The Lies We’ve Been Fed: Making Peace with Food and Figure Panel Discussion

Is getting healthier on your list of resolutions again this year? Trying to make these changes is confusing when what we try isn’t sustainable, the messages we get from the media are contradictory, and our body image takes the hits. Eating disorders are on the rise, and the U. S. Weight Loss industry that brought in $160 billion in 2023 blames us for failing what they promised to deliver. In this panel discussion, we’ll discuss the difference between healthy lifestyles and disordered eating scams, how trends in the weight loss industry impact health, and how to really create a healthier lifestyle.

This event is open to the public. The registration fee is $10 at the door or in advance.

We are meeting at Flying Pig Improv at 3203 E. Douglas Ave. from 6 to 8 PM.

Panelists:

Vicky Cleary, Founder and Healthy Lifestyle Coach

UPLIFT Healthy Lifestyle, LLC

As a Healthy Lifestyle Coach, I support women as they update their lives for more energy and less stress. I'm also a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) with a 17-year career managing a variety of projects and teams. I bridge Project Management and sustainable healthy habits to help you show up and be more focused and effective in your business and your life.

I started my healthy lifestyle journey as a child and was very active in gymnastics and physical fitness. I am curious about how the food I ate would sustain my body through all the activity. As an adult, I explored weightlifting, kickboxing, Pilates, yoga, and more! I experimented with a variety of dietary strategies to eat healthy, get lean, or gain muscle.

Friends and coworkers would ask about my strategies, inspired to make changes in their lives. I loved being able to share my experiences and knowledge with them. When I finally learned what a Health Coach was, I knew this was how I could help more people make healthy changes in their lives.

This is also where I tap into my Project Management experience as I teach my clients how to manage their own health like a project. We are all in a state of continuous improvement, and the best, most sustainable way to create change is through a series of baby steps.

I believe in living a healthy life filled with joy and gratitude and celebrating the tiny wins. This inspires and guides my coaching practice, which is focused on helping my clients better connect to themselves and their healthiest selves.

Danielle Kauffman, APRN, HealthCore Clinic

Danielle Kauffman is certified by the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners. She started her career in the medical profession as a Certified Nurses Aid in high school and quickly realized she had a passion for caring for others.

Danielle attended Pratt Community College, where she obtained her Associate degree in nursing in 2007 and completed her BSN in 2014 at Tabor College. Her nursing career started at Ascension Via Christi, where she spent ten years in the telemetry and emergency departments.

But it was during her two years at Children’s Mercy Wichita that Danielle discovered her love for caring for children. She completed her Master’s in Nursing in 2018 through Walden University. While working at HealthCore Clinic in 2019, Danielle realized her love of caring extended beyond children to include women and the LGBTQIA community. Danielle is an active member of the LGBTQIA board in her clinic and aims to improve care for all.

When she is not caring for others, she can be found protesting with her 14-year-old, shopping at the farmers market, or playing with her grand dogs.

Paula Miller, Registered Dietitian, Nutrition Therapist and Licensed Be Body Positive Facilitator.

Owner of Sunrise Nutrition

Paula Miller is an award-winning dietitian who loves Lindor chocolate.  In her weight-neutral, size-inclusive practice, Sunrise Nutrition Consulting LLC, Paula & her team passionately help individuals challenge harmful nutrition beliefs, reclaim joyful eating, and find peace with food.  Her greatest satisfaction is helping people let go of guilt to embrace all food, ending chronic overeating, undereating, and binges.

As a teen, Paula’s own disordered eating tendencies led her to study nutrition in college, obtaining both a Bachelor's and Master of Science in Dietetics.  As an Army dietitian, Paula gained experience in both inpatient and outpatient nutrition care, teaching weekly classes on cardiovascular health, diabetes, and many other conditions.  After her military service, she assisted homecare and hospice patients, counseled pregnant women and parents in the Women Infants and Children (WIC) program, and spent 12 years teaching basic nutrition and joyful eating to college students.

Along with her Registered Dietitian Nutritionist credential, she is a Licensed Be Body Positive Facilitator.  She currently speaks to audiences about ditching the guilt for joyful eating, making peace with their here-and-now bodies, and helping individual clients struggling with disordered eating and eating disorders leave food restriction & body loathing behind.

In her spare time, Paula enjoys time in nature, walking or gardening with her kids, enjoying beautiful sunsets, attending yoga classes, and savoring tasty food and trips to the beach with her husband, a chef.

In her work, Paula offers clients freedom from diet culture with her scientific knowledge of nutrition.  Along with this evidence-based information, she also brings real-world experiences from her own disordered eating past, her varied patient experiences, and her role as a Mom feeding two young children.

Kathy Wiens, Kathy Wiens Coaching

Kathy holds graduate degrees in education and mental health counseling. She is a licensed professional counselor and a trauma recovery coach. For 28 years, Kathy was an early childhood educator, teaching both children and adults. Since 2012 she has worked with churches teaching child protection/sexual abuse prevention classes. Her childhood memoir, Bars, Dumps and Other Childhood Hangouts, was published in 2013.

She started her coaching practice in 2019, Kathy Wiens Coaching, as a safe place to find support, validation, and help in navigating the journey of life. She believes that finding our voice, strengths, and authentic self is an important part of our journey. Her practice offers a variety of resources, including coaching, writing support groups, a blog, a YouTube channel, classes, and a monthly newsletter.

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Kathy is a former blogger and speaker for Dove's Nest and a former board member for CASA: A Voice for Children in Harvey County, Kansas. Kathy has been married to Tim for 36 years, and they have two adult daughters.

Sponsored by Optometric Billings Solutions, optometricbilling.com, (316) 722-2021 and Flying

Pig Improv, flyingpigimprov.com, (316) 833-1889

Our Sponsor

Thank you to our sponsor, Optometric Billing Solutions! At 10501 W. Hampton Lakes in Maize, OBS is a woman-owned, nationally recognized insurance billing company for optometrist clinics in 43 states. It was named by Wichita Business Journal as one of the best places to work in Wichita, based on confidential employee job satisfaction surveys.

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