Exploring Life & Business with Adison Barnhart of Adison Barnhart Nutrition

Today, we’d like to introduce you to Adison Barnhart.

Hi Adison, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for sharing your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers.
I’m Adison, an intuitive eating registered dietitian but haven’t always been an intuitive eater. I’ve had a very complicated relationship with food… haven’t we all? It all started when I was six years old, which ironically is the age most girls begin desiring to be thinner and dissatisfied with their bodies.

One little comment sparked interest, + the perfect storm of other factors set me up for falling into a very disordered relationship with food. I made my health the center of my world. Well, turns out that’s not healthy either and eventually made me beyond miserable to the point of making me feel like I had no life at all.

At 8, I started gymnastics, which allowed my perfectionistic personality to thrive, set the tone for my obsession with exercise, and started my relationship with my body off on the wrong foot. I even remember one of my gymnastics coaches smacking my tummy and telling me to “suck in” while I was waiting for practice to start.

The next ten years of my life hardwired my brain with unattainably high standards, extremes as the norm, and constant feelings of never being good enough. I was always trying different diets and doing different things I thought were healthy and would help me be a better gymnast, with the hidden motive of wanting to be as small as I could be and look better than everyone else.

An injury forced me to retire from gymnastics in my senior year of high school. I had a stress fracture in my back that caused so much pain, but I competed on it for two years until it got to the point where the pain was unbearable, and I had to give it all up.

My dreams of college gymnastics were off the table. I’m not sure what caused this, as stress fractures happen over time, but with the knowledge I have now, I’d say it could’ve been prevented if I had fueled properly.

Nervous about what my body would look like and how much weight I’d gain in life after sport, and going into college with the whole freshman 15 thing, I began weightlifting, running, controlling my food even more, and obsessing over the way my body looked more than I ever had.

My freshman year of college I met a few people at Ohio State, where I did my undergrad studies, and fell into the bodybuilding world. I started working with a coach, tracking macros more intensely, taking progress pictures, and following a strict (and excessive) lifting + cardio regime.

I did my first bodybuilding competition and won the overall in a bikini. From then on, I did eight shows and got my pro card in less than a year. I was good, and everyone else validated that. I felt like I finally found my calling, passion, and identity.

My worth was completely tied to my achievements and how my body looked. While I was competing, I was also coaching. Before I became a dietitian, I was a macro + fitness coach through my bodybuilding coach’s business. I did the opposite of what I do now and helped people diet and achieve their “dream bodies” through tracking macros.

At that point, I fully believed the way your body looked was directly correlated to how healthy you were. Which I now don’t believe one bit. It’s okay (and possible) to change.

Somewhere within that, I switched majors from becoming a dentist to a dietitian. My bodybuilding coach was also a dietitian and more like a mentor to me. I looked up to him and was grateful he encouraged me to attend school as a dietitian. Nutrition was my passion, and they always said to follow your passion, so I did.

Now, looking back, I see it was more of an unhealthy obsession than a passion; it completely controlled me. My entire life—my education, social circle, hobbies, work—revolved around nutrition, dieting, lifting, fitness, and achieving a certain physique. I was digging myself into such a deep hole, and I didn’t even know it at the time.

During competition seasons, I thrived, was high on life, hit my diet perfectly, achieved goals, and felt accomplished. Every single off-season was such a struggle. I was so all or nothing. After I won my pro card on July 28th, 2018, unknowingly, I stepped off stage for the last time.

I jumped into the off-season with the plan of competing at the pro level in the upcoming year, but my body + mind had a different plan. I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t stick to my macros for my life. I was completely out of control around food—binging all the time, eating food out of the trash, spending so much money ordering food, eating in private, and waking up in the middle of the night to eat.

I avoided social gatherings because of how much shame I felt about all the weight I gained and how anxious I felt about food. I was irritable. My character was ugly, insecure, and self-centered. I did my darndest to “be good” for it to end in messing it up every single time. All I thought about 24/7 was food, my body, and when I’d get my workout in.

I bounced back and forth between being on track and being off track, choosing intuitive eating or tracking macros, letting go of bodybuilding, and sticking with it for about two years. Those were the most challenging two years. The worst decision is indecision. If you’re at a place where you just feel stuck, the biggest piece of advice I have for you is to pick something and go all in on it.

I felt insane. I was sick and tired of living this way. I was at rock bottom and knew I had to figure something out. I couldn’t diet or track macros any longer or ever again. It wasn’t sustainable for me and wasn’t something I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

I never knew of this whole “intuitive eating” nutrition philosophy. The words were thrown around but definitely in the wrong context. I didn’t know what it truly meant and never looked into it.

