About Tracy Brown, RD, LD/N
Tracy Brown RD,LD/N is a nutrition therapist, personal trainer and speaker. She is the Director of Nutrition Therapy Associates in Orange Park, FL and also sees clients in the Gainesville office. Tracy has specialized in the treatment of eating disorders and eating problems, for adults and children, as well as sports nutrition. Tracy’s medical nutrition therapy expertise lies in renal nutrition and the comorbidities that often accompany it such as diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease.
Tracy has also been a National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) personal trainer. While she no longer works as a personal trainer, Tracy brings this extensive knowledge of personal training to her counseling, especially those with compulsive exercise issues, and exercise resistance.
Her education includes:
- BS, Nutrition, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL
- Dietetic Internship, Barnes-Jewish College of Nursing and Allied Health, Washington University Medical School
Tracy is currently completing an intensive two-year training program with Dr. Kratina to enhance her skill in treating those with disordered eating and eating disorders.
Tracy routinely teaches intuitive eating workshops at Sante Fe Community College and presents regularly to the public. Other public engagements include Gainesville TV 20 interviews promoting mindful eating and regular activity for children and adults.
Why I've Dedicated My Life to Helping Others With Eating and Nutrition Concerns
Like many others, my own eating problems evolved in high school as a way of dealing with insecurity, guilt and always believing that I had to be perfect and good to be wanted. No matter how I excelled in school, sports or in peer groups, I did not feel good enough, so I turned to what society deems to be acceptable: manipulate my body to try to make my perceived “flaws” less.
What started as something so innocent: eating “healthy”, eating less fat, exercising on top of two hour sports practices, became a 24 hour a day mission to ever eat less and move more.
It took the skill of a dietitian familiar with the non-diet approach to help me release the grip I had on controlling my emotions and life through food and helping me find shades of gray in a world I had only seen as black or white, good versus bad. Though her guidance helped, I wasn’t fully sold on the fact that thin didn’t equal perfect and wanted.
My weight crept up as I restricted my food intake during the day and became so ravenous that I would eat past fullness most nights, not realizing that this is the body’s natural response to food restriction and dieting.
All the education I attained through my nutrition courses couldn’t convince me that I too, needed food, but I also I come to the realization that what I was doing to myself was insanity and no way to live.
Through much soul searching, research, trial and error on myself and in work with my clients, I have seen how food restriction, even in medically-necessary situations, does not work.
Our bodies, along with a dose of nutrition knowledge, are our best advisors into how much food we need and what will keep us healthy. When clients learn to un-shackle themselves from the constraints of dieting, their lives open up, they feel free to do the things they said they would do when the lost the weight. Those with eating disorders start to realize their true selves and become more accepting of themselves when they embrace their needs and emotions; all of them.
It is quite extraordinary to be a part of this process. I am grateful to have been able to devote my career to guiding people toward a life free of judging themselves by the food they may eat or the body they were born to have.
On a More Personal Note
Tracy lives with her husband and two "babies," Hank and Chucky.
She enjoys time outdoors, jogging and dabbling in all kinds of sports. Passionate about fastpitch softball, Tracy can often be found at the Florida Gators softball field rooting on her favorite team, among other sports.
On a more low-key day, reading, gardening, cooking, chatting with friends and family and channel-surfing might be on the agenda.