Episode 02: Dietitian vs. Nutritionist, How to Become an RD, and Scope of Practice

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Participant #1:

All right. Hi, guys. Welcome back. Welcome back. This is episode two. This is our first official full length episode. We're getting into the fun stuff. So in this episode, we're going to be going over what the difference is between a dietitian and nutritionist big combo there. We're going to be going over how to become a dietitian. And we're going to discuss the scope of practice of, like, personal trainers, CrossFit coaches, nutritionists, all that fun stuff. So let's jump right in. Not going to waste any time. Well, as you guys know, Emily and I are. Well, Emily is almost a dietitian. I am a dietitian. And the biggest, most glaring difference is that to become a dietitian, you have to actually go to school, do an internship, you have to pass an exam, then you have to maintain your credentials. Whereas a nutritionist can literally just be anyone like my dog could be a nutritionist. My aunt could be one your next door neighbor like anyone can be a nutritionist. And that's why it's so kind of frustrating when people confuse the two because they're very different, very different. Yes. Actually, going off of that. One of the biggest pet peeve with dietitian is how you spell it. So put it on record. How you spell dietitian is diet. D-I-E-T-I-T-I-A-N. And going into College, I had no idea that was actually how you spelled it. I realized that a lot of my College application essays I spelled it D-I-E-T-I-C-I-A-N. Which is no, you do not do that in the Dyote community and also just in general, because the spelling wasn't very well regulated. I know Microsoft Word, I think, has changed it, but I had no idea in one of our Tas and our first classes really let us all have it because a lot of us spelled it the incorrect way in some of our assignments, which was pretty funny. Look back on. But we have learned our lessons since then, have not spelled incorrectly since. And we say all this like not to tease or make fun of. You don't know because you wouldn't know unless someone told you. I literally did not know what a Dietition even was until I went to College to become a dietitian. You just don't know what that really is unless you're experiencing it firsthand. So yeah, big difference. We're here to remind you of that. And we always will. So also, you might see sometimes after someone's name, their credentials could be Rd or RDN. They're the same thing. They mean the same thing. Rd just stands for registered dietitian, and RDN stands for registered dietitian nutritionist. And I know we just said that we don't like being called nutritionist, but everyone knows what those are. And so by having that after our title helps people recognize what we do a little bit better. Yeah. People don't necessarily know what a dietitian does, but then you have the word nutritionist, and they identify the nutrition root word and they figure it out from there. Yeah. Bingo. So I personally go by RDN. Do you know what you're going to use yet? Emily, once you get your I think I'm going to go with RDN. It seems the way that society is moving towards. You got to go with the flow. Stick to the status quo. It's kind of musical. Yeah. I played that song for the first time in a long time in my car the other day I thought of you.

Participant #1:

Remember when we came to my place after that one haul? Is it Easter that we came to my parents? Yeah. And we were jamming to bed on it the whole way. That is still the best song to come out of all three movies. And I will stand by that until I die. I love that song. Okay. Anyway, so there are actually seven different routes to become a registered dietitian. I did not know this until a couple of weeks ago. I'd known about maybe four different routes, but it varies, obviously internationally. Also in Canada, I know they have different guidelines, I think based off of the organization you're part of and also with the new 2024 requirement, where in order to sit for the Rd exam, people will have to have at least a master's, which is really interesting. So I'll be interested to see how these guidelines actually change over the next three years because a bachelor's degree will not be enough to sit for the exam. But we can go over what the requirements are now as they are. We can do a refresher, maybe in three years. There we go see about what we think of the changes, see how like programs will change and such. So option one is basically the most simple, straightforward route. I would say at least this is what I did with mine. So I guess it's simple for me, not for others. But you have to complete a bachelor's degree by a US regionally accredited College or University. And this is coincided with the organization Ascend, which is the Accreditation Council for Education and Nutrition and Dietetics. And you have to complete a didactic program in Dietetics at whatever University or College you're at. And from there on, you'll go to complete and accredited Dietetic internship, and this is typically at another school or another facility or organization. The second option is what Hannah did, where you will complete your bachelor's degree once again by an accredited College University. And then you'll complete their coordinated program. And a lot of schools actually do have coordinated programs associated with them. And then if you do want to talk a little bit more about that, I just wonder because my program is not a master's program, like Emily just said, in 2024 is going to be required to get a master's, and so they don't even know yet they're talking about it when I was doing my internship. I'm just wondering how they're going to even transition all of that because the program I have now won't qualify you to sit for the Idea exam, so they're going to have to modify it where you can. I'm guessing it will still be coordinated, but they'll have to incorporate a master's program somehow too. So that will be changing. That'll be interesting to see. There are so many programs that are just the internship, so it will be really interesting to see what changes. I feel like there will be a gap of time when no one is sitting for the exam because everyone's getting their Masters. I am thankful every day that we are done with it like we don't worry about that. I mean, you already have a master, so it would have been finding a way. But I'm just glad we're grandfathered in. Yes, thank goodness.

