Featured RD: How Did I Get Here? Part 2

When I found out I was pregnant with my first child, I decided working weekends and

holidays was not for me and began work as a consultant clinical dietitian. I loved doing

this. It was a great way to meet many other RDʼs and experience different hospital

settings. The staff was always glad to see me and I felt very appreciated!

Once my first child was born, I decided to be a stay at home mom, a decision that I am

so grateful I was able to make. Skip ahead 8 years and two more kids later and I was

ready to go back to work. My youngest was now 2 and I knew I had to either re-enter

the nutrition field or change careers. After much soul searching and contemplation, I

decided to open my own private practice. I actually Googled, “How do I start my own

nutrition business”, that search led me to the Nutrition Entrepreneurs practice group

under the ADA. The ADA conference was a few months away and I decided to attend

the NE workshop on starting a private practice.

I knew that diets were not an answer for a lot of the patients I had worked with in the

past. Many of my friends with small children found themselves overweight, stressed and

time strapped, myself included. I knew there had to be a better way, a way that would

not involve me telling patients what to do, but would give those patients the skills to

make the right choices for themselves. I was in the process of figuring all this out when I

came up with my business name Intuitive Nutrition, when I Googled it to see what came

up, the book Intuitive Eating came up. I was so excited to see there were other RDʼs out

there that believed in a non-diet approach, I ordered the book and once I finished it, I

emailed the authors and asked them if they provided a training course in IE. They do!

Completing the IE course, attending the NE workshop at the ADA conference, reading

the ADA Guide to Private Practice, The Entrepreneurial Nutritionist and Moving Away

from Diets provided me with a wealth of knowledge. I knew the next step was to “hang

out my shingle”. A very scary step!

I sat down on a Saturday afternoon and created my website and matching business

cards through VistaPrint. That was it, I was officially open for business. Now I just had to

sit back and wait for the clients to roll in. For me, itʼs always been about just putting one

foot in front of the other. Once I started getting a few clients, I created material as I

went. I offered low cost nutrition counseling to my friends in exchange for their

feedback. If I think too much about everything I should be doing or could be doing, I feel

overwhelmed. There is never enough time in the day to do everything, but there is

always enough time to move one step closer to your goal.

In the interest of word count, I am condensing my journey, and that may make it seem

like it has all been easy peasy, but in all honesty, opening your own business is simple,

but it is far from easy. If private practice or becoming a nutrition entrepreneur is

something you have considered, my 3 pieces of no fail advice (other than if you can

dream it, you can achieve it) are:

A.Keep putting one foot in front of the other. Break big steps into small steps. In other

words, you donʼt need to see the whole staircase, just the next step.

B.Never be afraid to ask for help. Other RDʼs are usually incredibly friendly and

collectively contain a wealth of knowledge. But, donʼt be afraid to ask friends, family,

etc. for the help and support you need too. I have swapped nutrition services with

other moms who are tech. savvy, and have saved myself lots of $$.

C.Use social media to grow your business. The internet age has made it super easy to

contact book authors and nutrition experts. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are free

to use and can help grow your business very quickly.

So, there you have it. Thatʼs how I got from being a nutrition student to a business

owner. My business is less than 2 years old, it is not exactly booming, and there are all

kinds of things on my business “to do” list, but for me, it provides the perfect balance

between family and work. Originally, I thought starting my own business would be

something that I would do for myself, I quickly realized that starting a business does not

fall into the self care category, but because it allows me the flexibility to be with my

family when they need me, I feel it has helped me to find a satisfying balance. Balance

makes it all worth it.