What is Nutritional Therapy? Part 1

As I began my entrepreneurial venture as a Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner (FNTP), I understandably received a lot of questions surrounding the gist of what I do. I've decided to write a client consultation series about it, “What is Nutritional Therapy?"“, with each installment providing a glimpse of the different steps in the process.

For those truly interested in becoming clients, I have some introductory materials I can send you to provide a better picture about what our time together will look like. You can book a session or package that suits you here.

For those of you still on the fence about it -- maybe you recognize some disconnect between your diet, lifestyle, and health, but you're not sure if nutritional therapy, or my practice (Nutritional Foundations), is the right choice for you -- check out this and the next couple posts to see what it might be like, and you can better decide what would work best for you.

What does an NTP do?

If I had to sum up my role in a single sentence, I would tell you that my goal is to provide a unique, bio-individual pathway to get you better connected with how your diet and lifestyle make you feel, especially when these elements are potentially manifesting as undesirable symptoms.

If I were allowed to expand on that a bit, I'd tell you that this bio-individual approach means we are working together to find the tailored diet and lifestyle picture that will get you the health results you seek. I will be here to support you but never pressure you, meaning I will provide the information and tools you need to get to a healthier state, but I'm not going to shame you if you don't meet your short-term goals and I’m not going to give you a lecture if you couldn't tackle the action items for the week.

That’s not what I’m here for.

his is an ongoing process. Humans have ongoing lives. It's never going to be a one-size-fits-all, fit-into-this-box approach. I'm not automatically going to tell you to immediately give up dairy and gluten and swear off all sweets til the end of the earth.

Life isn't cut and dry like that, and that's supposed to be a good thing! We're going to find you -- human, somewhere in the middle ground -- living a normal life. I will meet you where you currently are and help you tackle some well-thought-out, incremental goals to help get you where you want to be.

Sounds great. How do I get started?

If you wanted to know more about how this would practically apply to you, I'd encourage you to schedule a free, 15-minute discovery call with me, or send me an email synopsis regarding what health challenges you're facing right now. There and pros and cons to either method of communication:

Email = great for providing more detail, able to do it as your schedule allows, but limiting in terms of us getting to know one another

Phone or video call = have to keep it brief (I set a firm limit on 15 minutes) so there’s less detail, has to be scheduled at a time convenient for both of us, but also allows us to show a little bit of our personalities and, potentially, body language (if doing a video call) to determine if we’re a good fit. These things matter too!

How we communicate is up to you. I'll say my preference is a phone or video call in order for us to become a little more acquainted and for you to better trust me and what I have to offer. I want you to get the best bang for your buck possible, and you getting to know me is just as important as me getting to know you.

You can choose anyone you want to guide you on a health journey, and I am always honored and humbled when a client chooses me and my approach at Nutritional Foundations, however I want you to be sure and feel comfortable in this process. Hearing and/or seeing one another helps with that.

We had a 15-minute call. I'm on board. What are the next steps in the consultation process?

At this point, we would schedule a day and time that works best for our initial consultation. This will likely be one of the longer appointments we have, simply because there's tons of information to unpack and I want to get your full story, so we would make sure we have plenty of time for it.

Before we meet, I would send you a set of 4 forms to complete that help us get there. (This can be accomplished either electronically through a couple online platforms, or handwritten from emailed PDFs — whatever you prefer.)

I know it probably sounds like a lot, but trust me, these are enormously helpful to the both of us. And think about how many times you've filled out multiple forms with other health practitioners... this time around, they'll actually very much get utilized. (We almost can't move forward together without them.)

With all of my clients, I always, 100%, will start with the Disclaimer. This is a legal document that explains my scope of practice, what you can expect of me, and what I can expect of you; it basically indicates that successful nutritional therapy will be the result of each of us holding up our respective ends of the bargain -- you are responsible for your own actions and choices, and I am legally protected by acknowledging that. Again, I'm reiterating that I'm not here to force any kind of regimen on you -- I simply work alongside you to curate your goals and action steps.

The second form I'll have you complete prior to our initial consultation is the Initial Interview Form. I realize this seems redundant, seeing as we had a mini-interview already where I briefly learned about your health struggles, but hear me out -- this form asks interesting details about your health history that not many practitioners ever asked you before, such as your hobbies, sleep hygiene, cooking patterns, birth, toxin exposure, and more.

This form provides me the opportunity to get a big-picture look at your health habits over the span of your life, and gather the details I need to help you identify some potential underlying causes of your current concerns (like your stress level and blood sugar dysregulation symptoms, for example).

The third form is a little more labor-intensive, but it's a labor of love: the Food and Mood Journal. This is just a grid with blank spaces to write times of day on the left, and the following headings on the right, to be completed each time you consume something: Foods; Drinks; Supplements and Herbs; Energy and Mood; Movement and Relaxation; and Digestion and Reactions. (The electronic version of this may look a little different.)

For example, say you were tracking your breakfast on Monday. You'd write in both the time you began and finished eating breakfast in the first box on the left. In the next box to the right on the grid, you'll list the foods you consumed (and preferably a rough estimate of quantity). Continuing to move right, you'll list any drinks consumed during this timeframe. To the right of that, any supplements or medications you took with this meal. To the right of that, you might write that you took 5 deep breaths before the meal, and went for a 15-minute walk afterward. Finally, you would enter any details about how you felt -- did you have to run to the bathroom for a bowel movement? Did you get bloated or gassy? Did you develop a headache and get really sleepy? All of these types of detail are important.

Let it be known that there is no judgment here. Write it all down. As much as you're comfortable with. All the servings of ice cream you had at 1 AM and all the different kinds of poop you had the next day. It's all important, and I will never critique you or make you feel like your choices have "good" or "bad" moralities. I will, however, ask follow-up questions to the information you provide so that I can help you draw more inferences and develop more tailored recommendations.

I recognize that this can be an emotional process for some people, and I would encourage you to do what you can. If it means being sparse on the details, that's fine too. I just want you to know I'm here to help you break free of these chains, and over time I think you'll find this to be your experience.

For data analysis, I would only need three to four days' worth of information on this Food and Mood Journal, however you're free to complete as many sheets as you'd like if you find them helpful or want more data. Many of my clients find this journal to be incredibly helpful, and they continue using it throughout their journeys, every single day.

Lastly, I'd ask you to complete the Nutritional Assessment Questionnaire. This form lists specific signs and symptoms of different organ dysfunctions or congestion that we can address or support in our journey together. It will ask you to rate the frequency and severity by which you experience each symptom, listed as separate line items. You might be surprised that something is listed as a symptom that, all this time, you thought was completely normal to experience. This form can really shed light on a lot of those minor details we overlook in daily life.

Done with the paperwork. When do you need it by?

I ask for all the forms to either be sent or handed to me personally a minimum of 24 hours before our initial consultation. Typically, I only need an hour to review them, however if I'm booked with both my current day job and other clients as well, I may not get the chance to review your forms ahead of time. This is fine, too, if for whatever reason you were unable to get them to me -- I can definitely go through them for the first time with you in person, however that will likely take longer and will end up costing you more in the long run, and likely not provide you any extra benefit. So! Early turn-in gets the worm... or the best bang for your buck.

Reviewing your forms ahead of time allows me to thoroughly tease out the information you provided and develop some major talking points for our initial consultation. These talking points include follow-up questions, opportunities for education and growth, and directed suggestions and goal-setting.

Next step, and next post... what to expect at the initial consultation! Stay tuned for this second installment in this series to get a better perspective about the real details of our first encounter.

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