Thinking about trying nutritional therapy?
How nutritional therapy works
As it’s complementary therapies week, I wanted to share a bit more about how nutritional therapy works and how it can help you.
What I love about nutritional therapy is that it is tailored to you as an individual. We are all different genetically, in our bodies biochemistry, in our diet and lifestyle and so it makes sense that any approach to improving your health needs to take account of these factors.
A nutritional therapy appointment starts off with a detailed assessment so that we can understand more about what is going on in your body and where any imbalances may be. Before my appointments I ask people to fill in a detailed nutrition questionnaire, so I can learn more about not just your current symptoms, but how well all the systems in your body are operating, as we see things as very connected.
I also ask people to complete a 4 day food diary before the appointment. This is not about judging your food choices, but learning more about what we can build on or improve to address your health concerns.
Initial appointments last for 90 minutes so there is time to talk about your health concerns in detail. These discussions will help to understand more about you, but also what the triggers might have been to your health concerns, and what factors might be continuing to drive them. This helps to devise a plan that not just reduces your current symptoms, but tries to get to the bottom of them.
After the appointment I will then put together a nutrition plan that is personalized to you. It will use diet, supplements and lifestyle recommendations to address some of the imbalances identified. Nutritional therapy can work really well for a number of conditions, such as:
- Reducing levels of inflammation in the body
- Re-balancing hormones
- Boosting energy levels
- Soothing digestive complaints
- Balancing stress levels and helping with low mood
Worried about having time to make changes to your diet?
Some people worry about trying nutritional therapy as they know they do not have time to cook everything from scratch. Others worry that they will have to make massive changes to their diet that they don’t have time to make.
My approach to nutritional therapy is to make it manageable for you. Hence part of the consultation will be spent talking about your food likes and dislikes, your cooking and shopping habits. That means I can come up with a plan that is achievable for you. There is no point coming up with a strict diet that involves hours of cooking a day if that is not sustainable for you long term.
So in my nutrition programmes we break things down into small steps and make change gradually. This might mean just changing a few things one week and then reviewing how it goes the next week before making further changes. It can include making suggestions about buying a different brand of a product from your usual supermarket that contains less sugar. Or if you only have 15 minutes cooking time, coming up with things that can be made in 15 minutes.
You will get plenty of ideas about how to make the recommended changes through recipes, meal plans and product suggestions.
So if you have been wondering about nutritional therapy, don’t be put off that it will be too difficult.
Find out more about my services and how I work on my website. Book in for a free, no obligation call, where you can find out more about how nutritional therapy could help you.
Content Disclaimer
The information contained above is provided for information purposes only. The contents of this blog are not intended to amount to advice and you should not rely on any of the contents of this blog. Professional advice should be obtained before taking or refraining from taking any action as a result of the contents of this blog. Emma Belton Nutrition disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on any of the contents of this blog.