What to Expect When Working With an Intuitive Eating Dietitian 

You are likely reading this because you are looking for something different when it comes to approaching food, eating, movement, health and your body. You may have heard, or read, the phrases ‘Intuitive Eating”, “Non-diet approach’ or “Health at Every size” and you are wondering….”Is THIS it?” It certainly seems different (in a good way). Perhaps you even already have an internal sense of feeling like this might be what you want/need right now. 

Is THIS you? Common Initial Thoughts:

Naturally you have questions. 

We love your curiosity and want you to know what it could be like to work with us and whether these approaches can support you so you can make empowered and informed decisions about your care. .

In this blog we’ll introduce our approach to care, what you can expect in the initial and follow up sessions and trouble shoot some other common questions clients have. While the care we offer each client is individualised to them our goal is that you’ll gain more clarity around what you can expect when working with a Dietitian here at Wander and Nourish Nutrition.

Our Approach to Care 

We promote a holistic approach to health that doesn’t revolve around strict diets or promoting weight loss and actually don’t offer weight loss interventions at all. Instead, we offer evidence-based nutrition therapy to manage various health conditions and concerns. Our focus lies in supporting you to develop sustainable, health-promoting habits rooted in self-care and body respect. 

Our care considers not only physical health but also mental well-being, lifestyle factors, cultural influences and personal values. We are dedicated to helping individuals develop a more peaceful relationship with food and their bodies. A relationship that emphasises nourishment, joy and satisfaction rather than control, guilt and shame.

We understand that past encounters with nutrition professionals may have been challenging. We also recognise that talking about past and current experiences with food, eating and body can be really difficult and this may be the first time you are sharing your concerns with someone else. We honour and respect each individual’s story and see it as a true privilege to work alongside our clients. We believe that everybody deserves compassionate care and spaces that support them in feeling seen, heard, and enough exactly as they are. You are also the absolute foremost expert on Y-O-U and we believe you have a lot of wisdom and insight that we can tap into together to guide our work. 

Before Your Initial Appointment

To help you prepare for your first appointment, we offer an optional free 15-minute video Exploration Call with one of our Dietitians where you can share your questions, needs, and hopes for nutrition support. You do not have to have an Exploration Call in order to work with us. We simply offer this little moment of time and space as a way to support you with taking your next steps and so you can meet us (virtually at least) before deciding what you want to do next. We know we aren’t going to be the right fit for everyone and that is ok. We want our clients to feel good about their decision to partner with us in their care. 

Upon booking an Initial Appointment, you’ll receive a welcome email and two forms from us: a Consent and Confidentiality of Care Agreement Form, and an Intake Form. The Intake Form helps us jump start understanding your unique circumstances across various domains, including health history, lifestyle, dietary and movement patterns, and your relationship with food and body. Your openness in filling out this form allows us to maximise and tailor our Initial Appointment to your specific needs and goals. You also have complete permission to share as little or as much as you feel comfortable to do so in these forms. 

What Happens in an Initial Appointment?

During your very first appointment with us, our primary aims are to get to know you and understand your goals. Anchoring in and clarifying your goals helps us orient towards creating a plan of what it will look like to do great work together towards them. We also stay thoughtful about exploring how fast or slow we might move forward together. This will sound like us asking questions about what has and hasn’t worked for you in the past, about your experiences with food/eating/health care providers etc, current circumstances and challenges and what feels top of mind to start with among things. We’ll then workshop together some ideas that will guide your focus until the next appointment.

Sometimes goals and getting to know each other can take another session or two and that is ok. We will always work to go as fast or as slow as feels ok and most supportive to you. 

What happens in a Follow up Appointment? 

Based on the take-home strategies from the Initial Appointment, the Follow Up Appointment offers the possibility to review goals if needed, review nutritional blood work or other investigations, dig into what worked well for you if you have already made a change or changes, explore what was challenging (if anything) and what you may like to focus on going forward.

We will always ask you at the start of your appointments if there is anything in particular you are arriving with that day which you want to make sure we get to talk about together. Things happen between appointments that may invite us to adjust the overall plan for your care or what we were intending to talk about together. That is a normal part of nutrition support. Life happens and we adjust your care as needed to support you as we go. 

The Follow Up Appointment also offers the opportunity to explore in greater depth your past and current experiences with food, eating, and body to the extent that it would be helpful to do so towards your goals (or you desire to). 

Some of the focus topics of a Follow Up Appointment may include:

 

We believe in the insight that can emerge from experiential learning and your body’s wisdom. Therefore, Follow Up Appointments are fantastic for strengthening what you have noticed and observed in-between sessions. We stay curious together about what felt helpful and supportive and what didn’t go so well or as hoped. This helps us collaborate on planning next steps you want to take towards your goals with successive Follow Up Appointments. 

