Dietitian Susan

29/08/2026

Eight things I want for my daughters, and for yours.

Every one of them is about a girl knowing what her body is for, and Who it belongs to, before the world gets a vote.

Most of the women I sit with did not get that world. They got the other one — where their body became a project before they were old enough to agree to it. And now they are raising daughters inside the same machine, trying to hand over something they were never given themselves.

So read this one twice. Once as the daughter. Then again as the mother — because she learns most of this by watching you, not by listening to you.

Which line would you add? Tell me in the comments. I read every one.

— Susan, RD

27/08/2026

I've been quietly building something for a long time — for Christian mothers ready to stop dieting and start the deeper work. It's called The Nourished Table.

Thirteen years of clinical practice taught me that the teaching is rarely the missing piece. Most women already know what to eat. What's missing is the inner work — the forgiveness, the years at war with the body, the shame no meal plan can touch.

And that work doesn't happen in a video library. It happens in an environment: a small group of women walking the same road, eight weeks, twelve women, with me facilitating. The part most programs skip.

'Two are better than one… if either of them falls, one can help the other up.' — Ecclesiastes 4:9.

💬 Reply with the word WAITLIST and I'll keep you posted on the next cohort. (P.S. If you're not sure where you stand, my free 'Am I a Chronic Dieter?' self-assessment is linked in my bio.)

— Susan, RD

25/08/2026

When your phone stops working properly, you don't hand it to a stranger. You take it back to the manufacturer — because the people who made it have the design. They know what it was built to do, what it runs on, what it can and can't take.

Your body is no different.

When you feel stuck and discouraged with your health, return to the One who designed you. He knows what He made. He knows what it needs. And He isn't waiting for you to fix yourself first.

Where do you feel stuck right now? Tell me in the comments or send me a DM. 🤍

20/08/2026

Your body is not a temple because of what you have done with it.

It is a temple because of Who lives in it.

That is a very different starting line to the one most of us are working from. We tend to assume the sacredness has to be earned — that a body becomes worth looking after once it has been disciplined enough, shrunk enough, fixed enough. So care turns into a debt you are paying off, and every attempt that falls apart feels like proof you were never worth the trouble.

But 1 Corinthians 6 does not say your body becomes a temple once you get it right. It says it already is one, because the Holy Spirit already lives there. The sacredness was given to you. It was never achieved by you.

Sit with that for a second, because it changes what stewardship actually means.

If the temple is already holy, then eating well is not you earning the right to occupy your own body. It is you looking after a place that is already His. That is not a smaller motivation. It is a far steadier one — it does not collapse the week you are exhausted, or the month the scale does not move.

And here is the part I love. Solomon's temple took seven years to build. Seven. Nobody stood at year two calling it a failure.

Your health is a building project too. The woman who makes one small change and keeps it is being far more faithful to the temple picture than the woman who does a dramatic six-week overhaul and collapses in week seven. Patience with your body's pace is not a lack of commitment. It is an act of faith.

So this week, one question instead of a plan: if you cared for your body as a place where Someone already lives, rather than as a project to fix, what would you do differently tomorrow?

Tell me in the comments. I read every one.

You do not have to make your body holy. He already has. You are simply looking after what He is already living in.

18/08/2026

"I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well." Psalm 139:14

18/08/2026

There is so much more that I would like to tell you. More than what can fit into a one-minute reel or a six-slide carousel.

So I am hosting a live webinar: Eating to the Glory of God.

I would like to share with you how women who have been stuck in diets, and in the guilt, fear and shame of the diet mentality, can break free. After a few months of working together they tell me that food does not control them anymore. That they now have more mental capacity to take better care of themselves, and can actually feel what their body needs.

This is not accomplished in one day, but Saturday can be the start of a different way of thinking.

This is for you if you love the Lord and strive to honour Him in everything you do, but your faith and your health still live in two different boxes.

This is for you if you expect yourself to do everything perfectly, and the day you miss, you give up and call yourself a failure. Again.

This is for you if you're tired of feeling guilty for loving food, while you're trying to eat perfectly.

This is not for you if you're looking for a quick fix.

In one hour, live, I'll explain why that cycle keeps repeating, the biology of it and the theology of it, and how you can be set free from it.

It's this Saturday, 22 August, nine to ten in the morning, on Teams. It's R100 to register.

Register at healthybites.co.za, or send me a WhatsApp on 071 351 1845.

I hope to see you there. And if the timing is not working that well, I am going to record the session and you can listen to it afterwards.

10/08/2026

10/08/2026

Restriction creates the binge. That's not a willpower problem — it's physics.

Picture a pendulum. Pull it as far as it goes in one direction; let go, and it swings just as hard the other way. That's your body on a diet.

When you restrict, your body doesn't know it's a goal — it reads it as scarcity. So it builds pressure on the other side: cravings get louder, hunger hormones climb, your attention locks onto the food you've banned. The moment willpower slips, the pendulum swings. Hard.

The answer isn't to pull harder next time. It's to stop pulling. That's Add, Don't Subtract — add protein, add vegetables, add water, add rest. You're not fighting the pendulum; you're letting it settle.

God's economy has always been addition. He adds grace, love, forgiveness. Diet culture asks you to subtract your way to worthiness. I'd rather follow His lead.

💬 What's one thing you're adding this week? Comment it — and save this for your next 'start Monday' moment.

— Susan, RD

07/08/2026

Food is a gift. I'll say that a hundred times over. A beautiful, sensory, God-given gift to be received with gratitude and enjoyed at full tables with the people we love.

But it is not a doctor. It was never designed to treat loneliness. Or exhaustion. Or grief. Or the quiet ache of a day that went sideways.

When we ask food to do a doctor's job, it fails — not because there's anything wrong with the food, but because the food was never the right tool.

The right tool for a wounded heart is the One who made the heart.

Before the cupboard, the Creator. In that order.

💬 What would it look like this week to go to Him first — even once?

— Susan, RD