i have a method. and it has a name :)

here's what i'm covering in today's letter in case you're short on time :)- the thing i've been building with clients for 15 years- why i'm finally ready to talk about it publicly- why this is my love letter to carbs :)- why i'm no longer afraid to say 'weight loss'- two stunning recipes: spaghetti squash with garlic butter sauce and the dressing i've been putting on everything <33333- meal inspo etc etc etc :) hi. hi. hi!!! you may have noticed some things look different around here!!;) if you've been here for a sec or longer, you've known this newsletter as EVEN BETTER and it's held a lot of what i've wanted to give you: the systems, recipes and peeks into client meals, the mindset shifts, the emotional stuff, the motivational stuff, the flirting-is-vitamins ;) i have loved writing it (all of that is staying!)!! but something's been sitting with me for a while now…there's a part of my work i've never written about here, or anywhere, actually. for the last 15 years i've been teaching and refining a method for sustainable body composition (and weight maintenance) that genuinely feels really good. it's not a hack or a trend or a 30-day reset thing. it's a method. my method 🥹. one i built slowly, with real people, in real bodies (especially my own!!) it has a name :) :) :) :):The Shira Method™ 🤸🏼‍♂️🤸🏼‍♂️🤸🏼‍♂️🤸🏼‍♂️ it's 🥹 my 🥹 life's 🥹 work 🥹. and from the beginning up until now, the only way to access it has been to become my client. that's changing ;) ;) ;) it just finally feels right to build this bigger, and to build it here!! between the sheer number of people i talk to on any given day who have shared that this method has changed their lives, my intuition, and a culture that's lived through the GLP-1 boom and can't unknow what it's learned saying the quiet part out loud about wanting sustainable weight maintenance, i have this feeling we're ready that said, it's really important to me to be abundantly clear that this isn't just for people who are interested in body composition or weight maintenance or losing weight!! plenty of clients come to me with only feeling good (or even better ;) ) in mind, especially for hormonal stuff and skin and energy stuff. if that's you, dreamy! come on in <3333 i am endlessly grateful to get messages like the ones the below, the honor is never once lost on me 🥹 a few things i wanna share about what The Shira Method is and isn't: it's not diet culture:it issss (and i'm really proud of this part) honestly an antidote to it. a results-oriented, non-disordered way to feel really freaking good, without the trauma so many of us inherited from the diet culture we grew up on (myself very much included) it's rooted in actual practice (not theory):every piece of this method has been workshopped for 15 years on real clients…a lot of names you'd recognize, but way more that you wouldn't, which is kinda the whole point…at least for me… :) it's not about giving things up:this method exists because i really needed a framework and a formula for how to enjoy the things worth enjoying while still feeling good in my jeans it was built to lastttt:the goal isn't to be 'good' for six weeks. it's to have a way of eating and living that still works when life gets busy/hormonal/motivation disappears/we're running low on groceries also, and this is really important to me too, while the method isn't purely a body composition/weight maintenance/weight-loss thing (although that is what many people have been seeking me out for for a long time), i also know that the sheer mention of weight or weight-loss will turn some people off and i hear you and i love you and i respect you. even though i've been helping clients lose weight (in a sustainable, non-disordered way) in private practice for all these years, i've been reluctant for most of those years to even utter the words 'weight loss' publicly. if i'm being completely honest, i've been afraid to. my clients have been too…as if seeking a dietitian to lose weight is somehow shameful. for a while it seemed like anything related to weight loss was associated with being vain, or worse!!, unfeminist and small, because it was assumed that it was coming from an unworthy, self-loathing place. and lordddd knows i hear ya, as a woman who was raised by toxic diet culture in the 90s and early aughts, i certainly understand the concerns, and can appreciate the nuances here, but i've realized that generalizing in this way is actually ✨ deeply ✨ reductive ✨ for ✨ women ✨, and by not sharing my discoveries on what non-disordered, genuinely feel-good body comp and weight maintenance can look like, i fear i am only adding to that problem women are allowed to be self-actualized, therapized, embodied and also to want to fit differently in their mf jeans. we all get to do what feels good for us! and listen, some women may not want to focus on any of this at all, AND I LOVE THAT FOR THEM! but there's nothing wrong with wanting this, at least in the context of how i work with clients sustainably. two things can be true, because yes, i have helped many people achieve some pretty epic transformations over the years, and i'm also certainly not saying that their before pictures weren't completely perfect and completely enough, andddd we certainly don't need smaller or transformed bodies to feel good, this was never about being small !!, just truly feeling good in our bodies whatever that means to you…ok whew glad we cleared that up! transparently though, i've struggled a lot with potentially being misunderstood about that last part, and it's been holding me back from making this a whole damn thing for over a decade. i was afraid of being misunderstood, afraid of what people would project onto it, afraid of being reduced to something i'm not and don't align with, and honestly, afraid of being judged for doing work i've always believed deeply in. but at some point i realized that part of taking your work seriously is accepting that you're going to be misunderstood sometimes. you can't make something bigger while also trying to control everyone's interpretation of it. and once i really understood that, it stopped being scary. i'm placing that here in case you needed to hear that on some level too ♥️ anyhoo, if this sounds bueno, we'll do it the same way i've always done it with clients: together :)))). i'm client zero, because this all started with something i was searching for myself, i've been doing my own method alongside my clients since the very beginning. that said, if you actually prefer not to pay much attention to my method at all and instead wanna just focus on the tools and systems and recipes and emotional stuff and motivational stuff and flirting is vitamins ;) and all the other stuff beyond it here, that's great too!! at its core, The Shira Method is a modern, carb-conscious approach to body composition and weight maintenance that's rooted in structure, agency, and joy!! it's a way of budgeting for the carbohydrates that are worth it to you on any given day, so nothing is off-limits (genuinely nothing!), but there's a system and a formula for making it work day to day for the long haul! next tuesday i'm going to spell out exactly how it works <333 but if you'd like, there's something i want you to do between now and then, and it's so simple it might feel like a trick (it's not!!): for the next week, i don't want you to change anything. no tracking, no rules, no judgement. just notice where carbs show up in your day and which ones you get the most pleasure from…that's the whole assignment and promise me zero judgement…and i'll promise you that this isn't anti-carb, in fact i created this method as my love letter to carbs. you'll see ;) you'll have the whole thing in your inbox next tuesday along with recipes and client inspo (which will all start to make a lot more sense)!!!!!! but for now, just know: if you've been doing everything 'right' and still feel like you're missing something, you're not wrong….you were just missing this ;)))))) and for my current clients and The Shira Method alumni, i love you sm, thank you for trusting me for all these years, next week will be a refresher course, but also way more than that, and i think you're gonna be really into :) recipes of the week: - spaghetti squash with lemon garlic sauce:oh heyyyyy this is very very nice and was really giving back to school dinner energy. i have always loved spaghetti squash with bolognese, which i've shared here too, but this is much easier for a weeknight. heats up so nicely!