What RDs Do: Lisa Andrews MEd, RD, LD

LISA ANDREWS

@NUTRIGIRL

SOUND BITES NUTRITION, LLC

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It's great to see that a dietitian with so many different experiences and that has worked in a variety of roles, still sees the future as an opportunity for dietitians to be involved in even more areas of practice. As you've been seeing in this series, this is a career for you if you like doing different things every day or every week. Lisa also reminds us that although we're translating science, there is also an art to the work we do.

Why did you become a RD? 

I became an RD because I was always interested in science and health when I was growing up. I am also a people person, so talking to people and helping them is just in my nature. My dad had diabetes, so I was always curious as to why his diet was modified.

What area of dietetics do you work in? 

I worked as a clinical RD for several years in acute care, nutrition support. Currently, I’m in private practice.

How would you explain what you do? 

I think I have “RD ADHD”. No day is the same for me. I see clients in an office, provide grocery store tours, do lectures or food demos for companies, freelance writing and some media work. I love the variety of work! It can be challenging to switch gears, but it is much more fun than doing the same work every day.

What are your ‘typical’ daily/weekly tasks? 

I update social media and my blog regularly. I see a handful of clients per week and write progress notes to physicians. I may do a lecture somewhere or health coaching at a company. I write at least 2-4 articles per month for Food & Health Communications and answer questions on Dietititian Central.com. I recently won a grant to have pantries placed in low income neighborhoods, so much of my time will be spent on this. Every week is different!

What has been your career path? 

I worked in acute care for 23+ years, but honestly, I had my foot out the door for at least 15 of it. I worked full time and got my Masters degree, then went part time at the VA where I was working. I taught classes at 2 universities as an adjunct and also had a community agency job part time. I did a lot of writing for free, which helped get my name out in the field. I feel like I’ve been consulting longer than 8 years because of the variety of work that I wedged into my schedule over time.

What advanced education or special training do you have? 

I have a Masters degree in Education in Nutrition. I have a certificate in training for Adult Weight Management and may go for the Certification some time in the future.

In an ideal world, what does the industry look like 5 years from now? 

I would love to see more RDs in retail and working in non-profits doing work in agriculture or sustainability. We need to get ahead of the food curve. I can see more dietitians in marketing and writing.

What misinformation about RDs would you like to clear up? 

I wish people didn’t think RDs were militant about their diets. If we didn’t like food, we wouldn’t be in the field! We eat healthy most of the time, but also might love wine and chocolate.

What would you like people to know about RDs? 

I’d like people to know we are highly intelligent and work hard. We deserve more opportunities in health care and other arenas that we are not currently offered (i.e. medical sales, health education or training in hospitals, marketing of food products for companies). It always bothered me that nurses were considered for promotions or management jobs, but RDs were not.

What are challenges you encounter as a RD? 

Biggest challenge is competing with non-RDs. It seems that everyone that eats thinks they are a nutrition expert! There are too many hacks out there that claim they are nutrition experts.

What do people think that you do for a living? 

People think I counsel patients on diets all day long.

What are you passionate about in dietetics? 

I am passionate about how RDs and food experts can change a person’s life through better diet. I like how creative I get to be in this field.

What makes RDs unique/different from other nutrition/wellness professionals? 

I think RDs have more training in clinical care than wellness professionals. We know in depth about disease and personalize our recommendations to people. We also know more about cooking and research. I call RDs the “Real Deal” in Nutrition!

What is your favourite meal? 

My favorite meal is a Thai peanut noodle dish I make with chicken. I love anything with ginger in it!

What tip(s) would you give to our readers? 

Never underestimate the value of volunteering, networking and mentoring. I believe it’s vital that people stay connected and give back to others (whether this is to a student or colleague). What comes around, goes around. Never burn any bridges. The world is a small place.

Anything else you’d like to add that you feel would be valuable: 

Check out my blog: www.soundbitesnutrition.com

More about Lisa:

Twitter: @nutrigirl 

Instagram: nutrigirl66 

Blog: Sound Bites Nutrition 

Facebook: Sound Bites Nutrition, LLC

Pinterest: Sound Bites Nutrition, LLC 

LinkedIn: Lisa (Cicciarello) Andrews

Thanks Lisa! Find out more about What RDsDo.

If you're a dietitian that would like to be featured, email me for the details!

