What do Dieticians, Nutritionists, and Health Coaches do?

Per the Institute of Integrative Nutrition, the outcomes may be the same - weight loss, more energy, improved mood, better digestion, clearer skin - but the ways the outcome is achieved may differ. Dieticians are food and nutrition experts, who complete rigorous training and satisfies national standards to practice. They may prescribe certain diets and supplements. Nutritionists focus on the dietary aspect of a client’s well-being. They create meal plans based on specific needs and look into whether nutritional supplements would be of benefit. Health Coaches provide clients with a safe, supportive space to explore their health issues and goals. They encourage clients to focus not just on the dietary aspect of their health, but other areas of their life, such as quality of relationships, satisfaction in job/career, home and environment queues and how all of those areas are interconnected and imperative to overall health.

What are the worst diets for your body?

I try to steer people away from diets that focus on significant food restrictions where people are left feeling like they must do without, especially for longer periods of time.  Something will eventually trigger that person, possibly a stressful day or an emotional event, and they binge on all the “bad foods” they crave but have been going without.  This can then leave that person feeling negative feelings and emotions, and they beat themselves up for what they just ate.  It becomes a cycle and can lead to not only a very unhealthy relationship with food, but can trigger anxiety, depression and very negative thoughts.

Can diets negatively affect people's mental health?

The desire to lose weight can stem from several different reasons, however often it’s either due to an unhappiness in the way we look or driven by an underlying medical condition and weight loss is a recommendation of a doctor.  Whatever the driver of the desire to lose weight, simply having the pressure to do so can negatively affect a person’s mental health.  If the weight doesn’t come off fast enough, or if someone “breaks” their diet and ate something they consider bad they can easily beat themselves up and the cycle continues.  Tied into all of this is that as we grow older our metabolism changes, our hormones fluctuate and various additional stress factors come into play, and then the ability to lose weight and how our body responds to our diets change.  All of this can drive ongoing negative self-talk, increase a person’s anxiety and can cause depression. 

Rather than focusing on the need to diet, I recommend people flip that desire around and focus on the desire to improve their general wellbeing and health by crowding out the foods that provide less nutritional value and adding more of those nutrient dense and unprocessed foods.

Where do I start?

I recommend we meet for a free 15-minute Discovery Call to discuss your high level goals, or book your free 60-minute Initial Consultation where we’ll go through your health history in greater detail to determine next steps.