The Milestones Approach
to Eating Disorder Treatment
A Comprehensive Approach
to Eating Disorder Recovery
We address both the emotional and physical challenges that come with eating disorders, offering a personalized path to healing. Through a balanced approach, we provide the support, tools, and real-life experiences necessary to help you recover and build lasting wellness.
Our Approach Includes
EMDR therapist with specialized training in eating disorders
Trauma informed
Live-in or outpatient treatment options
Dedicated individual primary therapist
On-call medical and counseling staff
Certified recreation therapists
Individualized treatment plans
Registered and licensed RD nutritionists
Comprehensive intake assessments
We offer Medication Assisted Treatment when indicated
Our Unique Approach
What led you here is unique, as is your path to recovery.
That is why our approach centers on quieting the negative noise around food and the emotions that come with disordered eating. We teach you how to continue experiencing results in your ‘real-world’ environment.
Throughout your stay at Milestones, you will have opportunities to experience supervised grocery shopping, meal prep, living and healing with a supportive community, and other daily living activities so that you are prepared to step back into your life. We recognize that emotional wellbeing and the addictive properties of many highly processed foods each play a significant role in influencing eating behaviors. By addressing both the emotional and practical aspects of recovery, you’ll be better equipped to develop sustainable habits and maintain balance in your day-to-day life.
Milestones works because we believe that the last day of your treatment should look like your first day in the real world.
Pillars of Recovery
S.M.E.R.F
Spirituality/Support – Meditation – Exercise – Rest – Food. Your holistic recovery experience will include elements of the following healing mediums:
Spirituality
Understanding your healing journey from within
Meditation
Connect your body & mind for resilience in healing
Exercise
Functional movement that builds healthy connection to your body
Rest
Getting enough sleep and restorative down time between daily activities
Food
Creating a whole foods plan that works to nourish your whole body
Take the First Step Towards Freedom
Your Freedom Food Plan (FFP)
Each patient works with Nikki Glantz, our COO and nutritionist, to redefine their relationship with food.
When you arrive at Milestones, together with our nutritionist, you will create your tailored Freedom Food Plan that excludes highly processed foods as they are typically full of sugar, flour, and manufactured ingredients.
Your Freedom Food Plan is your playbook for all aspects of life surrounding disordered eating, and includes your specific needs and food preferences. It offers enough structure and guidance to enable you to meal plan, grocery shop, and meal prep while living with others.
You will follow your FFP while at Milestones, and maintain this new rhythm when you re-integrate into the ‘real world’.
Recovery is in the doing not the thinking
Quiet the Compulsion
When you feel overwhelmed with food choices, our registered dietitian and the rest of our team work with you to create a meal plan and new food habits that you choose, with support.
Real-Time, Practical Experience
When you put down the compulsive eating and dieting, it is natural for emotions to come up that were avoided with food and dieting.
As they do, you will finally benefit from emotional healing that was hampered by your eating disorder.
Navigate a New Rhythm
Your last day in treatment should look like the first day in the
real world.
As you transition to lower levels
of care and head home, you will continue to have access to professionals, peer groups,
and more.
Frequently Asked Questions About Our Treatment Approach
You describe your approach as treating "the compulsion, not just the food." What does that mean in plain language?
Treating the compulsion means Milestones goes beyond meal plans to address the underlying mental and emotional drivers of disordered eating. Most people think an eating disorder is about food — eat the right things, follow the right plan, and you will be fine. But if it were that simple, you would have fixed it already.
At Milestones, we understand that for most people, the relationship with food is not a choice. It is often defined by noise: mental chatter, anxiety, and obsession. That noise is the compulsion. It is the voice that tells you to keep eating even when you are full. It is the panic when a meal does not go as planned. It is the thought about food that never fully goes away.
We dig into why food has such a powerful hold on you. We look at the emotions underneath. We look at what you are using food to cope with. And we treat all of it together, because until the compulsion gets quiet, no food plan in the world will stick.
What does "real-world setting" actually mean at Milestones, and why is that better for recovery than a hospital-based program?
At Milestones, "real-world setting" means patients live in apartment-style housing, prepare their own meals, go grocery shopping with a dietitian, and practice daily living skills — so recovery translates directly to life at home.
A hospital puts everything in front of you. Your meals are prepared. Your day is scheduled. Someone else makes every decision. And then you go home, walk into your kitchen, and have no idea what to do. At Milestones, you cook, you learn to plan, and you practice the exact skills you will need the moment you get home.
The focus is on preparing you to return home, one step at a time. Unlike other eating disorder recovery centers, from the moment you arrive, the team is already thinking about the life you are going back to. Recovery that works inside a facility is a good start. Recovery that works in your real life is the goal.
What levels of care does Milestones offer, and how does a patient move through them from admission to discharge?
Milestones offers a full continuum of care — Residential Treatment, Partial Hospitalization (PHP), and Intensive Outpatient (IOP) — so patients can step down through levels without changing facilities.
Most people start with Residential Treatment, where you live on site, follow a full daily schedule of therapy and groups, eat with your peers, and have support around the clock. This is the most intensive level and is where the foundation of recovery gets built.
From there, patients typically step down to a Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP), where you are still coming in for most of the day but have more independence in the evenings.
The next step is an Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP), where you come in for several hours a day, a few days a week, and start practicing your recovery more independently.
Throughout every level, the team monitors your progress and adjusts your care. The goal is always forward movement — stepping down when you are ready, and never rushing you before you are.
What role does the clinical team play day to day? How often does a patient meet with therapists, dietitians, and medical staff?
Patients at Milestones meet regularly with a primary therapist, a registered dietitian, a psychiatrist for medication management, and an internal medicine doctor — all coordinating together on each patient's care.
Residents are assigned a primary therapist who they meet with on a regular basis, and they also attend groups and experiential therapies throughout the day. The psychiatrist handles medication management, the internal medicine doctor monitors medical issues, and a registered dietitian monitors body weight, exercise, and the Freedom Food Plan.
Evenings and weekends include community support groups and time with supportive people, so the structure does not disappear when the clinical day ends. You are surrounded by people who understand what you are going through, and professionals who are paying attention every step of the way.
What is the Freedom Food Plan, how does it work, and what makes it different from meal plans at other treatment centers?
The Freedom Food Plan is a personalized nutrition plan created with each patient that avoids highly processed foods — including sugar and flour — and focuses on whole foods tailored to each individual's needs and preferences. Unlike standard meal plans, the goal is not to be perfect with your food — the goal is freedom from food obsession.
Each patient works with a Milestones nutritionist to build their own Freedom Food Plan. The plan is your guide for everyday life with food, made just for your needs and preferences. It offers enough structure to enable you to meal plan, grocery shop, and meal prep while living with others.
What makes it truly different is that it is yours. You helped build it. It fits your life. And you practice using it every single day while you are at Milestones, so that when you go home, it goes with you.
How do patients respond when they first start the Freedom Food Plan? What does that adjustment look like?
The first few days on the Freedom Food Plan can be challenging, as food has often been a coping mechanism for years. But by week one or two, many patients begin noticing a real shift — the mental noise around food starts to quiet down and obsessive thoughts begin to lose their grip.
Early days are filled with fear. Taking away that coping mechanism, even while replacing it with something healthier, brings up a lot of feelings. But many patients describe feeling something they have not felt in a long time: calm around food.
Milestones conducts blind weights, typically weekly. The numbers are not the focus — behavior change and stability are. That alone is a relief for most patients who have spent years fixated on a number on a scale.
