Seasonal changes always tend to be a little bumpy. Be it what to wear or what to eat, it is hard to remember what worked last year. Spring, as we transition from long dark winter to brighter days, can feel particularly jarring.

From a diet-culture view this is also the time that “spring detoxes” start to gain steam. Diet culture is predictable; it capitalizes on these moments of uncertainty to make us collectively feel bad about our bodies and worried about our health.

But we aren't doing that here. Instead of a "cleanse," let's talk about a refresh.

Gentle Nutrition, Mental HealthAmber HansonMarch 16, 2026meal planning

How to Meal Plan Without the Burnout: A Gentle Nutrition Guide

This post was first written in 2021, but my view on meal planning has evolved since then. Through my own recovery from rigid, orthorexic eating patterns and my work as a clinician, helping others find confidence in food without restriction, I’ve learned that a “perfect” plan is often the enemy of a sustainable one.

I still contend there are as many ways to meal plan as there are meals in a week. The key is finding what works for you.

The single biggest factor in long-term health isn't a specific diet but rather eating a wide variety of foods consistently. To do that without losing your mind, you need a system—not a set of rules.

Gentle Nutrition, Mental Health, Intuitive EatingAmber HansonMarch 10, 2026meal planning

How to End Daily Dinner Decision Fatigue with Flexible Meal Planning

Whether you are single and cooking feels like a hassle for just one person, or a parent fielding a million questions a day (why do we have eyebrows?) along with alllllll the household food opinions, we’ve all been there: staring into the fridge, too tired to think, too hungry to wait (bonus points for a toddler in meltdown).

And that is just dinner. It is easy to feel resentful of the fact that we need to eat so many damn times each day.

Gentle Nutrition, Mental HealthAmber HansonFebruary 27, 2026meal planning

What is Body Image? Self-Perception is More Than Appearance

An overly simplified definition of body image is how you picture yourself in your mind’s eye. This often has strong focus on appearance – looks, height, shape, size, and other physical attributes.

And, yes, how you picture yourself is part of the equation. However, that definition falls short of the complex (and sometimes contradictory) way you think, feel, and perceive your body in this world. These beliefs about your body can be both positive and negative and can change over time as you are exposed to new information or experiences.

Body image is a deeply personal internal experience that can be heavily shaped by external influences.

How to Stop Emotional Eating

Since eating is required for survival, feelings of pleasure, satisfaction, and comfort related to it are hardwired into humans to make eating a desirable activity. Many of us learn to use food to help soothe or distract ourselves from uncomfortable emotions because food is readily available and reliably provides, at least momentary, comfort and distraction.

5 Tips to Make Holiday Eating More Enjoyable

In the long term, improving your relationship with food makes food-centric celebrations easier to navigate and more pleasurable. The challenge with changing your relationship with food is it doesn’t happen quickly. However, if you are reading this just weeks or days before the holidays, all is not lost. There are some simple things you can do now that increase your short-term pleasure in holiday foods and lay the groundwork for deeper work in the future.

Why I Quit Social Media and 6 Things I Do Instead

Social media is a hot topic these days. It is both blamed for the downfall of humanity while at the same time providing life-affirming connections for those who may be otherwise isolated.

My decision to quit social media took a few years and a good amount of personal reflection. For me, I found the toll it took on my mental and emotional health was greater than the benefits I gained from being on it.

Food and Mood: 6 Nutrients For Anxiety and Depression

What we eat does impact how we feel. If we skip regular meals and prop ourselves up with caffeine, sugar, and refined snack foods, we are not only missing important nutrients, but we are also causing blood sugar, our brain’s preferred energy source, to erratically spike and drop throughout the day, which is very stressful on the body.

Mental HealthAmber HansonDecember 11, 2023gentle nutrition

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