When Dina was faced with the struggles of her clients, it brought her to a surprising realization…

She had unresolved issues with food as well.

Curious, especially after training to be a dietitian, Dina unearthed the story behind it all…

“As I came to terms with my own relationship with food and learned more about the psychology of eating … I realized I don't want to be that person telling people they're not good enough or they need to lose weight or that they can't learn to love and accept themselves as they are.”

In a nutshell, Dina knew she had to take her dietitian knowledge, shake it up, and figure out how to make healthy eating ACTUALLY WORK for her clients.

This Dietitian’s Advice: Forget the Diet.

“How do I teach nutrition in a way it isn't going to feel like it's rules or restrictions or too overbearing?”

Dina knew that diet culture was doing more harm than good, and most of her clients intuitively knew that trying every diet under the sun wasn’t working anyway.

That’s when Dina developed the PF3 method: her answer to resolve problems around binge eating, fluctuations in blood sugars, and other health-related problems.

”The P stands for protein, and the three F's are fiber, fat and fun.”

Get everything you need, with a little dose of fun.

How could you not love that?

“I’m All About Doable.”

Speaking of “fun”, Dina wanted to avoid her clients feeling drudgery.

Because when you feel drudgery, you’re less likely to follow through.

“It has to be simple,” she says. And we couldn’t agree more.

“One of the ways Meal Garden has helped me is, I input a lot of my recipes into Meal Garden so that I can present them to my clients in a very professional way. And so, I'm able to use an online platform that allows me to share session notes with clients and attach things. So I can attach a Meal Garden recipe to a note.”

But according to Dina, Meal Garden also makes “doable” possible for her clients.

“I like to share two to three recipes a week with people. And then the rest of the week we can work on things that maybe they're used to eating, and just, how can we change those or just incorporate them as they are. That way people aren't overwhelmed with making the decision. I've made the decision for them, or we've made it together. Here's two to three recipes for the week. That's a good start.”

“There’s no right or wrong way to eat.”

Wait, what?

It’s true — Dina believes the “all or nothing / perfectionist” mindset is a path to failure.

So instead of changing her client’s entire eating patterns immediately, what does she do?

She helps clients with small, progressive changes. She shows them the roadmap forward… one baby step at a time.

(Psst — using nutrition practice software can save time and help you connect closely with each nutrition client, offering them the personalized nutrition attention they need to get real results. Meal Garden makes it possible to create, curate, and share dietitian-approved recipes, and modify meals and collections based on each client’s unique needs. Why wait? It’s free to join.)

Liked what Dina had to say?

Check out her website at vidanutrition.com to learn more.

inspiration, mindfulness, Client Engagement

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