Eat At Ease Counselling

Eat At Ease Counselling We empower you to explore eating challenges as an opportunity for personal growth and self-discovery.

Our holistic, compassionate approach helps you transform food issues and create foundation for lasting wellbeing and more fulfilling life. Welcome, my name is Anna Czuczman, I'm a psychologist specializing in Nutritional Psychology, Eating Psychology and Mind Body Nutrition, which means that sessions with me can be beneficial essentially for anyone who eats :)

Sessions with me can be beneficial:
- If you can't stop obsessing about food
- If you fight your appetite
- If you turn to food every time you feel uncomfortable, sad or lonely
- If you lost weight and gained it back multiple times
- If you punish your body with forced exercise
- If you hate your body
- If you bombard yourself with negative thoughts
- If you postpone the happiness until you have ''perfect'' body
- If you feel like your experience with food and body is holding you back from fully participating in life

november dump ✨celebrating love in newcastle gingerbread lattes soup season continuesbeautiful cabin stay in kinvarrathe...
19/12/2025

november dump ✨

celebrating love in newcastle
gingerbread lattes
soup season continues
beautiful cabin stay in kinvarra
the christmas lights went up in dundalk
pineapple belongs on chicken (and pizza)
tried pickleball, will be back
lovely catch ups
some autumn fits
beautiful sunny day in ravensdale
tkmaxx strolls never disappoint
more birthday celebrations

One of my clients said it best:🗣️ “Every time I go on social media, I feel worse about myself. But I can’t stop scrollin...
19/12/2025

One of my clients said it best:
🗣️ “Every time I go on social media, I feel worse about myself. But I can’t stop scrolling.”

Here’s what we uncovered together:

👉 She wasn’t scrolling to relax - she was scrolling to compare.
👉 And every time she did, she came away with one conclusion:
“They look better. I am not enough.”

But she wasn’t comparing fairly.

She was:
- Zooming in on her insecurities
- Scanning for thinness, perfection, “better”
- Ignoring the millions of bodies that didn’t match the “ideal”
- Forgetting that those images? Often edited, posed, lit perfectly, and taken 100 times before posting

And the saddest part?

She was measuring her worth through someone else’s highlight reel.

If this is you too - know this:

💬 The voice of comparison isn’t the voice of truth.

📲 What you see online isn’t real life.

And when comparison is the trigger for bingeing or body hate, healing means learning how to catch that spiral before it drags you under.

Start by asking:
🪞“Who am I comparing myself to today?”
🪞“What do I believe that image means?”
🪞“What would it feel like to give myself permission to look away?”

You don’t need to match a filtered photo to be worthy.
Your body doesn’t need to “win” in comparison to be good.
You are already enough. And your healing starts when you stop trying to “keep up” and start coming home to yourself.

🤍

"I haven’t looked at my body in years. I shower in the dark. I wear oversized clothes to hide my shape. I skip shopping ...
19/12/2025

"I haven’t looked at my body in years. I shower in the dark. I wear oversized clothes to hide my shape. I skip shopping trips with friends. I avoid intimacy, not because I don’t want it - but because I can’t bear to be seen.”

Shape avoidance often shows up after years of body scrutiny. When mirror-checking and self-criticism become too unbearable, your brain starts avoiding your reflection altogether. No mirrors. No tight clothes. No photos. Just invisibility.

But while avoidance can feel protective - it also traps you. It limits your life. It keeps you stuck in fear of being seen. It reinforces the story that your body is unsafe, disgusting, unworthy.

If you’re here, reading this and nodding quietly to yourself... there’s nothing wrong with you. Your nervous system is doing what it thinks it has to do to keep you safe.

Healing is about reclaiming your right to exist fully, without shame.

🧠 As a therapist, I’ve walked with many clients through this. The path forward starts with kindness.

You deserve more than a life lived in the shadows of avoidance.
We can take it one step, one thread of compassion at a time.

🧷 Save this if shape avoidance feels familiar.
💬 Or share with someone who might need to hear it.

Ever have a day where everything feels off in your body and the only words you have are: “I feel fat”?It happens more th...
19/12/2025

Ever have a day where everything feels off in your body and the only words you have are: “I feel fat”?

It happens more than you think. Especially if you’ve lived with body image struggles or eating disorders.

But here’s what I want you to know - feeling fat isn’t about fat.

It’s usually a way your mind has learned to express other kinds of distress:

🌀 Shame

💔 Loneliness

😔 Sadness

💭 Feeling overwhelmed or bloated or emotionally raw

And if you’ve learned to fear or criticize your body, all those sensations get filtered through the same lens: “It must be my body’s fault.”

While this mislabeling is common, it’s also something we can gently unlearn.

Start by pausing the next time you think “I feel fat” and asking: 👉 What else might I be feeling?
👉 What else is happening in my world right now?

The more we build emotional vocabulary, the less often we have to blame our bodies for our feelings.

💌 Save this for when the “fat feeling” hits

💬 Share if this resonates deeply

“I’m always cold.” 🥶 It’s something I hear so often in recovery spaces. Sometimes it’s said like a joke.Sometimes it’s w...
19/12/2025

“I’m always cold.” 🥶
It’s something I hear so often in recovery spaces.