What RDs Do: Jessica Levinson MS, RDN, CDN

JESSICA LEVINSON

NUTRITIOULICIOUS
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I've crossed paths with Jessica a few times online now. As I learned more about her, I actually noticed many similarities - we both started our practices right after becoming RDs, we both work in communications and with commodity groups, and we both have nutritious inspiration in our business names! Jessica creates delicious recipes and takes beautiful pictures as well; I know I'm going to try her family favourite recipe listed below.

Why did you become a RD?

What initially drew me to study nutrition and become a RD was the desire to help people learn healthy eating habits, but over the 10+ years working as a dietitian, my interests and work as an RD have changed to communicating nutrition messages on a larger scale through media and writing, as well as a focus on helping people feel confident in the kitchen and get healthy meals on the table that their whole family will enjoy.

What area of dietetics do you work in?

Nutrition communications and culinary nutrition.

How would you explain what you do?

I own a food and nutrition communications and consulting business in which I am a spokesperson for food brands and commodity boards with a focus on culinary nutrition, recipe development, and writing.

What are your ‘typical’ daily/weekly tasks?

Most of my days are spent between my kitchen and my computer. On any given day you’ll find me testing recipes and photographing them in my kitchen, sitting at my computer writing articles and blog posts for my personal blog and client blogs/websites, photo editing, and engaging on social media. There are times when I travel for work for television segments, SMTs (Satellite Media Tours), and/or shooting videos on behalf of clients.

What has been your career path?

I started a private practice immediately after I passed my RD exam and while trying to build up the practice I started working as a nutrition editor at an online publishing company, which was where I realized how much I loved to write about food and nutrition. I spent some time working for an eating disorder day treatment program, which was always an interest of mine, but I realized it wasn’t for me, and went full force into growing my own business, Nutritioulicious, as a nutrition communications and culinary nutrition focused business working with food brands and commodity boards as my primary clients.

What advanced education or special training do you have?

I have a master’s degree in clinical nutrition.

In an ideal world, what does the industry look like 5 years from now?

I’d like to see a continued and improved acknowledgment by the media and public that registered dietitian nutritionists are the food and nutrition experts. I’d also love to see more dietitians become aware of all the opportunities that are available to them within the world of nutrition.

What would you like people to know about RDs?

That we don’t all wear white lab coats and work in hospitals.

What are you passionate about in dietetics?

Now that I am a mother, I’m especially passionate about helping families feel empowered to get healthy meals on the table and meals that everyone will eat. I am a big advocate of parents making one meal for everyone – no short order cooks – and realizing that their kids don’t need “children’s food” – they can eat the same thing that adults do.

What is your favourite meal?

That is such a hard question – I have so many favorites! One of my favorite meals is one that my whole family loves and my children devour – Peanut Soba Noodles with Crispy Tofu and Vegetables

What tip(s) would you give to our readers?

Enjoy food – don’t make it a choice between “good” and “bad” foods. All foods can have a place in a healthy diet and the most important thing is to eat food you enjoy and that tastes good. Food should be nutritious and delicious, or as I like to say, Nutritioulicious!

More about Jessica:

Website: Nutritioulicious

Twitter: @JlevinsonRD

Facebook: Nutritioulicious

Instagram: JLevinsonRD

Pinterest: JLevinsonRD

Thanks Jessica! Find out more about What RDsDo.

If you're a dietitian that would like to be featured, email me for the details!

What RDs Do: Lara Felton, MBA, RDN

LARA FELTON

SHOPWELL & RDELISH NUTRITION

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If you've been following this series, you've probably noticed the diversity in the field of dietetics as well as similar themes, like our love of food! Like Lara, many of us are lucky to work in nutrition because we're so passionate about it. She has a very unique technology position and is part of an exciting private practice consulting team in an area I love (the San Francisco Bay Area!). I can appreciate the challenges of working outside your comfort zone, staying up on trends, and trying to take weekends off!

Why did you become a RD?

I love food! I actually found out about the field of nutrition and dietetics when I was in college. I was studying to be a marine biology major but wasn’t excited for my career prospects so I did some reflecting on what I was really passionate about and it was food and health. I found out there was a major for Nutrition and Dietetics on campus and once I learned about all the career options for RDs I was hooked and never looked back. 

What area of dietetics do you work in?

