1) Consideration of all aspects of your health
Simply put, Alible Nutrition’s nutritional therapy can help you by understanding you. At the start of the consultation process clients are asked to complete a comprehensive health form. This doesn’t just ask about the one health concern that has given you cause to use a nutritional therapist, it asks about all of your health. It helps identify any patterns in your health symptoms that may not be obviously linked to your main concern, but may have a similar underlying base. It also helps me to identify suitable changes for you – a one-size-fits-all approach is not my method.
I also need to understand your medications – the side effects, and potential nutritional and food-related interactions. This helps me to understand their contribution to your health as well as ensure any dietary changes you make will not have any negative impact on your medication. Some medications may reduce your ability to absorb some nutrients, so that is a consideration too. Nutritional therapy is a complementary therapy meaning it is intended to work alongside conventional medicine, and not be an alternative to it.
2) Motivation and accountability
Nutritional therapy can help you feel motivated to take action, and hold you to account for inaction. At the end of each consultation we will agree steps that you can take towards healthier habits to help you achieve your goal. Your progress with these will be reviewed and discussed at the next consultation, where applicable. Knowing that you are taking these steps for the purpose of something you are paying for, and that you will be discussing your progress, can be the extra motivation you need to implement the steps. Don’t worry though, I won’t berate you if you don’t manage to achieve everything we agreed!
3) A chance to talk through barriers and challenges
When we are agreeing your next steps and reviewing previous steps, we will consider what barriers and challenges you may encounter, or have encountered. We discuss ways that you may be able to overcome those barriers and challenges, or find ways to work with them. It is important that the steps we agree will work for you so that they can become habits, rather than being a constant chore and source of frustration and stress.
4) Dietary changes that support your health
Perhaps linked in with 1), the dietary changes we agree during your consultations are very likely to have a positive effect on more than one area of your health. Improving a physical concern may have a positive impact on your mental health as you begin to feel better. Likewise, supporting your mental health may help you to feel more positive about your physical health. In addition, improving your diet can help improve more than one aspect of your health. You may feel more energised to take on new activities or challenges, for example.
As for the idea that you will have to remove food groups and replace with supplements…. The removal of foods from your diet is dependent on need, however wherever possible I will help you identify alternative foods for any foods that you may need to avoid. I don’t like asking people to remove whole food groups from their diets and only do so if that food could be contributing to the individual’s symptoms. Depending on the health concern, it may be that the elimination is only temporary.
Wherever possible I focus on adding in different foods to support your health, rather than removing foods from your diet.
The idea of supplements is again based on need. Do you need additional support to obtain nutrients beyond changes to your diet or are dietary changes sufficient to meet those needs? In some cases the supplements may be functional rather than nutritional – that is they have health benefits beyond vitamins and minerals. I certainly do not recommend replacing any food with supplements!
5) Lifestyle changes that help you feel more positive
As part of nutritional therapy, the steps we agree will not all be diet based. Our lifestyles can impact our health and our diet choices. Therefore, we will consider steps you can take to improve your lifestyle to support your diet changes, nutrient absorption, and/or general health. These do not have to be significant changes, they may be as small as adjusting your bedtime routine or taking a short walk at lunch time.