Sometimes it’s said like a joke.

Sometimes it’s whispered, almost like a confession:
“I can’t ever get warm.”

But here’s the thing:
When your body isn’t getting enough energy, it starts shutting down the non-essentials just to keep you alive.

Heat? That takes calories.
So your body makes trade-offs to protect you:
– blood flow moves away from fingers and toes (they turn blue-ish and cold)
– soft fuzz (lanugo) grows on the skin to trap heat
– shivering slows down because it burns too much energy
– suddenly you’re living in hoodies, blankets, and mugs of tea

Because your body is trying to survive on too little.

None of this means you’re weak.

It means your body is brilliant.

It’s doing the best it can with the resources it has.

But it also means: your body needs more.

More food.
More rest.
More safety.

When people start nourishing themselves regularly again, warmth comes back. Literally.

The fuzzy hair fades. The fingertips aren’t always freezing. The hot drinks become a comfort, not a lifeline.

You’re just cold because your body’s been in survival mode for too long.

It deserves warmth. And so do you.

🤍

I often gently ask my clients, ‘When you’re scrolling through your feed or walking through a crowd, who do you notice?’A...
15/12/2025

I often gently ask my clients, ‘When you’re scrolling through your feed or walking through a crowd, who do you notice?’

Almost always, the answer is: ‘The thinnest person in the room. The fittest one. The one who seems to have it all together.’

It’s not a flaw in you - it’s a learned survival response in a world that tells us thin is better, prettier is safer, and perfection is the goal.

But here’s what happens:

You glance at someone and assume their body means happiness.

You look at yourself and only see what doesn’t measure up.

You ignore the 98% of people around you who don’t match that “ideal”.

And online? It’s even harder. We’re comparing our real, lived bodies to edited, posed, filtered ones. It’s like holding yourself to a standard that literally doesn’t exist.

So if you feel like you're always falling short - it makes sense. The game was rigged before you started.

But here's the shift:
🧠 Noticing when comparison shows up.
💬 Asking what it's trying to protect you from.
🤍 And learning how to soften the voice that says, “I should look like her.”

You’re allowed to exist in your body - even when it doesn't match what you see online.

And the more you challenge the lies of comparison, the more freedom you begin to feel.

🤍

You’re not alone if you feel the urge to avoid your reflection or hide your body. Shape avoidance is something I often s...
15/12/2025

You’re not alone if you feel the urge to avoid your reflection or hide your body.

Shape avoidance is something I often see in clients who have been through years of harsh body criticism.

For some, this avoidance feels like protection. Maybe it started with looking at parts of their body that they're not happy with, pinching, or mirror-checking.

But when the checking became too painful, it flipped into avoidance. And now, the idea of seeing your own body, trying on clothes, or even being touched feels unbearable.

It’s your nervous system trying to shield you from pain. But unfortunately, the more we avoid, the more fear and shame grow.

Healing this takes time, and it doesn’t start with forcing yourself to stand in front of the mirror.

It starts with compassion.

With understanding that your body distress has a history.

That the part of you avoiding your shape is the part that’s been hurting for a long time.

And from there, with support, we can begin to gently loosen the grip of avoidance. Not so you “love” your body right away, but so you can live your life more freely - with less fear, and more presence.

🤍

I hear this a lot in the therapy room: “I just feel fat.” And I always want to pause with care here, because I know how ...
15/12/2025

I hear this a lot in the therapy room: “I just feel fat.”

And I always want to pause with care here, because I know how real that sensation feels.

But I also want you to know - "feeling fat" is not about fatness itself.

It’s usually about something else your body or mind is holding: sadness, loneliness, stress, shame, a tough interaction, a sleepless night, hormones, or even just feeling full.

But when you’ve spent years taught to fear fatness or make your worth about your body, those internal sensations get misinterpreted as “I must be bigger today. I must be out of control.”

This is not your fault - it’s something you learned.

And the good news is that you can also learn a new way to respond.

We can build the skills to decode what you're actually feeling underneath that “fat” sensation.

You don’t have to go to war with your body every time discomfort shows up. You can learn to listen to it instead.

This is emotional fluency. And it’s a big part of healing body image - through compassionate curiosity.

🤍

One of the things I often see in clients with restrictive eating or prolonged undernourishment is that they feel cold - ...
15/12/2025

One of the things I often see in clients with restrictive eating or prolonged undernourishment is that they feel cold - all the time.

And it’s not just a passing chill. It’s bone-deep, persistent cold that seems to cling to them no matter the season or how many layers they wear.

This is physiology. It’s your body adapting in a very intelligent - and very exhausting - way.

When the body isn’t getting enough energy, it shifts into conservation mode. It pulls resources away from things that aren’t essential for immediate survival - like heating your extremities or growing strong hair - so it can protect what is essential: your heart, your brain, your core.

That’s why:

❄️ Your fingers and toes might turn bluish or always feel icy (a response called acrocyanosis).

🥶 You may notice fine, soft hair (lanugo) on your arms or face - this is your body’s attempt to insulate itself.