All I knew then was that I wanted to be normal and balanced. I wanted to eat like a normal person and live a healthy lifestyle. I wanted to feel more connected and trusting of my body and do this whole health thing more naturally.

So that’s what I decided I was going to figure out. During this time, I moved cities and started grad school and my internship in dietetics. I walked away from bodybuilding (and my entire friend group), quit working with my bodybuilding coach, and quit my job because it no longer felt aligned with my health beliefs + values.

In my last year of grad school, I had to do my master’s thesis. Originally, I was going to do it on thyroid health and nutrition because, fun fact, I was born without a thyroid. Still, I ended up doing it on the effects of chronic dieting and intuitive eating because this topic set my soul on fire.

I wasn’t fully healed at this point. I was healing, figuring it out, and honestly struggling quite a bit. Doing my thesis on this topic gave me the knowledge and answers I was looking for and helped me stay centered on finding balance through nutrition, fitness, and life when all I wanted to do was turn around and go back to tracking macros.

With my thesis, I did the research, wrote a long paper based on the research, and created a step-by-step program to help women go from dieting to intuitive eating.

Once I felt knowledgeable about the topic, healed myself, and fully rooted my beliefs and values in the non-diet space, I opened my private practice, Adison Barnhart Nutrition LLC, and started coaching women on their journey toward food freedom.

The program I created for my thesis is the same program I walk my girls through, it’s just been revised, updated, added to and enhanced a million times over since grad school. All my 1:1 coaching clients have access to the program, but you can also purchase the program without working with me in a 1:1 capacity.

I knew going into school for dietetics, I wanted to have my practice. I always thought my practice would be based on helping people lose weight and be completely focused on dieting + aesthetics.

So, where I am now is completely different from where I saw myself when I was starting, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. My struggles with food have become the way I serve the world. My mess is now my message and I fully allow my story to hopefully be your survival guide.

I never trusted anyone to help me when I was going through this because I never thought anyone would understand. I thought I’d work with someone, and they’d put me on a diet, they’d have me restricted, and they’d introduce even more food rules into my brain.

I never asked for help. I was too scared they wouldn’t help fix the root problem and wouldn’t get me to where I wanted to be. So, I became the coach I always wished I had for the girls who were in the same position I was in. So they don’t have to struggle through this like I did.

Alright, let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what challenges have you had to overcome?
Oof, absolutely not a smooth road.

The journey through healing your relationship with food isn’t a smooth one, it’s a messy messy road but then on top of that creating a business once I was on the other side of recovery has been just as messy if not more.

There’s a lot of self-doubt, second-guessing myself, and imposter syndrome that has come up over the years, but as I’ve worked with more and more women, I’ve seen them completely change their mindset around food and, in turn, changing their lives, those feelings rarely come up anymore.

Being an entrepreneur has a lot of ups and downs, but I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else. The most rewarding feeling in the world is the ability to inspire, encourage, and coach women to gain their life back.

All the obstacles and challenges of being an entrepreneur become worth it when you’re doing work that truly changes lives. My girls need me, and I’ll always be here for them, no matter the difficulties.

Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about Adison Barnhart Nutrition LLC?
I help women stop dieting, find food freedom, feel confident in their bodies, and create sustainable nutrition + fitness habits. I specialize in helping women break free from diet culture and learn to trust their bodies regarding food + exercise.

The thing that sets me apart from others is that I get it. I’ve been in their shoes, struggling with the same things they’re struggling with. I have personal and professional experience through my struggles with food and my education and work as a dietitian. Although the personal experience was tough, it gave me the tools, empathy, and passion I needed to better support my girls.

I think the thing I’m most proud of when it comes to my brand is staying 100% true to my values. It can become difficult to stick to my beliefs about food, nutrition, and exercise in a society that preaches the opposite. There is so much misinformation out there, and it can be easy to get sucked into the fads and quick fixes. We do things right at ABN, find root-cause solutions, and care deeply for every client’s well-being.

So, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you before we go? How can they support you?
They can apply for 1:1 coaching through this link (we will set up a free discovery call): https://aebarnhart5.typeform.com/to/ogvghx?typeform-source=www.adisonbarnhart.com

Or join Live Intuitively [my self-paced program + community] through this link:
https://www.adisonbarnhart.com/liveintuitively

Sign up for my weekly newsletter here:
https://view.flodesk.com/pages/623d0e357e7ec064e82a2322

Come hang on IG: @adisonbarnhart.

Collaborations via email: [email protected].

Contact Info:

• Website: adisonbarnhart.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adisonbarnhart/
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/adison-barnhart-ms-rdn-a011061a8

Image Credits
Allie Chambers