At a crossroads

I did not know where to begin, so I start here. On the idea of blogging which I have had for about a DECADE now, though no subject matter EVER hit home for me. Yes, I am a registered dietitian, I could write about ANYTHING nutrition related and yet, the desire never came through me. Yes, I've always enjoyed writing and expressing myself in this way - though no blog every manifested. Why I have come to believe this is true, is honestly the dissonance that comes with being a dietitian and a human, meaning learning rules, diets, ideas about "how to" and "shoulds" and "do not" ideas - that I will refer to as "diet culture" (a term I discovered only recently) and also rarely eating or living that way myself.

Sure, I altered my eating habits to fit various standards over my lifetime, though the rigidity that a specific diet copy or meal plan would have, never quite made sense. I'd add words like - try to do this, perhaps you try this 1 day a week, or let's add or subtract one thing from your current diet (diet only meaning how a person regularly ate). This would evolve to getting a patients or clients suggestions about what they thought they could adopt. Further in my career I'd cultivate skills in motivational interviewing and building relationship with clients - which somewhat even further brought me away from "follow this diet copy" to "let's work on 1 or 2 specific things" unique to the client and often it was not even a food. It was a behavior, a belief, a behavior changes and this felt better for sure, meaning the dissonance was greater reduced as I worked privately on unique concerns, though somewhat still there.

I've come to learn this dissonance still exists when I suggest/ educate what a client can do, and it does not come from them. AND basically, this is what clients desire when seeking nutrition help, we have been steered away from looking within for answers about our health or foods we eat, and encouraged to seek counsel for a multitude of reasons.