🌬️ You might dress in extra layers, always carry tea, or avoid going outside - because your brain is trying to protect you from using more calories than it has available.

Clients sometimes say things like “I’m just someone who’s always cold,” but when we look closer, we can see that this coldness is often a symptom of not having enough energy over time.

It’s a physical signal that the body is in scarcity.

The good news is: these symptoms are reversible. When your body receives consistent nourishment, it begins to trust that it’s safe again.

The fuzz disappears. The hands warm up. The layers become optional instead of necessary.

So if you’re noticing persistent cold, or your body feels like it’s constantly asking for warmth - don’t brush it off.

🤍

When we first sit down together, I’m not looking to jump straight into your food behaviors or weigh the severity of your...
15/12/2025

When we first sit down together, I’m not looking to jump straight into your food behaviors or weigh the severity of your symptoms.

Maybe that’s something that in the past made you feel like your story has been reduced to numbers, or that your pain has to be extreme to be valid.

That’s not how I work.

What I really want to understand is you - not just the part of you that’s struggling, but all the parts: your hopes, your values, the things you care about, and the moments that have shaped you.

The eating disorder may be loud right now, but it’s just one chapter in a much bigger story.

You might already have a voice inside that says, “This isn’t bad enough,” or “I should be able to handle this myself.” That voice often sounds practical, 'logical', even protective - but it’s often the eating disorder talking.

Eating disorders don’t just affect food or weight - they affect how we think. They distort self-trust, twist self-care into something shameful, and make it hard to recognize when we actually need help.

Before we set any treatment goals or unpack behaviors, I want to understand what matters to you - not just in this work, but in your life. What lights you up? What are the moments where you’ve felt most like yourself? What are the relationships or dreams that have felt most meaningful?

Recovery is about returning to yourself - reclaiming the parts of you that have been buried under shame, fear, or rigidity. It’s about helping you trust your own judgment again, not just with food, but across the board.

Who taught you that you had to be “fine” to be lovable? Where did you learn that asking for support was weakness? Together, we can unpack how that story got written - and begin to write something new.

If it’s hurting your quality of life, that’s enough to ask for help.
If it’s taking up space in your mind and disconnecting you from yourself or others, that’s enough to ask for help.

You are already worthy of care, right here, in the middle of it.

🤍

✨“If you look for fatness, you will find it.”✨That line hit me like a gut punch the first time I read it.Because I’ve he...
15/12/2025

✨“If you look for fatness, you will find it.”✨
That line hit me like a gut punch the first time I read it.
Because I’ve heard it - in different words - from nearly every client I’ve worked with who struggles with binge eating and body image.

They tell me:
🗣️ “I feel fine some days… until I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror.”
🗣️ “I keep checking my stomach - every hour. I don’t know why. I just do.”
🗣️ “It’s like the more I look, the worse I feel.”

Here’s what’s happening:

👉 The more we scrutinize something, the more flaws we start to see.
👉 And if we’re looking through the lens of fear, shame, or guilt - those “flaws” get magnified.

Think about someone with a spider phobia. They don’t just see a spider. They see a monster.
Because their brain is on high alert.

That’s what shape checking does too.
You’re not just seeing your reflection. You’re seeing through the lens of criticism.
Of comparison.
Of self-punishment.

Even if your body hasn't changed since yesterday, your perception can.

And here's the hardest truth:

🤍 The more you look, the worse it often gets.
🤍 The more you zoom in, the more distorted it feels.
🤍 The more you believe the mirror, the more power it holds.

What if today, instead of checking, you checked in?

✨ How am I feeling?
✨ What story is my brain telling me right now?
✨ What would it feel like to not look - even just for an hour?

Healing your relationship with your body isn’t about loving every angle.
It starts with refusing to interrogate it every time you pass a mirror.

You deserve freedom from the constant mental scanning.
You deserve to look in the mirror and see a person, not a problem.

You are more than what you see.
And your worth was never meant to hang on a reflection.

🤍

Movement is one of the most healing things we can do for our bodies, but only when it comes from a place of respect and ...
08/12/2025

Movement is one of the most healing things we can do for our bodies, but only when it comes from a place of respect and care. When it comes from fear, punishment, or emotional debt, it becomes something else entirely.

If you’ve ever:

🚨 Pushed through a workout even when you were sick or injured

🚨 Felt like you had to “earn” your meals through cardio

🚨 Skipped social plans because you “needed” to go to the gym

🚨 Panicked when rest days weren’t possible
…this is for you.

What may have started as ‘just trying to be healthy’ can spiral into an all-consuming relationship with exercise. You might feel like your worth is tied to how much you move or how much you burn off.

On the other side, if you’ve stopped moving altogether because you feel overwhelmed by shame, or you’ve been taught that movement doesn’t “count” unless it changes your body - you’re not lazy. You’re carrying years of internalized messages that said movement is punishment, not pleasure.

The truth is that movement doesn’t have to be earned.
Food doesn’t have to be burned off.
And your worth was never meant to live on a treadmill.

Start your healing journey today 🤍

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57 Dublin Street, Townparks, Co. Louth, A91 AC81
Dundalk
A91AC81

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