Participant #1:

Okay. So then option number three become a dietitian. You will do your bachelor's degree once again.

Participant #1:

This is if you don't get matched to a Di. A Di is a diet setting internship. But sometimes people often try to take this route if they don't want to do an internship. For instance, some people do grad school and they go for their MBA, or sometimes they go for a PhD. And in this route they'll actually complete an accredited DPD, and this is an individualized supervised practice pathways, which basically is it's added supervised practice, but in a different revenue, I think you might have to. Actually, I don't know if you have to find your preceptors ahead of time or not. I'm not too familiar with this route. It probably depends. I've heard that you usually do at least going to be like part of the program. I don't know either how it works, but that's hard. Yeah. And then option four is this is when you will actually complete a doctorate that is with an accredited College or University, and then you will complete an SB doctorate with this as well. So going more that grad school route. If you didn't have a bachelor's from an accredited University, this could be another option for you, which I've actually seen a lot of people do where they will complete their bachelors in something completely not really related to nutrition. And then they'll go on to grad school where they can get be eligible and set for the RT exam after completion of their program. That would be hard because it's usually less time your master's program, right? Oh, yeah. It's very intense. Kudos to those people. That is very impressive.

Participant #1:

And also I'm reading all of these off of thecrnet. Org because I want to make sure I'm telling you guys the correct information. We'll share the link. Yes, we'll share the link. In case you're curious. Option five is called the Registration Eligibility reciprocacy, and this is with individuals of the Dutch, Philippine and Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute, which I have no idea about. If you're from Ireland listening, like, thank you. Yeah. Let us know what it was like there, but it looks like it's following a different set of guidelines with the different organizations. So I assume that you just go through whatever that program is. Option six is also very similar. It's the Canadian Registered dietitian. I love the name of that the Canadian Registered Dietitian, but they have another organization as well that is correlated with completion of their programs and such. And then the last one is the International Dietetics Program, which there are a wide variety of different requirements for this. But I assume it's all very basic and pretty vague on the website. But if you look more into it, I'm sure you have more straightforward answers. But basically the purpose of us going through that was just to show that it's not a four week program or a certificate that you just sit for and you become a dietitian. We do go through you complete, probably on average, three to four years of education. With the master's requirement coming up, it'll be about six years of education. We'll see how that changes with the graduate school requirement, but there are a lot of components that go into this, and we do get a lot of different types of education through these different programs. And our practical experience with dietary internships and issues are essential for developing key dietitian skills. So yeah, the more, you know, I learned a lot about those new avenues a couple of weeks ago, and we've been doing dice headaches for who knows how long. Yeah. Like, six years, seven years. Maybe it's cool. That's cool. But it's good, too, because you can kind of go and branch out and do whatever you'd like to support clinical or whatever the go to places. But anyway, yes, like I was kind of getting to if you do all of that, become a dietitian. There are many, many, many routes you can go about. There's some I'm not even going to talk about that. You can just kind of, like, create yourself. Really. That's the beauty of our field. I would say the biggest one probably is clinical working at an inpatient facility, seeing patients checking on their diet, making sure they're getting fed correctly, eating enough food, that sort of thing. And I am willing to say that I think everyone has to do that right during their internship, sometimes clinical rotation. Okay. That's what I thought we definitely did for me. I think it was twelve weeks of clinical, which got cut short because of code, but normally that's what it would be. Yeah, mine. I currently work at an outpatient facility, so I'm technically a clinical dietitian, but I work outpatient. So patients come