Happy National Registered Dietitian Day!

Happy National Registered Dietitian Day, my friends! I thought in honor of the “holiday” today I would share some of my best nutrition tips and RD-related advice here on the blog from over the years, plus links to some of my favorite fellow RD bloggers.

It’s crazy to think that I’ve been a dietitian for 3 years now – how time flies! In December 2012, I graduated with my Masters of Public Health in Nutrition from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In February 2013, I took and passed the exam to officially become a Registered Dietitian and shortly after started my own nutrition counseling private practice (AnneTheRD.com)! Since I changed careers to become a dietitian and was coming from an unrelated field, it took me 3.5 years total to complete the prerequisites, required coursework, and internship hours. It was a long road but clearly it was worth it – and in a few months, I’ll have been a dietitian for longer than it took for me to become one. 🙂

I love being a dietitian. As you guys know, I’m not your typical dietitian in that I tell clients to quit calorie counting and throw away their scales and stop trying to eat perfectly or follow rigid plans (because being healthy means not always being healthy, in my opinion). I love helping others to improve their health in a balanced, sustainable, and non-stressful way through Intuitive Eating. I love networking with and meeting other like-minded dietitians. And I love that I worked hard and really earned the credentials to back up the advice that I give.

A couple quick tips:

1. RD and RDN (Registered Dietitian Nutritionist) are the same thing. Interchangeable. But if someone is just a nutritionist without the “dietitian” part in there, that’s very different. To be a dietitian you have to do years of science-based coursework, a long internship program, and take a national exam. “Nutritionist” on the other hand can kind of mean anything – some have great credentials and extensive education, others may have just done a quick online course. Unfortunately there’s no real standard, so education and qualifications can vary greatly in the “nutritionist” umbrella. Just fyi.
2. It’s spelled “dietitian” with two T’s and no C. 🙂

 image source

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Nutrition-Related Posts

Here are some of the best nutrition hot topic focused posts I’ve written over the years.

• Should Everyone Go Gluten Free?
• 7 Common Nutrition Myths (that you shouldn’t be fooled by!)
• How to Get Rid of Sugar Cravings
• The Sneaky Thing That Might Be Causing Your Stomach Pain
• What Oils To Use When (e.g. high heat cooking vs. baking vs. salad dressing)
• Why This Registered Dietitian Eats More Fat (guest post written by me on my friend’s blog about the science and history behind low fat diets – and why I don’t recommend them)
• Trans-Fat: What It Is & How and Why To Avoid It
• How to Interpret Blood Test Results
• How to Eat for Running: Top 5 Nutrition Mistakes Made by Runners
• Quinoa Nutrition Fun Facts and Recipes
• How to Eat Intuitively | A Guide to Mindful Eating
• How to Can Your Own Food at Home

You can also see an example of my typical daily meals in this post: What I Ate Wednesday (RD Edition).

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For Those Who Want to be Dietitians

Here’s How to Become a Registered Dietitian (coming from an unrelated field). When I first started looking into becoming an RD back in 2008, it was really frustrating because the information out there was confusing and not that helpful, especially for someone like me who wanted to become an RD from an unrelated field, not having taken much science in undergrad. So, once I figured it all out and was in grad school, I wrote that page to help others who were in the same boat. 🙂 See also: how to pass the RD exam.

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For Dietitians That Want to Start a Private Practice

I created a blog page on this topic: How to Start a Nutrition Counseling Private Practice.

I also highly recommend the book Making Nutrition Your Business – it was really helpful to me as I planned my business launch.

Two other books that were released more recently that I would recommend are Welcome to the REBELution: 7 Steps to the Nutrition Counseling Practice of Your Dreams and Pursuing Private Practice: 10 Steps to Start Your Own Business (<- the author of that book, Jennifer McGurk, was kind enough to answer questions from me when I was starting my own practice back in the day – love that she has come out with an official book now)!

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Great Blogs Written By Dietitians

There are a TON of great blogs/websites written by dietitians on the web, but here are just a few of my favorites that are frequently updated and feature great recipes and balanced nutrition content (with an intuitive eating/non-diet mentality focus). Some of them are recipe blogs/websites, some are lifestyle, some are a mix like me!

• Avocado A Day Nutrition
• Be Truly Nourished
• Delicious Knowledge
• Healthfully Ever After
• Healthy Aperture – like Tastespotting but for healthy recipes!
• Hummusapien
• ImmaEatThat
• Kath Eats Real Food
• KH Nutrition
• Lauren Fowler
• Living Well Kitchen
• love & zest
• Make Healthy Easy
• MJ and Hungryman
• Real Talk RD
• The Foodie Dietitian
• The Lean Green Bean
• The Real Life RD
• Zen & Spice

If you’re a dietitian blogger or know a great dietitian-written blog, please share a link to it in the comments! 🙂 Fellow dietitian Lindsay (already in the list above!) also has a great post from last year’s RD Day with links to pretty much all the dietitian bloggers on the web, if you’re interested: Dietitians Who Blog.

Have a great day – and happy RD day to my fellow RDs! Thank you for working to make the world a healthier place. 🙂