10 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Became a Nutritionist

​1. There's more to nutrition than following the food pyramid. When I was in my mid-20s, I found out my cholesterol was really high and I was showing serious signs for heart disease. My doctor said I needed to stay active and watch my diet, and I really didn't know what that meant. I figured I'd read some books and figure it out, but they all said different things. So at that point, I decided to go back to school for my own personal knowledge, not even to switch careers or anything like that. But I fell in love with nutrition. I was interested in not just what we eat, but what's happening inside our bodies and how our body is absorbing it. I like looking at what else is going on in your life, like how you're sleeping, are you exercising, all that stuff. I was really interested in not only the way that we as Americans look at nutrition, but also how different cultures look at nutrition, and looking at ancient practices of health and nutrition. Just because something doesn't have an FDA-endorsed scientific study behind it doesn't mean that you should ignore it. It's not that I discount the FDA, but I've never really closely followed their guidelines. I typically use the National Institute of Health as a resource, or I look at the scientific studies coming out of colleges and universities. ​

2. ​Your job is more about praising your clients' success than policing their bad habits. I think that people think eating healthy and restriction diets are the same thing. But my goal is to actually teach them how to marry health and the pleasure you get from eating so it's something they can do forever, rather than doing a cleanse for a month and feeling great and then only eating at Taco Bell afterward. I really find that most of my job is telling people what they're doing well, instead of telling them what not to eat. If you were to think back at your last week, you could probably tell me every bad health thing that you did. But during that time you probably did hundreds of really great things. Sometimes we get lost in being really hard on ourselves and it can sabotage us.

3. ​Every client is different, so you'll need to think of a plan that works best for him or her. I thought nutrition would be a lot more straightforward, and I thought that it would be pretty much the same solution for most people. I didn't think it would be as much problem-solving as often as it is. People usually come to see me because they have a health issue, like they're diabetic or have high cholesterol or are struggling with an eating disorder, but people also come to see me to lose weight. My specialty is planning meals that are very, very practical and realistic for my clients, whether that's to deal with a health issue or for weight loss. If someone comes in and they don't even know where their stove is, I'm not going to give them a bunch of recipes to start cooking. If they're eating out all the time, we'll make changes to the food that they're eating out. People, typically men, also come in to gain weight. And that's really just increasing the portions of what they're eating and really focusing on adding nutrient-dense foods, high-quality fats like avocado or nut butters, so it's not like their stuffing their face all day long to gain weight. 

4. Struggles with weight are sometimes symptoms of bigger health problems. Usually I can assess in the first meeting if I can't fix their problem, either if it's outside my range of specialty or if they need to be under the care of a doctor. I see so much polycystic ovarian syndrome that now I actively look for it. A client could be doing everything perfectly, exercising, and eating super clean, but they're not seeing any results or they're actually gaining weight. I now ask questions about their menstrual cycle and body hair and things like that.

5. ​You don't have to be a health nut all the time. My family and friends were surprised when I became a nutritionist because I didn't grow up a health nut by any means. I was your typical suburban kid who lived on McDonald's and drank soda and ate Doritos. I definitely didn't eat vegetables. Now I think most people are surprised when they see me eat because they want me to only eat kale and raw almonds, and they want me to tell them that they're bad if they have pasta or carbs. But that's pretty much the exact opposite of the philosophy that I hold. It's not that I eat perfectly because I certainly don't, but there's no food that's off-limits to me. I typically like to keep food as close to its natural form as possible, so I try to steer clear of anything packaged, but I might make a green juice protein shake for breakfast, snack on trail mix throughout the day, have quinoa, veggies, and turkey for lunch, and make something simple for dinner like chicken and veggies, or I'll make pasta. Or if I go out to eat, I might have sushi. I eat things if they're going to solve a problem, like I'm hungry and it's going to make me full, or if it's going to be so good that it's life-changing. It's OK to eat something for pure pleasure. Like if I eat a brownie or something like that, I know my life is better because I had that brownie.​ 

6. ​Your idea of what it means to be healthy will change over time. I've been in practice for 11 years, and our mentality with nutrition was very different back then than it is now. It used to be kind of an "Us vs. food" mentality, where whoever eats the least wins. I didn't 100 percent buy into that, but I did think of it as more of a deprivation thing instead of adding in nutrients. You see patterns where people try to do this restrictive, terrible way of eating and then end up overeating afterward.​ I started to recognize that that's just not the right way to go about it. ​Now my philosophy is more whoever can get the most nutrients into our bodies wins. Whoever can eat food closest to its natural form, and whoever can get the most health into their body is actually a lot further along than someone who's eating Lean Cuisine and drinking Diet Coke and chewing gum all day so they don't eat. 

7. ​Your philosophies toward food won't be the right fit for every client. Real weight loss, or real change in nutrition, is not fun and sexy and exciting. There's never going to be a reality show called My Healthy Relationship With Food and Consistent, Permanent Weight Loss. But some people come in and they want to do very restrictive, extreme things, and if that's what they're looking for, I am absolutely the wrong fit for them. I am never going to restrict my clients or pull out food groups just because I want to speed things up. And I'm certainly not going to promote weight loss cleanses or any sort of extreme way of eating that goes against my personal philosophy.

8. ​Not all fad diets are bad, but you have to know which ones are actually healthy. I spend a part of every day looking and seeing what's coming out in terms of scientific research. Fads can be exciting. How cool is it when something comes out where you're like, "Oh my gosh, I can just eat bacon all day and everything will work out!" But it's very rarely true. Juice cleansing is something that people bring up, but it's pretty rare I'll ever support a cleanse because I don't think cleanses have a huge health benefit. Gluten-free or Paleo diets are probably the most common that people want to try. I usually have a conversation with them about why they want to try it. Sometimes it can be sort of a restriction in disguise; like, some people who want to go gluten-free, oftentimes they just don't want to eat carbs because they think carbs make them fat. So I try to find out if there are certain symptoms they're trying to address by going gluten-free. If there are valid symptoms, I give them the pros and cons. As long as it's not going to hurt them from a health standpoint or foster disordered eating, I'll support them. I don't think there's any reason why you can't experiment with different ways of eating as long as it's healthy. ​

9. ​You're not just working with a client — you're working against all their outside influences too. When they leave you, they're listening to the radio and the TV, or they're getting diet advice from their girlfriends at work. So you can be working with someone and they can be really on board that this is the best thing for them and then they can easily succumb to that sexy quick-fix diet that's everywhere else. You're trying to help someone make really positive, holistic changes, and then they go home and watch some TV show where someone lost 20 pounds in three days. So I ask them to bring their questions to me so we can have a conversation about it. I don't think it's bad that they're hearing things, but I think it's really important to actually talk and learn about the things that they're hearing.

10. ​No matter how hard you try, you won't be able to help every client. ​A lot of people who come in to see me have been stuck in a cycle with health for a long time, where they're good, and they're bad, and they try something and fall off and hate themselves. And so when you see them slipping back into that cycle, it can be heartbreaking, and it can be a lot of pressure to say the right thing and to catch them right before they slip back into that cycle. I personally take on all the responsibility to try to get things to change, but then at some point, you have to realize that you can only do so much. You can only give them so many tools and you can only support them in so many different ways if they aren't willing to follow through with it or it's not the right time for them. Being able to recognize that you can only do so much is something you have to do, or you'll reach your breaking point as a practitioner.

Tara Coleman is a nutritionist in San Diego, California.