Dietitian Susan

Dietitian Susan Helping Christian moms heal their relationship with food and their body. Free: "Am I a chronic dieter self-assessment"
healthybites.co.za

We are passionate about people and food! When you work with us no foods are off-limits, and we believe that all foods can fit. If you are sick of diets that do not work and are ready for balance and consistency instead of perfection, you are in the right place! We are located in Heidelberg and do virtual consultations. Brought to you Susan Lessing (Registered Dietitian)

Four words from Ecclesiastes 4 that change the way I think about every long, hard rebuild a woman comes to me with."Two ...
24/06/2026

Four words from Ecclesiastes 4 that change the way I think about every long, hard rebuild a woman comes to me with.

"Two are better than one — because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up the other. But woe to him who is alone when he falls."

Community is not extra. Community is design.

Whatever this work is for you — letting go of a diet pattern, rebuilding your relationship with food, doing the inner work behind the eating — you were not built to do it alone.

That isn't a productivity tip. It's a God-design principle. He spoke the universe into being, looked at the man He had made, and said — "it is not good for the man to be alone." He could have built us self-sufficient. He built us for company.

Find your one. Find your few.

💬 Reply and tell me: who's walking this with you right now?

— Susan, RD

22/06/2026

Feeding children can sometimes be wild and snack time can feel never ending...as a mom of 3 I know the drill. A few things to consider:

1. Don't ration. Have something like a fruit bowl available and allow them to help themselves. Teach them to listen to their hunger and fullness.

2. Add don't subtract: add protein and colour.

3. Don't label: don't call foods good or bad. 1 Timothy 4:4 receive it all with thanksgiving.

That's snack time goes. No shame, just feeding.

Reply and tell me what snack time looks like in your house?

- Susan, RD

18/06/2026

I am excited to give you an update on The Nourished Table Cohort 1 group.

Sometimes I can't believe it is really happening, I feel small and in awe of what the Lord is doing. I feel like a small gear in a big beautiful machine that gaining so much momentum that it will keep moving in spite of me.

If you feel moved, send me a message to join the waiting list and be the first to know when the second group will start.

Most food carousels are rulebooks dressed up as advice. This one is a list — without the moralising.In 13 years of clini...
17/06/2026

Most food carousels are rulebooks dressed up as advice. This one is a list — without the moralising.

In 13 years of clinical practice, I've watched women try to memorise lists of 'good' foods and 'bad' foods, only to end up further from trusting their own bodies than when they started.

The better question isn't "what's allowed?"

It's "what loves you back?"

Which foods leave you feeling steady through the morning? Which ones leave you energised in the afternoon? Which ones leave you genuinely satisfied after dinner — not stuffed, not under-fed? Which ones make you feel like yourself the next day?

Notice. Don't moralise. Build the list. Trust the body He made.

Save this carousel — and in the comments, tell me one food that loves you back. (I'll go first: eggs at breakfast. Every time.)

Psalm 34 says — "Taste and see that the Lord is good." He gave you taste on purpose. Use it.

💬 Save + one food that loves you back in the comments.

— Susan, RD

16/06/2026

The diet industry sells you a six-week overhaul. As a registered dietitian, let me tell you why that promise is unbiblical — and what to do instead.

1 Kings 6 tells us Solomon's temple took **seven years** to build. Seven years for the place God Himself would dwell.

He did not rush His dwelling place. He took the time it took.

Your body — the temple of the Holy Spirit — was not designed for a six-week makeover. The patterns took years to form. They unwind in years too. Six weeks is not enough time.

And six weeks is not the goal.

2 Corinthians 4:16 says "our inner self is being renewed day by day." Not week by week. Day by day. Small. Consistent. Patient. That is the design.

Most of my long-term clients have made meaningful change over twelve to twenty-four months, not twelve weeks. The ones who tried to do it in six weeks were back in my office a year later, exhausted.

Excellence, not perfection. The temple took seven years. Your body has His timeline too — and it is kinder than the industry's.

💬 Reply and tell me: what does 7-year patience look like for you?

— Susan, RD

Three words for the gym, the kitchen, and the bathroom mirror this week.*Stronger, not smaller.*After thirty, women lose...
11/06/2026

Three words for the gym, the kitchen, and the bathroom mirror this week.

*Stronger, not smaller.*

After thirty, women lose roughly 3–5% of muscle every decade. That muscle is not aesthetic. It is the structure that keeps you upright in your seventies, that protects your joints, that holds your bones together, that makes climbing the stairs with a grandchild on your hip possible.

Diet culture trained us to chase smaller. Smaller waist. Smaller plate. Smaller portion. Smaller, smaller, smaller — until we are too small to do the work He gave us to do.

Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. You don't care for a temple by shrinking it. You care for it by strengthening it.

Lift the heavy thing. Eat the protein. Take the walk. Honour what it was made to do.

💬 Reply and tell me: one way you're choosing *stronger* this week.

— Susan, RD

10/06/2026

There's one question I would like to ask you, & it might change the way that you see your body within ten minutes.

The question is — do you see your body as an **ornament**, or an **instrument**?

Because they require very different care.

An ornament needs to look right. You polish it. You display it. You worry about scratches. You measure its value by how it appears.

An instrument needs to be ready. You tune it. You feed it. You rest it. You honour what it was made to do. You measure its value by what it's free to do.

Ephesians 2:10 says we are "His workmanship — created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

Workmanship. Not decoration. Instruments built for a purpose.

God did not create you to be decorative. He created you to be useful. The most beautiful thing about your body is what it's free to do — when you stop trying to make it look right.

💬 Reply and tell me: one thing your body is ready for this week.

— Susan, RD

Most teaching about emotional eating treats the food as the problem. It isn't.Food is the visible tip. The wound is belo...
09/06/2026

Most teaching about emotional eating treats the food as the problem. It isn't.

Food is the visible tip. The wound is below.

In 13 years of clinical practice I've watched the same pattern over and over: a woman comes in believing she has a willpower problem with food. Within a few sessions we discover she has a coping problem with a wound she's never named — grief, exhaustion, loneliness, an old hurt nobody helped her process, a marriage that's quietly emptied, a season she didn't know how to grieve.

Food became the visible coping strategy because food was available and gentle. The food is not the problem. The wound is.

And food can't fix what food didn't break.

Psalm 34 says — "the Lord is close to the broken-hearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit." That's the verse the iceberg points to. Not — eat less, try harder. The verse is — He is already close. The wound has a healer.

A cookie is a lovely gift. But it cannot heal a heart. Only He can.

💬 Save this carousel. And in the comments — what's been under your iceberg lately? (You don't have to name it specifically.)

— Susan, RD

05/06/2026

Three things my three daughters have never heard me say.

I'm a registered dietitian and a mother — and I think about this every single day.

One. "I shouldn't eat this." Because if Mom can't eat it without guilt, my daughter learns that food carries shame. She is watching.

Two. "I need to work this off." Because if exercise is punishment for eating, my daughter learns that her body is something to be earned. Her body was given. It is not a debt.

Three. "I was so bad today." Because if I tie my goodness to what I eat, my daughter learns that her worth is on the plate. Her worth was settled at the cross.

Deuteronomy 6 says we teach our children when we sit, when we walk, when we lie down. The biggest teaching happens in the silent years — not the lecture moments.

Your daughter is not learning her body image from your one good talk. She's learning it from how you stand in front of the bathroom mirror. From what you say when the photo turns out unflattering. From how you talk about your own dinner.

Watch the script you're handing on.

💬 Reply and tell me: one phrase you're cutting from your kitchen this week.

— Susan, RD

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