The Biggest Mistake Using Nutrition For Health & Fitness?

Megan Berner, Registered Dietitian (Nourish To Flourish), Fitness Coach (Fitness Lying Down)

If you have a goal of healthy living and fitness, chances are you’ve been exposed to some of the basic elements that support a healthy lifestyle like activity, food choices, sleep, and stress management. For a lot of people, diet and exercise are the main areas of focus because they’re usually the most controllable factors. These two go hand in hand, and fortunately for me, I have both of those hands in a professional setting! If you’ve been a part of the DVRT community, you probably recognize a gym with blue and green walls, artificial turf, and black rubber floors known as Fitness Lying Down. This place is my second home as not only do I personally train here, I also work here! Megan the Trainer, RD, reporting for duty!

Not only are we able to support our clients fitness goals with the DVRT system, we can also support them with nutrition – these two controllable areas, in a one-stop-shop. I’m going on my third year as a registered dietitian (RD) and I absolutely LOVE what I get to do! If you told me back when I first started college that this is where I’d end up, I would have been shocked! I began my college career at University of Wisconsin La Crosse (UW-L) in pursuit of becoming a physical therapist. The program was very competitive and I didn’t have the same motivation my fellow classmates had so I switched majors to exercise sport science (ESS). I had a nutrition minor and was fascinated at how food interacts in our bodies. I was extremely close to transferring from UW-L to a nutrition program, but decided to finish what I started with ESS since I had already invested a lot of time (and money!) and if nutrition was still calling my name I would stay in school after graduating. That’s exactly what happened! I graduated from UWL in 2018 and then 3 years later I graduated from Viterbo University with a degree in community medical dietetics. I took my boards exam towards the end of the summer and have been an RD since! 

In my many years of school, I learned a lot about anatomy, physiology, microbiology, biochemistry, and clinical applications of these subjects in exercise and nutrition. I have a lot of  information in my noggin! Here’s the thing though, that information is absolutely useless to my audience unless two conditions are met. Number one, I have to be able to relay that information in a way where someone who isn’t a professional peer can understand without having to earn two degrees. I’ve been told I’m the “queen of analogies” and am able to break things down in a way that can be easily understood, so I feel pretty confident in meeting that condition. 😉 Number two, I have to be able to talk to them in a way that makes them care about using that information. I feel the most fulfillment and passion when I can explain concepts in ways clients can not only understand, but also apply to their lives and be BETTER. My tag line in my nutrition vlog series, Nourish to Flourish, is now that you know better, let’s go out and do better, so we can all be better!

Although I feel confident in my own professional skills with educating and motivating clients for behavior change, this is often a huge area of opportunity that isn’t being taken advantage of by professionals. Behavior change is HARD! Using motivational interviewing and the transtheoretical model of behavior change can be tough work! However, as I mentioned earlier if you can’t talk about and prompt behavior change, (within yourself or your clients) any information you have has no value. Neglecting behavior change is a huge mistake.

I am by no means an expert in this field, but I do feel as though my philosophy and approach to supporting my clients has brought them tremendous success. This success looks like breaking through plateaus, having a better relationship with food, improving health measures like blood pressure and blood sugar, and improving self-confidence and self-efficacy.

If this resonates with you and if you find yourself struggling in the behavior change department, I have created a program to help you navigate just that! I created the 10 Mistakes in Nutrition and Behavior Change program based on my experience as an RD. I hit on things I’ve learned through my classes and internships in schooling as well as first hand through my professional encounters. The first five mistakes are solely about behavior change! I talk about what those mistakes are as well as the solutions for them. Not only will you learn about nutrition concepts, you’ll also learn how to instill behavior change to implement that information!

Now that you know better, let’s go out and do better, so we can all be better!

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Listen to the audio HERE