It’s Never Just about the Food
Hi, everyone. I wanted to talk with you today about something that comes up a lot in my sessions with clients. People might initially come see me because and just want, essentially, a meal plan. They want me to tell them which foods to eat, which not to eat, when to eat them…
Honestly, if that’s all people want or need, there are a million meal plans online. If it were as easy as “follow this meal plan” then people would do it, change their lives, and I’d be out of a job pretty quickly.
When I meet with a client…
We dive deep into medical history, their life perspectives, their goals. We talk about WHY they make the food choices they make. Why do they feel good about that choice? What choices do they want to improve upon?
We work on untangling the fear and pseudoscience that the media perpetuate about food. (Sugar kills! GMOs kill! Nightshades kill! Never eat bananas!)
We talk about eating in a way that helps them feel energized, happy, and able to take on the world. We talk about balanced ways to add in favorite foods; those that clients might have put on a pedestal, “binge” foods – those they don’t (or didn’t) feel they could control themselves around.
We look over lab values and talk about things to add into the diet to help bring those to appropriate levels. We talk about what aspects of their current diet are helping and which aspects are maybe not so helpful.
We get into the nitty gritty. How do they feel about their body? How long have they been trying diet after diet? How do they feel about exercise? Do they use it to punish themselves or use it so they can improve their health, their blood sugar, their cholesterol, their strength, flexibility and endurance? Is food purposely restricted? Are there have periods of binge eating?
Why are they choosing now to meet with a dietitian? Why is now a good time to make changes? If they were told their weight would never change, would they still want to improve their health?
All of this matters. All of this affects body and mind. All of this will change the “diet prescription” we create together. All of this will help us work to a state of well-being.