What is Nutrition Counselling?
Nutrition counseling is a supportive process in which a Registered Dietitian works with an individual to assess their eating patterns and identify areas where the individual is seeking change. Cara takes a holistic approach to health, making sure that mental and emotional health are not excluded when providing guidance around behavioral change. In nutrition counseling sessions, Cara provides consent based nutrition and health related information, educational materials, support and follow up as part of the individual’s treatment plan. Cara approaches nutrition counseling from a non diet and weight inclusive approach. She debunks myths and trends around food, body and weight, and focuses on the health conditions at hand. She firmly believes in fat positive care and challenges the ways that ableism, anti fat bias, white supremacy, and neuronormative standards find their way into the nutrition field.
What can Nutrition Counselling help with?
Nutrition counseling is helpful for individuals wanting to make peace with food and their body while honoring their individualized definition of health. Nutrition counseling may benefit those who have been diagnosed with or may suspect that they are experiencing any of the following:
Identify as Neurodivergent and have difficulty with eating/preparation of food
Eating Disorders and Disordered Eating
Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS)
Elevated Cholesterol
High Blood Pressure
Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)
Insulin Resistance in the form of Pre-Diabetes, Diabetes, PCOS
Weight Concerns*
*I use this language for folks who are concerned about their weight or have received concern from others about their weight. In a culture that pathologizes and discriminates bodies based on size, it is quite easy to feel shame and internalize beliefs that weight equates to health. I support folks in gaining greater understanding around the limitations of intentional weight loss, the harm of weight cycling, and how to shift focus towards lifestyle behaviors that support health no matter of body size.
What can I expect from a Nutrition Counselling session? What do I need to do to prepare for it?
Our work together consists of an initial assessment that is 70 minutes and continued care through 50 minute follow up appointments. On average, I work with clients biweekly and frequency can change based on how much support you may be needing. It is common to work together for many months…I also have some clients who I have been also working with for years.
In our initial appointment, my hopes are to learn about your goals around eating and nutrition, challenges that come up and what kind of support you may be needing to make these goals come to life. You will have completed an intake form prior to our first session, which is what we will use to guide our conversation. I will ask about current eating patterns, challenges with eating, thoughts/beliefs around food and eating, current and past relationship with food and your body, social and emotional components of eating, and how mental and physical health may impact eating patterns. If there is specific guidance, resources, or education you are looking for from the first session, I save time in the middle to end of the initial session for that to be addressed. We will discuss frequency of sessions and what you may need from me as a provider as we start our work together (ie: meal ideas, accountability, collaboration with other providers, etc.)
In follow up sessions, we will discuss how the time in between sessions has been in terms of our work’s focus. You may notice that our work may feel a little like therapy, as I am curious about you as a whole person and how that also pertains to your eating patterns/relationship with food. There may be shifts in focus in our work together as you may feel more comfortable navigating certain eating related situations in time and needing more support in others. It is common for me to provide provider referrals if we agree that having additional support around mental, physical or medical health may be helpful.
To prepare for our work together, I will walk you through the intake process, which includes completion of forms and registration on the client portal I use, Practice Better. For folks who are using their insurance (Blue Cross Blue Shield), I ask that you verify your benefits prior to working together. I have some forms that can help you with that process. Once we start working together, many clients find it helpful to write down questions that have come up between sessions or take note of situations that they’d like to bring into session. There is nothing you need to prepare for in our sessions otherwise. If you are ever in a rush before our session or find it helpful to have a therapeutic meal or snack in our session, that is always welcome. If you are ever looking for support outside of the office space, we can always use our time together exploring a grocery/convenience store/cafe in downtown Northampton. I am always open to applying the “talking” work to the food environment around us.
Cara D’Anello offers nutrition counselling at CLINIC Wednesdays and Thursdays 1- 5pm.