What is nutritional therapy anyway?

I often get the impression that people think that nutritional therapy is just healthy eating.

It does incorporate this, of course, and it can be that alone if that’s all a client wants. For those instances, I do a one-off nutrition review which is like an MOT for your diet. It includes a thorough assessment of a 5 day food diary and recommendations for improvement.

But back to the real nutritional therapy. It is just that, a therapy. It’s so much more than just healthy eating and here are three points that explain why.

1. Healthy eating for one person is not for another. The foods you should and shouldn’t be eating depend on your body and how it’s functioning. This is dependent on your genes, environmental influences from the womb up to now and what you’ve been lacking or getting too much of in terms of nutrients. So, unlike how medical doctors and dieticians work (with the illness), nutritional therapists work with the individual.
2. By assessing a person’s health history, their family medical history and their current diet and lifestyle, a nutritional therapist can work out any problem areas or potential problem areas. This then allows them to pay special attention to these areas with specific nutrients and changes in eating, sleeping and living patterns. Nutritional therapy uses food as medicine. Actually the body is incredible at healing itself, but it needs the tools to do so. Nutritional therapists can work out which tools are needed, and hand them over.
3. I work closely with my clients. We generally speak weekly to keep things on track. I provide lots of support and also accountability so that clients can keep motivated. Every week I assess progress and make tweaks to the plan or add in extra changes if appropriate and it fits with the client’s routine and there is capacity. Working with the personality and needs of the client (as well as their health needs) is fundamental to my approach and to our joint success.

So there you have it. Much more than healthy eating.