feeds my soul.
I hope you will open your heart and mind to all possibilities
and begin your journey with me and Conscious Eating™.
It is time to live your life, find your passion, and enjoy
the feeling that nothing in this world could be better!!
From my heart to yours, Carol
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