Shannon’s heart is centered in the healing arts and is an advocate for exploring art, movement, dance and bodywork as self care and transformational tools.  She understands that one's relationship with food can become complex and aims to gently build nutritional adequacy by exploring food preferences, unpacking weight stigma, supporting harm reduction behaviors and building distress tolerance tools.  She deeply resonates with Ellyn Satter’s work, that “eating takes up some of your time and attention, but keeps its place as only one important area of your life” opening to what else you would like to be investing your time in.

 

Shannon believes in the daily practice of distress tolerance skills to manage stress and build  relationship with food and self nourishment, moving her clients away from fear and towards contentment by legalizing all food groups and developing food preferences based on lived experiences and not societal moralization of foods or food groups.  

 

Shannon has worked with adults and adolescents in recovery from eating disorders in residential and partially hospitalized settings. It was here that she first learned about trauma-informed care, body acceptance, body image resilience and gender fluidity.

 

Shannon is a Committee Member with the Puget Sound Chapter of the International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals (IAEDP) and helps to diversify continuing education credits required for healthcare providers to ensure all bodies are represented in conversations of healthcare.

Shannon is from Washington and identifies as Caucasian with Onondaga First Nations and European ancestry, able-bodied, cis-gendered woman and parent.  She loves composting, dancing, drawing, pickleball and mountain biking.

 

Shannon’s Clinical Focuses are:

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• Disordered Eating and Restrictive Eating Disorders, with a focus on weight restoration and legalizing all foods

• Health at Every Size and building Body Image Resilience

• Sports Nutrition for High School and College Athletes

• Digestion & Microbiome Health

• General Wellness

• Health Coach

 

Shannon is a Certified Nutritionist (CN) in the State of Washington.  She holds a Bachelor of Science degree from The Evergreen State College and a Master of Science in Nutrition in Clinical and Counseling Nutrition from Bastyr University.  

 

Shannon offers Nutrition Counseling to Adults and Adolescents

Bonnie is passionate about helping you find peace in your relationship with food and your body through collaborative, intuitive, mind-body healing including the integration of nutrition and mental health counseling by bringing awareness to thoughts, feelings, triggers, and moods that contribute to our nutritional choices and vice versa.  Bonnie is a strong advocate for trauma informed care and believes in the power of exploring the impact of past experiences on our here and now choices, our physical and emotional reactions to triggers, and on our overall health.

 

Bonnie started her nutrition education at a traditional university and felt dissatisfied with the stereotypical recommendations for calorie counting, diet foods, and focusing on the scale.  She knew there had to be something healthier, which led her to Bastyr University where she became passionate about intuitive eating, food as medicine, whole foods nutrition, the connection of nutrition and mental health, and Health at Every Size (HAES)®.  This was life changing, both professionally and personally.  Bonnie has a great appreciation for the courage it takes to seek out help which started through her own collaborative journey towards body positivity and discovering the freedom to eat mindfully and intuitively.

 

Bonnie graduated from Bastyr in 2011 with a dual Master’s in Nutrition and Clinical Health Psychology and has been honored to work in inpatient and outpatient eating disorder, addiction, and mental health treatment centers and most recently in Gender Dysphoria treatment among the incarcerated trans population.  Bonnie is committed to providing a safe space for LGBTQ, BIPOC, People of Size, and all marginalized groups.  She strives to be multiculturally competent  through advocacy, self education, and truly listening to others’ experiences. She helps clients work towards self love and acceptance in order to de-internalize stigmas and to advocate for self  as powerful tools against the impact of discrimination and marginalization in health care and in our society.

 

Bonnie’s Clinical Focuses are:

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• Eating Disorders, with a focus on loss of control when eating in adults and adolescents

• Health at Every Size and Body Positivity

• Emotional Eating

• Gastric Bypass Recovery & Alternatives

• Gender Affirming Transitions

• Addiction Recovery

• Fertility Issues & PCOS

• Nutrition for Mental Health, including the impact of trauma and childhood adversities on digestion, inflammation, and food choice

 

In her time outside of work, Bonnie can be found around town with her wife and toddler at various coffee and tea shops, parks, playgrounds, and sidewalk dining.  She loves cooking, fermenting, hiking, kayaking, and patio gardening.

Dr. McKinstry’s passion for nature and wellness is deep-rooted in growing up here in the Pacific Northwest. Her journey started with a degree in geology and a love of being outside. She then decided to share her knowledge and become a high school science teacher before coaching and training nordic skiing in the Lake Tahoe area. It was there that she decided to return to her roots in the Northwest and seek out a profession that would incorporate her love of nature, health, and human connection which led her to Bastyr University to receive a doctorate in naturopathic medicine. She went on to complete a residency in Helena, Montana before coming back to Seattle to get married, start a family and begin her own medical practice.  She approaches medicine in an integrative and functional manner, using both natural and conventional treatments. She believes that optimal health begins with good foundations, including good food, clean water, fun movement, restful sleep and connecting with nature.  She enjoys working with patients on their healing journeys, supporting, coaching, guiding and counseling them to peak health.

She has also done additional training in Health at Every Size® and Intuitive Eating models.

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Dr. McKinstry’s Clinical Focuses are:

 

• Women’s Health and Hormones

• Digestive Health

• Thyroid Disorders

• Busy Moms

• Stress Management & Fatigue

 

When Dr. McKinstry is not in the office, she can be found adventuring in nature with her husband and 2 boys, either up in the mountains, hiking, skiing, biking, or down at the beach, swimming, kayaking, and throwing rocks into the water.