Picking a dietitian or any health professional can be difficult for sure. It is very important to share with you our core values, so you can decide if one our dietitians is the right dietitian for you. By reading this you will also begin to understand how nutrition counseling works. It is a process in which a dietitian helps you meet your goals. It is not giving you a meal plan or simply telling you what to eat. To learn more about specific conditions we work with (i.e. weight loss, IBS, or picky eating) check out the Who We Serve page. Here's a little more for you to digest.

• Counting calories or more broadly the energy in vs energy out approach to weight loss has been tried and has failed. We believe in prioritizing key nutrients and nutrient balance at every meal and snack.

• A calorie is NOT a calorie. The same amount of calories from processed food versus whole/real food behave very differently in your body.

• A drastic change to eating or exercising is so different from your normal that often the new drastic habits break. We encourage slow, steady, and sustainable.

• There is no perfect version of you eating perfectly. Life will throw you a curve ball or you will go on vacation. We help you learn resiliency skills to deal with the ebb and flow of life and help you maintain sustainable change.

• If you have a poor relationship with food, no diet (even a therapeutic one) will last. We teach you to mend your food relationship.

• Dealing with stress is essential to what we do. We will teach you stress management tools. Same for sleep.

• We do sometimes encourage some basic nutrition supplements.

• We encourage real foods and whole foods.

• We encourage you to cook more.

• We teach you to plan and prepare for weekly meals.

• We believe in eating foods you actually like. If you don't like baby carrots and hummus as a snack...then don't eat it.

• We will not put a child on a diet for weight loss. We have seen the harm this creates. We work with adults who struggle tremendously with the consequences of being on a diet at a young age. We will work with families to encourage healthy changes for the family.

• Nutrition values are briefly outlined as the following:

  • lower carbohydrates from starches, sugar, and processed foods

  • full fat dairy

  • animal proteins first, plant proteins as an added bonus

  • avoid seed oils

  • time restricted eating

  • daily dose of fruit and vegetables

  • cook more using real food, fewer meals eaten out

• We believe God is the center of everything. He is our strength and we should lean on Him for help. For us, this means leaning on Him for help making health changes. We happily provide faith-based nutrition counseling to those interested. For more information on faith-based nutrition counseling click here: Faith-Based Nutrition Counseling.