EllaStephan

If you have been feeling tired in a way that does not respond to rest, running slower than your fitness level should allow, or struggling to get through workouts that used to feel manageable, iron deficiency might be the explanation nobody has checked for yet. Iron deficiency is the most common nutrient deficiency in the…

At some point in your life, a diet probably worked. You lost weight. You felt in control. The rules were clear, you followed them, and the number on the scale moved in the direction you wanted. And then, at some later point, it stopped working. The weight came back. You started over. Tried a different

There is a condition that affects a significant number of female athletes across every sport, every competitive level, and every age group. It disrupts hormones, degrades bone density, impairs performance, affects mood, suppresses immune function, and in some cases causes damage that does not fully reverse. Most of the women who have it do not

Every spring, the same cycle starts. The countdown to summer begins, the swimsuit comes out of storage, and a number gets fixed in someone’s head. Twenty pounds before June. A dress size before the beach trip. Lose five pounds a week for the next month. The math feels clean. The motivation feels real. And then

If you have ever found yourself eating the same way you did at thirty and inexplicably gaining weight at forty-five, you have probably blamed your metabolism. Most people do. It is one of the most deeply held beliefs in nutrition culture that metabolism slows with age, that there is nothing you can do about it,

If you have typed “sports dietitian near me” into a search bar recently, you already know the results are a mixed bag. Registered dietitians, nutrition coaches, wellness consultants, certified nutritionists — the titles blur together quickly, and it’s not always obvious who actually has the training to work with someone who trains seriously. This post

It is a question I hear regularly from runners who are somewhere in the middle of a training cycle, staring down sixteen weeks of long runs and feeling deeply tired of tracking every gram of carbohydrate they eat. Can you train for a marathon and practice intuitive eating at the same time? Or does the

The signs of underfueling in women athletes are real, they are common, and they are almost always misread. Dismissed as overtraining, aging, stress, or just how your body works. Treated with more rest when what the body actually needs is more food. This post is about what those signs look like specifically in women, why

You set your alarm for 5:30am. You get up, get dressed, and head out the door for your run, lift, or spin class. Eating something before you go sounds great in theory, but your stomach is not awake yet, and the idea of food at that hour feels more like a punishment than a strategy.

If you have spent any amount of time trying to eat well, there is a good chance you know this pattern. You are careful with food for a stretch of time, maybe a few days, maybe longer. And then something shifts. You eat more than you meant to, or more than felt okay, and the