WHO I AM AND WHAT I DO
WHO I AM
My name is Mekenzie (she/her), and I am a Health at Every Size® and fat-positive therapist and nutrition provider. Like many in this field, my call to this work came from my own long journey with mental health, body, and food, and the life-saving discovery of the fat-positive world, Intuitive Eating, Body Trust®, and social justice/anti-racism/anti-colonialism work that helped me realize my body was not the problem. I do this work now in hopes to walk alongside others as they discover their body is not the problem either, and other truths on their unique path to healing.
I am a white, able-bodied (for now), small-fat person and realize that this means I will not be the correct person for every client and their maximum healing. It is vital to have a provider who understands your identities, systems of power, and makes you feel safe in the room and if you don't think I am the right fit for you for any reason I am happy to refer you to folks who may better fit your needs.
WHAT I DO
I offer both mental health therapy and nutrition counseling separately, or a combination of both services. This means you can see me solely as a therapist, for any mental health need (not just eating disorder, body, or food related issues), as a nutritionist for many different nutrition concerns, or utilize a combination of both services to support your goals. Although I specialize in body and food concerns, disordered eating and eating disorders, I also enjoy working with many other mental health and nutrition concerns. You can find more about my specialties, modalities, and offerings on the SERVICES page.
In all of my roles, I am a Health at Every Size® and fat-positive provider, and practice with an intersectional lens (developed by Kimberle Crenshaw) and social justice framework. All of this means that I do not conflate weight/size and health, and understand that "health" has many social determinants including race, socioeconomic and class status, ability, access to healthcare, housing, and education, exposure to discrimination and trauma, and more. Being a Health at Every Size® provider means I do not engage in intentional weight loss services, but discussing weight, the desire to lose weight, the systems that produce these desires, and working with clients who are still "dieting" or wanting to access weight-loss procedures, etc. are all welcome topics. See more about this on the NUTRITION, THERAPY, and FAQs pages.
CREDENTIALS
I am a Certified Nutritionist in Washington state, click here to read more about what it means to be a nutritionist and what we can work on together.
I am also a LMHC (Licensed Mental Health Counselor) which means I have completed the required 3000 hours of supervised counseling work after graduating. I graduated in 2020 and became fully licensed in 2023.
EDUCATION & EXPERIENCE
+Master of Science in Nutrition and Clinical Health Psychology degree from Bastyr University.
+Currently in Level I EMDR Training, hoping to eventually become a certified EMDR therapist
+ Certified Body Trust® Provider from The Center for Body Trust
+Certified Be Body Positive Facilitator
+Completed nutrition, counseling, and group counseling nutrition shifts at The Bastyr Center for Natural Health
+Completed partial counseling internship at MEND Seattle with focus on intersectional feminism and equitable care
+Completed counseling internship at Rooted Heart Healthcare with focus on Health at Every Size mental health and eating disorder care
+RYT-200 Yoga Teacher from Yoga Now (Omaha, NE) and the Bihar School of Yoga (Bihar, India)
+Completed Yoga For All training with focus on accessibility.
+B.A. in Psychology and Sociology from Western Washington University.