Every year on National Registered Dietitian Day, I take some time to reflect on my journey into this field and how much it has evolved. And honestly? Every time I revisit the story, something about the way I tell it changes. Because the more you learn, the more you grow. The more you unlearn. The more clearly you can see the path that got you here.
If you found Find Food Freedom® somewhere along the way, you might assume that I’ve always practiced from an intuitive eating, weight-inclusive lens. That I always believed food wasn’t something to control or moralize. That I always understood body diversity.
I didn’t.
In fact, my path into becoming a dietitian started from a very different place.
Why I Chose Nutrition in the First Place
I went to Penn State for nutrition and dietetics with a minor in kinesiology. On paper, it looked like a straightforward decision. I was interested in health. I wanted to help people. That’s the story most of us tell.
But there was another reason, too.
When I started college, I was deeply uncomfortable in my body. I had experienced trauma the year before, including losing my best friend in a car accident. Looking back now, it’s clear that food and alcohol became coping mechanisms. My body changed, and I hated it.
So when I chose nutrition, part of me believed I was going to learn the “answer.” I thought I would figure out how to lose weight, feel better in my body, and then teach other people to do the same.
I genuinely believed that was the path to helping people become healthy and happy.
College didn’t exactly make things easier. My disordered relationship with food intensified. I would restrict food during the day to “save calories” for drinking at night. I worked at the campus gym and would spend hours on cardio machines trying to burn off what I had eaten or what I planned to drink later.
It was a cycle. Restrict. Drink. Binge eat. Repeat.
And the whole time, I was studying to become a dietitian.
I remember walking across the stage at graduation thinking, I am such a phony.
I was about to enter a dietetic internship and eventually counsel other people on health, but I felt completely disconnected from my own.
Doing What Dietitians Are Trained to Do
After finishing my internship and passing the RD exam (barely, but we’ll take the win), I moved to Hoboken, New Jersey to work as a retail dietitian at ShopRite Supermarkets.
And honestly, I loved that job.
I did grocery store tours, cooking classes, in-store demos, and one-on-one counseling. I got to help people navigate the grocery store after new diagnoses like diabetes. I even made announcements over the store loudspeaker inviting shoppers to nutrition classes. That part might have been my favorite.
But there was something else happening quietly in the background.
Many of the people who came to see me wanted to lose weight. That’s what most people expect from a dietitian. So I did what I had been trained to do. I helped them restrict. I helped them follow plans. Sometimes they lost weight.
And then, over time, the weight would come back.
Sometimes all of it. Sometimes more.
Then they would come back to me feeling defeated and ask for a reset.
We would start the process again.
At some point I started noticing the pattern, and something inside me began to feel…off. I didn’t have the language for it yet. I just knew it didn’t feel like I was truly helping people.
Discovering Intuitive Eating
Around that time, I started seeing a fellow dietitian from my internship, Haley Goodrich, posting on Instagram about something called intuitive eating.
This was around 2015 or 2016, before dietitians were widely talking about it online.
I called her and asked, “What is this?”
The more I learned, the more things started clicking into place. Around that same time in my own life, I had hit what I now call “diet rock bottom.” I was exhausted from trying to control food and my body. I couldn’t keep dieting anymore, but I didn’t know what the alternative was.
When I read the book Intuitive Eating, everything started to shift.
But that shift was messy.
Because suddenly I was realizing that the very thing I had been chasing for years, intentional weight loss, wasn’t actually the magic answer I thought it was.
And yet my entire education and career had been built around it.
The Moment Everything Changed
A few years later, I moved to Florida and joined a private practice dietitian who took a chance on me after a cold phone call. I was incredibly grateful for the opportunity and continued seeing clients in person.
But the tension inside me kept growing.
I could see the pattern clearly now. Restrict. Lose weight. Regain weight. Start over. The cycle wasn’t helping people build trust with their bodies or their relationship with food.
In September of 2019, I attended a non-diet conference led by Haley Goodrich and Fiona Sutherland. Those two days completely changed how I saw this work.
I remember standing there at the end of the conference crying because I didn’t know what to do. I had one foot in weight-centric care and one foot in the non-diet world. The disconnect between my values and my work felt overwhelming.
Then 2020 happened.
The pandemic shut down our in-person practice, and everything moved online. Around the same time, I started posting on TikTok and sharing weight-inclusive nutrition content.
Within months, everything shifted.
In August of 2020, we sold our in-person practice and I moved forward as the sole owner of what became Find Food Freedom®.
And I never looked back.
Building Find Food Freedom®
The early years of Find Food Freedom® were small. Just a few of us seeing clients and trying to build something that aligned with our values.
Over time, the practice grew.
Today our team includes multiple registered dietitians providing intuitive eating and weight-inclusive counseling to clients across many states. In 2024, we transitioned to accepting health insurance so that more people could access support without the barrier of high out-of-pocket costs.
That decision alone allowed us to reach thousands more people.
And personally, life kept moving too. Between 2021 and 2024, I had two babies and went through three rounds of IVF while continuing to grow the business alongside an incredible team.
None of this was done alone. There are dietitians, assistants, editors, supervisors, and so many people behind the scenes who make this work possible.
Advice for Dietitians (and Anyone Finding Their Way)
I get messages all the time from dietitians asking how to shift into weight-inclusive work.
My advice is always the same.
First, get clear on what you believe.
What are your values? What feels aligned for you? What kind of care do you want to offer the people in front of you?
When your values are clear, decision-making becomes a lot easier.
Early in my career, I felt constant internal conflict because my work and my beliefs didn’t match. Once I got clear on my values, it became much easier to say no to things that didn’t align and yes to the things that did.
And if you’re a dietitian working in a more traditional setting right now, you can still practice from a weight-inclusive lens. You can use respectful language. You can create safety for the person in front of you. You can center their lived experience instead of pushing rigid nutrition rules.
That work matters.
Another concern I hear a lot is about technology and AI replacing jobs in healthcare. And while technology can be incredibly useful, there’s something it can’t replace.
Human connection.
The work our team does every day involves listening to people, helping them rebuild trust with their bodies, and supporting them as they heal their relationship with food.
That kind of care requires empathy, nuance, and real human connection.
And that’s something I believe will always matter.
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If you’re struggling with food, body image, or feeling stuck in the cycle of dieting, you don’t have to figure it out alone.
Our team of registered dietitians and certified intuitive eating counselors at Find Food Freedom® offers weight-inclusive nutrition counseling designed to help you rebuild trust with food and your body.
Many of our services are covered by health insurance. You can check your benefits in just a few minutes and see what support might be available to you.
You deserve care that respects your body, your lived experience, and your autonomy.
