I’ve been a dietitian for almost half my life, and my career has evolved quite a bit as I’ve learned more about nutrition and lifestyle medicine, behavior change, and me. The main reason I wanted to be a dietitian was to help people eat and be healthier, and that remains true to this day. How I help people is much different and more effective now than when I was just getting started. For one, I’ve continued to learn about nutrition and keep an open mind about research and what appears to be the healthiest eating pattern - whole foods and predominately plants. No dogma here (maybe there was at one time, and I apologize for that). I’ve worked with people who have put type 2 diabetes into remission, gotten off medications for high blood pressure and high cholesterol, lost weight, formed a healthier and more peaceful relationship with food, and transformed their health and entire lives. Not one of them did it exactly the same way. That’s what got me super interested in learning what makes someone change and be successful at creating and maintaining healthy habits. How could I best assist someone in achieving their goals? Telling people what to do worked some of the time, but a lot of the time it didn’t. Enter health coaching. Coaching led me down a path of learning about behavior change, mindfulness, and self compassion. I learned how to form a partnership with my clients and really listen to what they are telling me. I discovered how to help people set and achieve goals of their choosing and consistently do the things they want to do and know will serve them well. I help people build resilience and see setbacks as opportunities for learning and growth (making mistakes and having hardships in life are inevitable, but we get to choose how to respond to and move on from them). Being certified in lifestyle medicine means I understand how other lifestyle behaviors, not just nutrition, affect our health. The pillars of lifestyle medicine include a whole food plant predominant eating pattern, physical activity, stress management, restorative sleep, avoidance of risky substances like tobacco, and positive social connections. These pillars are interconnected and it’s up to my clients to choose which is most important to change or improve first.

If you’re curious to know more about how nutrition and other lifestyle behaviors can help you prevent or reverse a chronic disease, I’d love to help. If you’ve read all the books on plant-based nutrition, want to move toward eating more (or only) plants, and are stuck, I’d love to help. If you have put your health on the back burner and want to feel and be healthier, I’d love to help.