Disordered Eating & Body Image Therapy in Tampa, FL
In person in Tampa & virtual across Florida, North Carolina & Vermont
Stop Dieting. Start Trusting Yourself Again (or for the First Time).
You’re not failing at dieting. Dieting has failed you.
Maybe you're stuck in a cycle of food rules, tracking, body checking, "good" days and "bad" days, and a running story in your head about everything you eat. Maybe you've lost count of how many times you've started over. Maybe you can't remember the last time you trusted yourself around food, or looked in a mirror without the negative self talk.
None of that makes you broken, dramatic, or lacking willpower. It means you've spent years (and maybe your whole life) inside a culture that literally profits from you believing your body is a problem to solve. That's not a personal failing. That's a world that was never built to support you.
I know this firsthand. Years of chronic dieting left me feeling like my life's purpose was shrinking myself, in every possible way. Healing isn't about finding more willpower. It's about unlearning the noise that taught you not to trust yourself in the first place.
is this you?
You've been "on" or "off" a diet for as long as you can remember - sometimes both in the same week (or day)
You've lost and regained the same weight more times than you can count
You catch yourself body-checking in mirrors, windows, or photos throughout the day, almost without noticing at this point
You eating “perfectly” all day, and then can’t stop bingeing or overeating at night - and you hate yourself for it
Your mood can shift based on what the scale, your clothes, or a passing comment tells you
You assume everyone around you is judging your size or appearance
You've pulled back from things you used to love (the beach, photos, dating)
Being highly sensitive means the stress of all this hits you harder
You run decisions through your head over and over before you make them, or say yes when you mean no (until you've lost track of which is which)
You feel like you're one mistake away from everyone finding out you're a fraud
You wonder if you're "sick enough" to deserve real support
Hot Tip: You don't need to have an eating disorder diagnosis to know this is taking up too much space in your life
You don’t have to keep doing this alone.
I offer a free 15-minute consult so you can get a feel for whether this is the right fit - no pressure, no commitment.
Accepting new clients · Tampa in-person & virtual throughout Florida, North Carolina & Vermont
Here’s what we’ll do together
What Disordered Eating & Body Image Therapy in Tampa, FL Looks Like
Warm, grounded, anti-diet, weight-neutral care.
This isn't about finding the "right" way to eat, or learning to love your body all the time (that might feel super unrealistic anyways). It IS about building enough peace that food and your body stop running the show.
We work on:
✔ Untangling your food rules
And the identity you may have built around being "good" or "disciplined" at dieting - without blaming yourself for any of it (ew, no thanks!)
✔ Healing body image distress
Not by forcing body love, but by building more compassion, safety, and respect.
✔ Understanding emotional eating with compassion
Food helps us cope for real, legitimate reasons. We explore that and build a fuller toolkit.
✔ Learning to spot diet culture messaging
Especially the ones that make you feel like your body is a problem to fix, or that you needed a small one to be worthy of care.
✔ Deeper processing + practical tools
So a bad body image day doesn’t take you out
What We Don’t Do Here
x Diet plans
x Weigh-Ins
x Calorie Counting
x Forcing a Specific Food Philosophy
x The toxic-positivity thing where you're supposed to force yourself to love your reflection
You’ve been there, done that. Let’s try something different.
How We Get There
I'm not a one-size-fits-all therapist. I pull from approaches that actually work for the kind of deep, identity-level stuff a lifetime of dieting is made of.
The part of you that plans your next diet, tracks every bite, or panics at a number on the scale isn't all of you - it's a part that's been trying to keep you safe, accepted, or in control for a long time. Parts work helps us get curious about what that part is protecting you from, instead of fighting against it.
A lot of messaging about bodies got absorbed before you had words for it - at family dinner tables, in doctor's offices, in dressing rooms. Brainspotting works directly with the nervous system to process what's gotten stuck there, especially when food issues or other trauma has old roots.
