Hana Abdulaziz Feeney is the founder of, and sole practitioner at, the holistic health and nutrition practice, Nourishing Results.  It is her passion to empower others to build a positive relationship to food and their bodies. Hana strives to guide her patients through the complexities of healing from chronic, complex conditions towards improved quality of life, the achievement of mental and emotional health and higher self-confidence. Using a comprehensive body-and-mind approach to wellness, she considers each person as a unique human being and aims to support patients even in the most challenging of circumstances.

Hana works with people experiencing complex, chronic conditions. This includes varied health concerns, and Hana works in the specific areas of eating disorders, mental health and the interconnected systems of gastroenterology, endocrinology (hormonal health), immune health, and neurological function. Hana specializes in four important areas: eating disorders and mental health, digestive health, and celiac disease. She uses a unique integrative and holistic approach with all of her patients. Hana also enjoys working with children and family, on known health issues ranging to digestive problems to ADHD, and on raising a healthy family with a strong feeding relationship. Hana uses a non-diet, intuitive approach and embraces principals from Health at Any Size.

With a bachelor’s degree in Exercise Science, a master’s degree in Nutritional Sciences and nearly 20 years as a Registered Dietitian practicing both as a clinical and sport nutritionist, Hana has developed a strong scientific and analytical approach to human health and wellness. She has developed her expertise and counseling skills by working one-on-one with individuals from all walks of life in private practice, at the University of Arizona Campus Health Service and at the world-renowned Canyon Ranch Health Resort.

Nutrition and patient advocacy are important to Hana. In efforts to engage with the Tucson community in a broader capacity, she is honored to have served on multiple boards including the Southern Arizona Celiac Support Medical Advisory Board  and Tucson International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals.

In addition to consulting with individuals, couples and small groups, Hana is also an effective writer and dynamic speaker. Hana is proud of the work she has done with Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine (AzCIM), Active.com and Fleet Feet’s Ask the Nutritionist, along with appearances on both radio and television. Hana has also written continuing education materials for nationally recognized organizations, such as the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, Today’s Dietitian, the Celiac Sprue Association and Desert Southwest Fitness/Human Kinetics. The numerous articles published in the media by the dietitians at Nourishing Results are archived here.

Hana’s diverse experiences allow her to inspire, educate and motivate others to learn how to nourish themselves and achieve the results they desire.

I grew up here in Tucson, in a family which both enjoyed, and feared food. As a child, I pretty much just ate, and ate what was given to me. I remember hating fish sticks and picking the clams out of clam chowder. There was a lot of salad and plain chicken, and awareness that my Mom was on and off Weight Watchers. We also had Palestinian food prepared by my Dad. Seventeen magazine and fiction novels describing the “perfect size 6” girl embedding the already present idea of “you are not good enough”. Late in college, I became inspired by how food has the power to heal our bodies and prevent chronic disease. In those years, “the big three” - type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer, were becoming associated with “lifestyle factors” and were thus deemed preventable. The origins of calling "obesity" a disease began and was debated. I found it literally amazing to discover the innate benefit and need for food, and the nutrients food contained, and was confused about calling what I saw as body types a disease. While there was an appreciation of the cultural aspects of food in my childhood home, there was also an undertone of the primary impact of food was on weight, and not much else. It was revolutionizing for me to see food in a truly positive and power light and I wanted to learn more.

I chose to continue my educational pursuits with a master’s degree in Nutrition. Following completion of graduate school, my first job was a Canyon Ranch, a health destination resort, where people from all over the world come to learn about how to take best care of themselves. The incredibly intelligent and astute nutrition director taught me much about the powerful impact and complex nature of food and nutrition. From the first few days of my learning, two things have stuck with me - 1) Dietitians often are either foodies, or those who have experienced disordered eating/eating disorders, and she wanted to hire foodies, and 2) The more you learn, the more you will learn all that you don’t know. She was quite right, and over the years, I have also learned that the more you know about food, the more at risk you become to develop disordered thinking about food, health and body. How’s that for a conundrum!

My lived experience of this challenging intersection between food/nutrition knowledge and disordered eating started slowly - frozen with swirling and spiraling thoughts of what to order at brunch - I wanted to find the “best” option - the menu item that met the nutrition criteria of containing vegetables and low cal/low fat protein, not being too much, not wanting to be too full, not wanting to spend too much money, wanting to make alterations but not wanting to ask for them. I couldn’t have it all and I didn’t know what to do. I see now, that I wasn’t thinking at all about what would be delicious and appealing, and it felt like everything (something?) hinged on me making this choice. I look back on that day and want to let my college self know that nothing bad will happen if I don’t “check all the boxes”.

Enter my transition to motherhood, which led to earth shattering realizations about myself and my life, along with a diagnosis of celiac disease. It was then, that those lurking fears of food grew into a full blown level of panic when eating outside of my home. The fear that I would eat something that would harm me was overwhelming. While on vacation I once chose to not order dinner because I couldn’t come to any sense of safety with anything on the menu. (Actually, it was a pattern of not being able to “find something” on the menu, not just once on vacation). My Dad said, “you have to figure this out for your patients”. Sooooo not helpful at the time, and so very true. I did make it through those experiences, by coming to fully understand what was “making me sick” was not invisible particles of gluten that I couldn’t identify in my food, rather a host of other health and mood related conditions that needed to be identified and managed. And wouldn’t you know that in the midst of all that I was figuring out how to feed a family, including a husband with type 1 diabetes, one daughter with food allergies and another daughter that was highly selective!

Our family has made it through, and as I found peace and calm with eating, and with feeding, I have learned and grown. I have a lived experience of navigating the complex intersection between treating health conditions through food/nutrition and disordered eating. My service to others is to help those who can find improved health through food/nutrition, and those who have disordered eating/eating disorders - and those that experience both the need to use food to heal their bodies and experience eating disorders.

So, that’s my story in brief. We all have complicated food, health, family, social, body image stories.

No one’s story is the same, and yet, we are not alone, and there is hope in experiencing joy, pleasure and peace with food and eating.