enaissance Nutrition Center, Inc. provides nutrition counseling for individuals, groups, and corporations in all areas of nutrition - from corporate wellness and sports nutrition to diabetes management and recovery from major illnesses. In the beginning, though, our work focused on recovery from the addictive and compulsive eating disorders. I chose the Swallowtail butterfly as our logo because it is beautiful, first, and I love the symmetry and intricate elegance of its wing pattern. But even more because, for centuries, butterflies have been a symbol of transformation, change, and rebirth. They exemplify freedom, grace, and flamboyance as well as strength of purpose.

Butterflies have four distinctive life stages that often can be related to the stages of a long-term food problem. Butterfly eggs are laid on the undersides of tender leaves. The baby caterpillar (called a larva) has strong jaws and sharp teeth. It begins life by chewing its way out of its egg; it may even eat its entire egg shell. From a very early age, it eats - and it eats a lot. It eats large amounts of leaves, buds, and even whole plants.

As it grows, its skin becomes too tight, so it sheds its skin and creates a new one, just as many compulsive eaters shed one size of clothing for larger and still larger sizes. A baby caterpillar is very good at this - it can increase its size by more than one thousand times because of its eating.

After several days or weeks of eating large amounts of food, shedding its skins, and searching for more food, something strange seems to happen to the caterpillar. Certain stirrings are going on inside him or her. Eating green leaves no longer seems to be enough. Is he dissatisfied with his life? As far as we know, caterpillars don't grumble or complain to other caterpillars - "I hate myself," "I hate my body," "I am a furry fat lumpy worm," "I hate who I have become" - but it would seem that the caterpillar feels the need for a better more interesting life. Instinct tells him it is time for a change. He has come to a turning point. He has taken a hard look at what he sees, and what he is, and he is not satisfied. He knows there is a better life available to him.

So the caterpillar finds a safe and sheltering, supportive leaf or stem. It anchors itself by a silken cord that it spins. It may spin a web of silk around itself to hold itself to the stem.

If you feel like a caterpillar, Renaissance Center is intended to be that sheltering leaf, that supportive stem, that solid branch. We intend to be a safe and supportive place, providing the skills and structure for the transformation that comes next.

What comes next is one of the most dramatic, incredible metamorphoses in nature. The last skin is shed, and becomes a hard, translucent shell - a chrysalis - enclosing the caterpillar. The caterpillar's cells are broken down and reorganized. Short stubby legs become long and thin. Simple one-dimensional eyes become complex and multifaceted. The thick abdomen becomes slender. The earthbound body grows wings and becomes capable of flight.

Just as the worm disappears and the butterfly emerges, you are able to change enough to be truly free of your food problems.

When the butterfly is ready to emerge from the chrysalis, the shell splits apart. He crawls out head first. He lets go of things that were no longer necessary because of his transformation. The wings are wet and weak until hemolymph is pumped through them to expand them. This is a critical time when the butterfly is most vulnerable to predators; he still needs the safety and protection of his leaf. After about an hour, his wings dry and harden and the butterfly is willing to test them. He can flutter and float. He goes out to find his first meal. No longer will he chew on leaves, now he searches for sweet blossoms to drink from and to pollinate.

Instead of crawling about on a leaf, he soars above the trees - free, unrestricted, able to go where he likes, land on any flower he chooses, free to be truly and completely himself - the beautiful winged creature he was intended to be.

Butterflies come in all different sizes, from the smallest South African dwarf blue, which is about one half inch across to the largest, Queen Alexandra's birdwing, which can measure over eleven inches. Many butterflies stay close to the garden in which they were hatched; others, like the Monarch, migrate more than two thousand miles from their home.

Whatever your goals, needs, or preferences, Renaissance Center is exclusively individualized, providing the particular nutrition services needed to assist in your own personal food transformation, helping you to become the person you have always wanted to be.

A compact disc recording of one of Theresa's programs is available which explains the metamorphasis of the caterpillar to the butterfly, and draws the parallel to the recovery process.