I started out in clinical, working as part of an awesome cystic fibrosis (CF) team. Now I work in technology for a mobile app called ShopWell and am lucky enough to still be part of an awesome team. I also do consulting work for recipe development and nutrition communications with my business partner and dietitian partner in crime, Sarah for RDelish Nutrition.

How would you explain what you do?

In the tech world I do a bit of everything from: developing new features with the engineers and product development team, marketing, managing social media, blogging, quality assurance testing, and customer support. It’s a small team so I get to wear a lot of hats. It’s both an awesome learning experience and can be quite stressful.

For RDelish Nutrition, I write blog posts, develop recipes, manage social media, have brainstorming coffee dates with Sarah, and consult with start-ups who have a nutrition concept or product that they want a dietitian’s expertise and input on. 

What are your ‘typical’ daily/weekly tasks?

Every day is different for me, although I try my best to stick to a weekly schedule to make sure I stay on task. I do a lot of support emails and work on the ShopWell database at the start of the week. I try to schedule out social media posts for the week on Mondays for both ShopWell and RDelish Nutrition. I am always looking at the analytics to learn more about who my crowd is on the social media platforms and what content resonated well. Midweek are my content days where I work on blog posts, healthy quick tips for ShopWell, spend time in the kitchen researching and developing recipes, and any food photo shoots that I dream up. I try to spend 20-30 minutes daily browsing my feed of other blogs I follow to stay up on trending topics, what others are writing about, and get inspiration for my own writing and recipes. I try to reserve weekends for family time but work tasks always creep in.

What has been your career path?

From my internship days I knew that I wanted to do something business-related with my nutrition degree. I completed my internship at Massachusetts General Hospital and we had a 2-week business plan development rotation that I loved. I wanted to learn more of those business skills and felt that was a gap in the dietetics education. I also got exposure to the cystic fibrosis patient population and was really drawn to how key the dietitian is on the CF treatment team. I was hired at Stanford Health Care after my internship and joined the adult Cystic Fibrosis team.

I still had an interest in business and the technology space, probably heightened by the fact that I live in Silicon Valley and start-ups are everywhere. A colleague at Stanford told me about the position at ShopWell. I was fortunate to get hired and really explore and hone my interest in business as well as be creative with how I share my nutrition knowledge.

Sarah and I started RDelish Nutrition in early 2015 as a way for us to explore new opportunities in the Bay Area and continue to foster our creative side through blogging and recipe development. I love having someone to bounce ideas off of, strategize with, and share the workload of maintaining a blog. We get along really well together and have complimentary interests in nutrition and similar views on food and life, which makes blogging and planning the content so much easier.

What advanced education or special training do you have?

I have a Master in Business Administration, which was a goal of mine after completing my internship. I had a real interest in business and absolutely loved the MBA program (maybe except the finance and accounting classes). The knowledge I learned and connections I made in the program have been useful to me in my roles at ShopWell and RDelish Nutrition.

In an ideal world, what does the industry look like 5 years from now?

Dietitians are leading the conversation and are thought leaders for topics relating to nutrition and wellness for the general public. I think the future of nutrition and dietitians is learning how to effectively reach more people through mediums like mobile platforms. With the pace of technology and particularly the changes in the health care space and telemedicine, I think RDs have the potential to reach larger numbers of people and have a real impact but likely less opportunities for the one-on-one touch we are familiar with today.

What misinformation about RDs would you like to clear up?

We’re not the food police! Unless you are my client and we are talking about your meals and eating habits, I (we) are not judging you for what you eat so don’t be self conscious to eat food around us.

What are challenges you encounter as a RD?

I work in the tech space now and I think RDs are now starting to get respect and credibility in this space. A lot of times I am talking about the differences between dietitians, nutritionists, and wellness coaches and the value that dietitians can bring to a tech or start up team. I think another big challenge for dietitians is salary and getting compensated appropriately for our time, expertise, and experience. Although it is also the responsibly of the dietitians to ask for more.

What do people think that you do for a living?

Blog and play around on Facebook. Most people have no idea what my role could possibly be at a start up. Even when I was working at Stanford Health Care people assumed I wrote meal plans all day long and talked with people about weight loss.

What makes RDs unique/different from other nutrition/wellness professionals?

Our expertise and education to be dietitians makes us much more credible (to me at least) but I do think we have an image problem in the more mainstream public. Since our profession is rooted in science we aren’t as swayed by fads and trends which often is not as exciting or as immediate.

What is your favorite meal?

