Registered Dietitian Nutritionists (RDN) at Mind Body Health use an evidence-based approach in order to assess the multi-faceted reasons that clients are experiencing nutrition related concerns. Beyond knowing what one's nutritional needs are, there are many other factors that likely need to be explored that affect an individual’s relationship with food and how the body responds to what is consumed.

Given that there is a large amount of nutrition information that is so easily accessible to the public, it is difficult to understand and implement what we may perceive as an ideal eating approach. Dietitians at Mind Body Health assess a client’s relationship with food from a physical, psychological, emotional, medical and social perspective. Despite popular belief, one recommendation is not the best fit for everyone.

Whether you have been fighting with your weight, have struggled with an eating disorder or simply feel confused about the abundance of nutrition information that is available, meeting with a dietitian may be helpful. Our Registered Dietitians will provide you with scientific evidence, psycho-education and nutrition knowledge that will help you understand where your relationship with food stems from. Through the application of mindful eating and intuitive eating principles, the goal of the dietitian is to reconnect you with your body, make peace with food and challenge the food rules and judgments that you have developed over time.

If you are someone who has been diagnosed with an eating disorder, have concerns about your weight, questions about sports nutrition, fertility, or pregnancy, or have a medical condition and need medical nutrition therapy, our dietitians have expertise to help you. 

The goal of nutrition therapy is not to teach you about good and bad foods and tell you what you can and can’t eat. It’s about imparting knowledge and skills that you can maintain long term in order to develop a positive relationship with food and your body.

Our Registered Dietitian Nutritionists at Mind Body Health have specialized training in the treatment of eating disorders. They draw from research and their professional experiences to tailor their treatment approaches to your specific concerns.

Our dietitians work with the following conditions:

Our Registered Dietitian Nutritionists play a critical role in the treatment of eating disorders as a team-based approach.

Some eating disorders can be fatal and dangerous to treat without regular medical observation. Our dietitians will work closely with medical doctors to ensure it is safe to proceed with treatment on an outpatient level of care.

If an outpatient level of care is appropriate, our dietitians will help you with the following:

• Reviewing your current food intake, food behaviors/habits, food rules, and feared foods
• Working to help you eat more regularly and adequately to give your body what it needs to heal
• Providing education about the changes that might occur in your body and the importance of staying open to these changes as your body heals
• Doing exposures to help you face your feared foods
• Helping you connect how food and your emotions are interconnected
 
• Eventually helping you to eating mindfully, flexibly, and to learn to listen to and practice honoring your body's hunger/fullness cues
• Providing families and loved ones ideas for how to best support clients in eating adequately

Weight concerns are often why people seek out our nutrition services. Our Registered Dietitian Nutritionists have a unique approach to working with clients who have concerns about their weight.

Our dietitians are highly specialized in helping individuals who have been in a dieting cycle of losing and regaining weight for years. They help clients finally ditch that cycle and work on finding peace with food and their bodies.

Using an intuitive eating and Health at Every Size approach, our dietitians help clients work on the following:

• Enjoying food and stopping the deprivation and guilt around food
• Listening to your internal hunger/fullness cues instead of following external rules about food
• Eating previously "forbidden food" and learning to trust that you can learn to eat all foods once again
• Practice eating mindfully so you can savor the flavors and enjoy the experience of eating a meal or snack
• Finding fun, enjoyable, and flexible approaches to moving your body

Another approach our dietitians use to help with weight concerns is discussing your lifestyle and how this may be impacting weight. Our dietitians will explore food choices, patterns, meal structure, your relationship with food and emotions, and exercise patterns.

The following are some of the things you might discuss in sessions:

• Meal ideas
• Cooking skills
• Nutrition preparation/planning for busy lifestyles
• Motivation for exercise/movement
• Discussing emotional eating
• Dispelling myths about food and providing science-based education regarding food as it relates to weight

Post bariatric surgery nutrition is essential to good long-term outcomes. In working with one of our dietitians, here are some of the things you might discuss in sessions:

• Transitioning from a liquid diet to a regular diet
• Proper supplementation
• Nutrition planning/preparation
• Meal timings
• How to eat out post-surgery
• Addressing binge eating concerns that occur or weight regain post-surgery

If you're pregnant or thinking about getting pregnant, you might have a lot of questions about the changes going on in your body and how nutrition may affect you pre- and post-pregnancy.

Some of the things our dietitians work on with our clients who are pregnant or thinking about getting pregnant include the following:

• Supplements, nutrition, and exercise guidance for fertility and pregnancy
• Normalizing and providing guidance on trusting your body in eating adequately for pre-and post-pregnancy
• Nutrition needs while breastfeeding and when weening
• Managing gestational diabetes

PCOS is an endocrine disorder that can affect up to 15-20% of women. PCOS affects women of all different ethnic groups. It’s essentially a hormonal imbalance disorder.