As a Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor, I help you rebuild trust with your body's own signals - not as a new set of rules to follow perfectly, but as a way out of needing rules at all.
You get a blend of science and compassion - with absolutely zero judgment.
I work with folks who are exhausted by the cycle of dieting, restricting, and starting over. You don't have to have a clinical eating disorder diagnosis to deserve support - a lot of the pepol I work with have just been quietly white-knuckling their way through diet culture for years and are finally ready for something to shift.
I work with people who…
Have dieted, tracked, or restricted on and off for years (or decades) and are ready for it to be over
Feel like their worth has gotten tangled up with being "good" at controlling their food or their body
Live in a larger body and are tired of a world that treats that like a problem
Grew up around diet talk, weight comments, or pressure to shrink themselves
Are highly sensitive and feel food and body stress more intensely than the people around them
Have experienced weight stigma, including from other medical providers
Want care that is anti-diet, weight-neutral, and HAES-aligned
Are tired of starting over every Monday
Identify as LGBTQIA+ and want a provider who gets it
Don't have (and don't need) an eating disorder diagnosis to know this deserves real support
A little about me
Hi - I’m Keri. An LCSW, Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor, and therapist in Tampa, FL.
I also dieted for about twenty years. On, off, and everywhere in between - counting, restricting, promising myself Monday would be different. I was never diagnosed with an eating disorder, though I probably could have (and should have) been. I was never in a thin body, and diet culture tends to reward people like me for restricting instead of questioning it. So no one ever told me to stop. No one was concerned about the impacts on my mental health and life overall.
Two things changed that. I met an anti-diet dietitian - the first one I'd ever encountered - who helped me start questioning everything I'd been taught about weight and health. Then I had kids, and realized I did not want to continue to pass this down to them - I wanted them to see their inherent worth outside of their body size.
I'm still in recovery. That's not a typo - recovery isn't a finish line, it's an ongoing practice, and I still have hard body image days. The difference is I know what to do with them now, and that's exactly what I want for you too. With the support you deserve.
- Keri Baker, LCSW · Disordered Eating Therapist · Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor
Questions?
FAQs
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Eating patterns such as restriction, bingeing, rigid rules, body checking, and chronic dieting that interfere with your life without necessarily meeting full criteria for a diagnosable eating disorder. Both deserve real support.
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Not exactly. Eating disorders are diagnosable clinical conditions with specific criteria; disordered eating is broader and doesn't require a diagnosis to be worth addressing. Also our medical system has not quite caught up with what folks are actually experiencing - especially those in larger bodies or who are neurodivergent.
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Nope! A lot of the people I work with have just been quietly white-knuckling their way through food ore body image struggles for years and are finally ready for something to change. That's enough.
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100% Yes. My approach is anti-diet, weight-neutral, and HAES-aligned (Health at Every Size). Weight loss is never the goal or focus of our work together (because I don’t think it works or is helpful)
As someone in a larger body myself, I understand just how important this is.
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Yes - I'm a Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor (meaning I went through extra training around this(, and it's one of the core frameworks I draw on here. If you want to go deeper specifically on intuitive eating, see my Intuitive Eating Therapy page.
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Yes, throughout Florida and Vermont, alongside in-person sessions in Carrollwood, Tampa.
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Self-esteem, body image, and your relationship with food are rarely separate things - for most people, they're the same underlying wound. This page covers that work as a whole rather than splitting it into separate specialties. If people-pleasing, perfectionism, or a harsh inner critic are the main thing bringing you here, you're still in the right place.
What healing can feel like.
You stop obsessing over what you ate. Your body feels less like a project. You eat to nourish yourself and for enjoyment (imperfectly), not out of anxiety. You stop panicking about weight changes. You begin trusting yourself again.
You deserve support because you are worthy as you are. You just need the tools to help you see that.
Disordered Eating & Body Image Therapy in Tampa, FL
Services are also offered virtually throughout Florida, North Carolina and Vermont