Brunch, hands down. Specifically I love splurging on waffles.

More about Lara:

Email: lara@rdelish.com
Facebook: RDelish
Twitter: @r_delish
Instagram: @rdelish_nutrition
Website: RDelish
Website: ShopWell

Thanks Lara! Find out more about What RDsDo.

If you're a dietitian that would like to be featured, email me for the details!

What RDs Do: Abbey Sharp, RD

ABBEY SHARP

ABBEY'S KITCHEN 

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Today we're lucky to have Toronto's Abbey Sharp on the blog. Abbey wears many hats in her entrepreneurial dietitian role. She has a unique skill set which lends itself well to her media roles and YouTube page. Like me, she works with commodity groups, and encourages a moderate and long-term approach to eating which includes a healthy relationship with food. I like her comment at the end regarding what our food does (or doesn't) say about us.

Why did you become a RD? 

Mainly because I just loved food so much.

What area of dietetics do you work in? 

I work in media and communications, usually with a food first or culinary edge.

How would you explain what you do? 

I own a food and nutrition communications business and work as a nutrition and food spokesperson for various top food brands and commodity boards. I also do a lot of recipe development, blogging and freelance food and nutrition writing. 

What are your ‘typical’ daily/weekly tasks? 

Every day is different, which is what I love so much about my job, but my day-to-day tasks usually involve working with brands on large and small spokesperson campaigns. Sometimes it means learning or developing brand messages for TV or radio interviews, testing recipes for brands, shooting food photos for my blog, writing and shooting YouTube videos, hosting food events and teaching workshops.

What has been your career path? 

I always knew I wanted to work in media, but right after my internship, I started a masters program in sociology looking to study the sociological aspects of food. My goal was to get a PhD because I thought that would make me an even greater “expert” for media opportunities. But after two months of absolutely hating my life in grad school, I dropped out and launched a now very successful business in media.

What advanced education or special training do you have? 

I have a lot of culinary training (George Brown), and acting/ TV training (York university, Second City, and years of theatre training and experience as a child/teen).

In an ideal world, what does the industry look like 5 years from now? 

Hopefully we will simply be better represented in the media and the public will better understand what a dietitian does and how they differ from other nutrition experts. I also would love to see the public embrace a more moderate long term approach to healthy eating, rather than the quick-fix fads we see circulating today.

What misinformation about RDs would you like to clear up? 

That we just work in hospitals and treat people with Ensure or tube feeds. Dietitians help people not only recover from illnesses through diet, but also help prevent illnesses in all sorts of settings. Look at what I do- it’s the farthest thing from working in a hospital calculating feeds. I also hate that people think that dietitians just regurgitate Canada’s Food Guide or that we are simply government puppets. Dietitians are mandated to make our recommendations based on evidence and personalize it to the client- none of us only use any one method or only one government funded tool.

What would you like people to know about RDs? 

That dietitians understand the bigger picture. We understand the social, emotional, cultural and nutritional aspects of food, and we carefully balance those when making recommendations.

What are challenges you encounter as a RD?

Mainly just trying to counteract bad misinformation put forth by the media.

What do people think that you do for a living? 

I think most people can’t answer that in one sentence simply because I do so many different things. I even have a hard time explaining my job succinctly.

What are you passionate about in dietetics? 

I am passionate about helping people improve their long term relationship with food and empowering them to love their bodies and food again.

What makes RDs unique/different from other nutrition/wellness professionals? 

We understand that food is often just part of a larger issue. People aren’t overweight just because they eat more than they expend and the solution is not as simple as just telling someone to eat less. There is always something deeper that often is left unaddressed by other wellness professionals.

What is your favourite meal? 

Oh gosh, dessert for sure. I particularly love anything with caramel like sticky toffee pudding. I know, not what you were expecting a dietitian to say, right?

What tip(s) would you give to our readers? 

Listen to your body and honour it with the fuel and food it needs. Don’t think of food as good or bad, or yourself as good or bad when you eat that food. Learn to find peace with your body, food and yourself.

More about Abbey:

Website: www.abbeyskitchen.com
Twitter: @AbbeysKitchen
Facebook: AbbeysKitchen
Instagram: AbbeysKitchen
Pinterest: AbbeysKitchen
YouTube: AbbeysKitchen

Thanks Abbey! Find out more about What RDsDo.

If you're a dietitian that would like to be featured, email me for the details!