Why You Don’t Need Cookie-Cutter Meal Plans

March is National Nutrition Month and National Registered Dietitian Day was earlier this week. So to celebrate, I wanted to share with you three things that dietitians do – or at least what I do – and one thing that really don’t need to do for you. (You can get cookie-cutter info instantly.)

1) I help you meet your health goals. 

I know that you are a whole person – not just a lab value or a symptom. We (as in, the client and I) are looking at each facet of your life to see what can be adjusted to get you feeling your best. 

While nutrition sounds like it’s mostly about eating, what we eat is affected by so many other factors, such as:

• what food is available
• your food preferences/ allergies/ intolerances
• time to cook and cooking skill level
• desire to cook vs eating out
• energy level
• sleep
• exercise or activity level (or desired level)
• work, caregiving, volunteering, and other time commitments
• everything else that impacts your life

2) I help you customize and personalize. (No cookie-cutter plans here.)

If you want a generic one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter meal plan, feel free to Google or use your AI chat-bot of choice. It will shoot out whatever you want. 

Where RDs shine is helping you adapt and implement certain styles of eating into your life in a sustainable way. Most people know the basics of generally healthy eating.

RDs are educated in nutrition best practices AND we know enough about the nuances of good nutrition + human behavior to help you distill or modify changes so they fit into your life. 

3) I help you set (hopefully) achievable goals, keep you accountable, and help you pivot if something just isn’t working.

Sometimes a goal or behavior change sounds good in theory or on paper, but it just isn’t working out in the day-to-day. Maybe we need to just adjust the scale or frequency of that habit OR maybe when it comes down to it, that specific change wasn’t as important to you as you thought. 

What I (and other RDs) don’t need to do is…

give you a cookie-cutter meal plan or tell you exactly what to eat. 

That might sound great at first (“please – just tell me what to eat and I’ll do it!”), but I could have to most ideal meal plan that ever existed and then…

• you don’t like one of the ingredients on there.
• it requires cooking at home every night and you have no desire to do that.
• it doesn’t have any restaurant meals, but trying new restaurants is something you love to do. 
• your kids/spouse won’t eat it and you’d have to cook two meals every night.

That’s why so many fad diet plans are such a short-term fix. They don’t adjust to your life. They want YOU to mold to THEM.

I help you learn how to make confident food decisions for life. 

Be sure to share this post with a friend who might find it helpful. 

If you’re ready to have confidence in your food choices, you can schedule here.