Your Dietitian will continue to adjust what they ask you and offer you based on your experiences, expressed desires and needs in order to keep guiding you towards your overall goals for your work together. 

Common Questions Clients Have:

If you have any questions that aren’t covered in this blog, you are most welcome to contact our wonderful Admin team via email [email protected] or by phone at 0413 540 053. 

What should I bring to my first appointment? 

If you have recent bloods or other investigations done we always appreciate having those on file for your Dietitian to review before they meet with you. You can send these to us directly at [email protected] or request your GP clinic send them to us via email or fax directly. You can also of course bring a hard copy with you to your appointment too.

If you have a GP Management Care Plan, please bring a copy along with your Medicare card to ensure we can provide you with a Medicare rebate. 

Do I Need a Care Plan? 

At Wander and Nourish, we welcome clients using various payment options, including those with a Care Plan, those paying privately and those utilising private health insurance. So while having a Care Plan isn’t necessary to access our services, if you want to learn more about them and how they can be used, have a look at our blog explaining the different types of Medicare Care Plans (link) and frequently asked questions about them (link).

How Many Appointments Will I Need? 

The number of sessions depends on many things that are unique to you and your concerns. This is something we discuss and can collaboratively plan together during the first appointment as we gain a sense of the type of work we will be doing together. While some clients may only need a few sessions, others may benefit from longer-term care given the long standing presence of their concerns and/or the layers of their different conditions and experiences we need to consider together. Our goal is to support you at a pace that feels comfortable and feasible for you. 

If you are coming to us for support under an Eating Disorder Management Care Plan than we will be spending at least 20 appointments together. This is why this care plan includes 20 appointments as a baseline for care because we know individuals struggling with an eating disorder typically need this many (and for many individuals they may need more). 

We understand that having some kind of a ballpark is helpful however so based on our experience of working with our clients over the years we can offer up the following. 

• Average Appointments for single health related or nutrition related concern: 3-5
• Average Appointments for multiple layers or concerns: 6-10
• Intuitive Eating specific work can vary greatly but we are always happy to support our clients to create a plan that best supports them and their needs which might include between session supplemental resources to support more spaced out appointments. 

It is important to consider that our hopes are that what you learn in your appointments with us are things that you keep for your lifetime. 

This contrasts starkly to dieting, in which you’re on an endless cycle of being either ‘on or off the diet’ and needing something/someone else to tell you how to be with food and your body. It will take time to shift into a new way of relating to food, eating and body. Similarly, the beliefs around food and body that you may have held for years will take time to put down and stop listening to. We are here to support you for however we feel helpful to you and you would like our support. 

Can you Help me Lose Weight? 

While we don’t offer weight loss interventions, we are not here to tell you not to have these desires. Instead we want to create space for these desires to be explored and looked at in the context of the very real and oppressive systems and structures we are all living in. We seek to understand what you may have been taught/observed when you were younger about bodies and food and eating and what you have experienced in your lifetime in your relationship with food and your body. We are here to have as in depth conversations as you might like to be having around pressure, desires, expectations and the fears of doing this work. We also support our clients by connecting with other providers who can support them such as counsellors who specialise in body image support or therapists who specialise in disordered eating or body image.

Weight loss is often sold as the final destination for a better life… “If I lose weight, then I can ….”. Therefore, we can work to identify the bigger goals that matter to you and directly go straight for your broader goals (eg: better energy levels, better relationship with food and body), without having to go through fixating and focusing on your weight.  

We do not have a crystal ball or way of knowing what someone’s body is going to do (or need to do) in regards to weight while we work together towards a peaceful relationship with food and eating and healing that relationship. We acknowledge this uncertainty can be daunting, especially if you’re accustomed to traditional dieting which is very black and white. 

Ultimately, we are working towards a future where all bodies are nurtured, nourished, respected and allowed to simply be as they are. At the same time, we respect your body autonomy and the decisions you make.

Do you Have Other Questions? 

We are here to support you and provide any clarity you may be seeking around what to expect when working with an Intuitive Eating Dietitian like ours. If you have any other questions about what to expect you are most welcome to contact our wonderful Admin team via email [email protected] or by phone 0413 540 053. 

You are also welcome to directly book a free 15 minute Exploration Call with one of our Dietitians so you can ask us or an Initial Appointment with us. We are here if you are wanting to explore 1:1 nutrition support and help for opting out of diet culture and exploring a new way of approaching food, eating and your relationship with your body – an approach rooted in compassion and body respect. You deserve peace and pleasure to be central in your relationship with food and eating.