Symptoms vary from person to person, but these are some of the common symptoms seen in those diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS):

• Weight gain, especially around the waist
• Blood sugar imbalance
• Fatigue
• Anxiety and/or depression
• Hirsuitism (unwanted, coarse hair growth in areas like upper lip, chin, chest, abdomen, back)
• Thinning hair
• Infertility or repeated miscarriages
• Irregular periods and/or heavy periods
• Acne, oily skin, dandruff, darkened patches of skin
• Pelvic pain
• Sleep apnea

The exact cause of PCOS isn’t known, but there are several factors that seem to contribute to the development of PCOS:

Genetics: If your mother or sister have a history of PCOS, you’re more likely to have it as well.

Low grade chronic inflammation in the body
Hormonal Imbalance:

Hormones that produced in your pancreas convert glucose to energy for your cells. However, an excess of hormone production that often occurs in PCOS can lead to an overproduction of androgens.

Androgens are a male sex hormone that women also produce. When there are higher than normal levels of androgen in women, it causes acne, excessive hair growth, weight gain and can disrupt proper development and release of eggs.

Elevated levels of the following hormones:
LH, DHEA, and testosterone

Our registered dietitian nutritionists will work with you and your medical doctor to ensure that you get lab tests to determine if there are hormonal imbalances.

Nutrition and physical activity can significantly improve PCOS. The following are things that you and your registered dietitian may discuss in your sessions:

• A review of your current diet and discussion of meal structure/timing and balanced meal composition to manage any blood sugar imbalance
• Assessing exercise patterns, motivation for exercise, and types of exercise
• Stress management and the impact of stress on the body and your relationship with food

Our Registered Dietitian Nutritionists are well-versed in helping athletes and those who want to improve their sports performance through nutrition.

In your sessions with our dietitians, you may be discussing the following:

• Assessing your meal structure, eating patterns, and frequency of eating
• Nutrition planning and preparation
• Reviewing your food choices and intake
• Providing nutrition recommendations to ensure adequate fueling for peak performance
• Discussing how to eat flexibly and enjoy all foods while still enjoying being active

Our Registered Dietitian Nutritionists are well-versed in serving clients with digestive disorders. Digestive disorders are complex. Often clients have variable symptoms based on how their bodies are responding to certain types of foods combined with individual lifestyle factors that may also be impacting their symptoms.

Our dietitians work with clients on the following digestive disorders:

• Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)
• Irritable Bowel Disorder (IBD)
• Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO)
• Chron's Disease
• Celiac's Disease
• Food sensitivities/allergies

Managing digestive disorders can be quite difficult to navigate on your own. Our dietitians can help with working on the following in your sessions together:

• Providing multidisciplinary care by discussing lab tests and results with your medical doctor and referring you to a psychiatrist to address any mental health issues that are related to your digestive issues
• Tracking GI symptoms, bowel movements, and your food intake to better learn more about what foods and what portions of certain foods your body can tolerate
• Reviewing supplements and medications in conjunction with your physician that could ease symptoms
• Meal planning/preparation and finding ways to enjoy and look forward to eating food
• Discussing anxiety and stress management as it relates to your digestive health

Our Registered Dietitian Nutritionists are experienced in helping clients with other medical conditions including:

• Type II Diabetes
• Hypertension (High Blood Pressure)
• Hyperlipidemia (High Cholesterol)
• Cardiovascular Disease

Our dietitians will review the following with you in your sessions: 

• Current dietary intake and education about specific dietary recommendations for your condition
• Meal planning/preparation
• Discussing forms of movement and motivation/barriers to physical activity
• Managing lifestyle factors that impact your well-being
• Dispelling myths and providing science-backed education about nutrition for your specific medical condition
• Learning to enjoy all foods without having to go to extremes to manage your health condition

Our registered dietitian nutritionists work very closely with our mental health providers. They regularly attend peer supervision meetings with our psychologists and go through mental health trainings to better understand how they can assist clients in improving their psychological distress.

These are some of the things you might discuss with our dietitians in sessions:

• Examining the relationship between your current diet and mental health conditions such as anxiety, stress, and depression
• Using a mindfulness-based approach to begin tracking how food affects mood
• Reviewing your food intake to understand where nutrition imbalances and meal structure may be impacting mood, energy, and sleep
• Dispelling myths about nutrition and providing evidence-based research on how a diet filled with variety and enjoyable foods can impact your well-being