I’m Lynn Penrose, RD and I’ve sat where you’re sitting right now.
In fact, I created Funky About Food just to help you. It’s time to take your power back from food and live free from your food struggles.

My passion for nutrition therapy comes from firsthand experience about the positive transformation nutrition therapy can have on someone struggling with an eating disorder or someone who is just preoccupied with counting calories or doesn’t know how to stop eating. My process of nutrition therapy initiates a journey towards peace of mind before, during and after you eat.

Now, I know I don’t know you very well, but I do know what it’s like to be funky about food. In fact it was being funky about food that lead me to becoming a registered dietitian more than 20 years ago. The six teachings are the summary of the changes I made to relieve myself of food obsession, over and under eating and weighing myself everyday!

So, I know that you are frustrated right now, and you might be feeling a little vulnerable, maybe even a little alone. That’s okay. Funky About Food as a safe place for you to come and spend time and find the support and assistance you need to help escape your food funk.

So what’s my story?
So, what’s my story? I began restricting foods in high school, fooling myself into thinking I was eating healthier. However, it quickly got out of control and I became completely preoccupied all day long with what I would and wouldn’t allow myself to eat. Since I was starving myself, I began to binge on foods that I was not allowing myself to eat. My only solution for the bingeing became purging. I was in food jail, living between starving and bingeing. Then off to college, however, my life felt so out of control, these narly symptoms grew worse! I enrolled in my colleges’ Nutrition and Dietetics Program, under the premise that if I knew more about food science, this would solve my food problem. Wrong! My weight went up and down, just like an elevator, which, of course, enhanced my ever present mood swings. Does this define hell on earth?? Indeed. Now my head was full of food and nutrition knowledge, with still no solution in sight.

So, it’s hard for me to define the timeline of when I began to make slow changes in my eating habits, probably because they were so small at first. I do know that it was when I began getting honest about the food hell I was putting myself through. I gradually began to let go of the crazy food rules that ruled me like a dictatorship. I slowly learned that my brain rarely had the helpful answers I so desperately needed, especially when it came to food choices. I began to notice that eating when I was too hungry ended up in compulsive overeating, and if I got too uncomfortably full that I was miserable beyond words can describe. If I can summarize (believe me, I could talk about this for hours!), I began listening to me and to my very own rhythms.

I am not a super human being, you can do what I did…

One of the reasons I am so passionate about the Funky About Food way of teaching is that it is a personal journey that has worked not only for me but for many other people I have worked with. Each teaching has been born from personal and professional experience, so when you join Funky About Food, you are working with someone who has been where you have been, someone who knows the struggles, the doubt, the fear, and someone who knows the path to your food freedom.

I’d like to guide you down that path and show you the joys of a balanced relationship with food. I have lived and breathed this disorder and have designed this site to give you interactive support, as well as one to one support when you need it.

Food recovery doesn’t happen once and then you’re cured. In my personal and professional experience it is a cyclical process. What this means is when we go through life and face difficult situations, we will naturally feel a pull to revisit our primary food struggle. Periods of extreme emotion in your life are not going to go away, which is why you need ongoing support to help you deal with them so that when you are faced with a challenge and start to feel the emotions that used to trigger your food habits, you have practical ways of dealing with them without turning to food.

I coined the term Funky About Food and set up this program to tackle the epidemic of food compulsivity that plagues most of the people I meet. The world needs a way to tackle the unrealistic obsession with being skinny and the food insanity that is forced onto us by the media. Funky About Food is a safe haven from food media madness where people can be guided by me towards their food freedom in a way that is gentle, powerful and long-lasting.

This is my story, now I want to learn about you and how I can help. So, sign up and get free hunger/fullness scale and other helpful worksheets.

Testimonials
1. In my work with Lynn, I learned to inhabit my own skin and to be a participating member in my life. After nine years of starving and numbing my body in an attempt to take away my emotional world, teetering on a thin line between living and dying, Lynn gave me the gift of hope. Today, I am healthy, happy, and content. Lynn’s approach to food is unlike anyone I’ve ever worked with. In working with Lynn I’ve learned to listen to my body and honor my hunger. Lynn, I am eternally grateful for our work together! -S.M.

2. Lynn is a breath of fresh air. She has taught me to trust my body and listen to what it is telling me. Never in my wildest dreams would I think my days would be filled with love, joy, self-acceptance, and body appreciation. I eat what I want and I don’t worry about it because I now know when I am full. I now trust my self that I will stop eating with ease and grace at the right time. I owe this to Lynn’s dedication to me and my recovery. The nutrition therapy that Lynn provides is an essential part of life! -E.S.

3. I have worked with Lynn in clinical and private settings, and it always a pleasure.  In every Eating Disorder facility I’ve worked in, the dietitian is the usually the most hated person in the program.   But not Lynn- she elicits warmth and commands a lot of respect.  She is empathic, gentle and yet firm and very enthusiastic and passionate about her work.
-Dr. Meme Rhee

4. Lynn is an amazing person who has so much to offer. I’m lucky to have had the opportunity to work with yher and have her in my life, she really did have a huge impact on me. I never thought we could do such big things in such a short amount of time. Lynn, you’re the best, and I hope one day I can do something for you and give back what you gave to me.-W.M.

5. Just over three years ago there was no fat in my diet, I weighed myself multiple times a day, every calorie was counted (even a piece of gum or a tic tac), I freaked out about going to restaurants, and every bite of food was a torturous event. Looking in the mirror, especially after a meal, was a whole other traumatic event that I would subject myself to throughout the day. Then I met Lynn. The first time I met with her she challenged my fear of fat and had me eating almonds and salad dressing the very next day. She related all of my fears and rules to the bigger picture of my life, and as a result, got me out of my food shell and into life. Today, I never stress about where or what to eat, I can travel all over the world and enjoy the food wherever I am. Most importantly, I can live my life and eat a few meals a day rather than the food I eat being my life. Lynn not only taught me how to eat, but she taught me how to put down my fork at the end of a meal and go have a life. -A.R.

6. I have found much more than a dietitian in Lynn! She goes beyond the basics of advising me on what to eat and how much to exercise; she constantly pushes me to get in touch with my body’s signals and explore the meaning behind how I treat my body. She wants to hear the stories that led to my need to see a dietitian, and that enables her understand and help me even more effectively. She is caring, objective, and nonjudgmental. My journey would not be the same without her, and she has truly inspired me to strive for the healthiest possible mind and body. –M.D.

7. I love your non-bullshit yet understanding approach, you’ve been there so thanks for sharing your journey with me! -A.V.

8. You are patient and you make me feel special, and you know me better than I know myself, and you see as more than my eating behavior, you see what I cannot yet see. (love that!)- E.C.

9. You are real, you genuinely care about me, and I trust you which is a big deal for me, you’re instrumental in my recovery and I respect you so much because you put a lot of effort into getting to know me and breaking through my walls. You know how to work with me and approach certain food scenarios.-M.R.

10. You are unique because of the authentic client-dietitian relationship you build through trust, wisdom and the mind/body connection-J.T.