to my clinic to see us. It's a little bit different than patients that are just in the hospital sick or just had surgery or are getting surgery or whatever it might be. But other outpatient facilities. So I do weight management. But you could also do renal with the kidneys. You could do cardiac with heart health. My goodness. You could do, like, cancer GI, like gastrointestinal eating disorders, all kinds of different things you can do outpatient. But even like outside of a hospital setting, there's food service management. There is sports nutrition. There's, like College education, like someone to teach us how to become dietitian. That's a job you can do. There's Pediatrics. There's just so many different fields. Private practice that's also growing one currently, especially with everything kind of going more into the online space. So, yeah, a million avenues. Yeah. Very cool. There's a lot you can do with our degree, which is really awesome. We are very lucky to have all those opportunities. Yeah. Okay. We've got to the boring stuff. Should we get into the fun saucy talking about misinformation? I hope you guys are ready to hear us get fired up a little bit because we talk about it all the time. We always get mad. Yeah, we're going to keep it professional. Yeah. You guys can come to your own conclusions, obviously. Think whatever you want. But these are just our two cent. Yes. Is it $0.04 for the two of us? Do we get more cents? Four pennies. These are our four pennies we can start talking about before we even really got into our ditex degree. And the information we saw online. Yes. There's so much of it out there, and it's so overwhelming. I hear every single day from people that I see that they're like, I don't even know where to start with, like, changing my habits because there's just so much information out there. I don't even know what's true and what's not that's what we're here for is to get you through the weeds. But yeah, before I became a dice, she's like, probably the first two years of College, even before I really learned about all the good stuff. It's the first year of College. It's just Biochem. And what else we have to do. Orgo, all that kind of stuff you don't really get into how to counsel a patient or a client or learn about, like, medical nutrition therapy until, like, later down. So anyway, the first few years of even College, I was still learning about what is good advice and what's not. And a big culprit is Pinterest. Oh, my gosh, Pinterest. I actually got on before we were prepping for this episode, and I just Typed in, like, weight loss advice just to see because I knew it would just be amazing. Terribly thing, terribly amazing things. And I was correct. I wrote some of these down, so I hope you're ready to go over them. I'm excited. Okay. So the first thing that I saw popped up, it was about eating a lot of foods that have calorie, like, they're negative calorie foods, like, you burn more calories when you eat them, which first of all, is just not even possible. There's no way you burn more calories while you're eating a food than what is actually eaten. Yeah, the only thing would be like ice cubes. Right? Please don't eat ice cubes unless you like it, but also have some protein with it, please. And thank you. The examples they gave, which I heard before, like, celery broccoli, that kind of stuff. But sure, it's very low calorie, but it's definitely not zero calorie and definitely not negative calorie. But the ones that got me were, like, apples and peaches. Like an Apple has, like, 60 calories in it, which again, fine apples are great. Nothing wrong with having apples. They're definitely not zero calorie. So this isn't the worst one. But I was just like, that's just so silly because it's just so misleading. Anyway, I agree. Sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. Stay on this one. I was just going off of. The idea of that is why the act of eating like food is meant to feel you and not punish you in a way that societies seem to make calories.

Participant #1:

So it's okay if you're consuming calories, you're supposed to eat calories. Yeah. And plus, all those foods have a bunch of different vitamins and minerals that aren't just their only purpose to be in the negative, like a calorie deficit from eating them. There's so much more to them than that. And I feel like they're getting a bad name. I'm a big peach man. They're amazing, and they should not be only glorified because they're quote unquote and negative calorie food. They should be glorified because they're juicy and tasty and full of vitamins and minerals. Gosh Dang it. Yes, I get fired up. It's only the first little bullet point.

Participant #1:

Yes. Okay. Anyway, this next one, I don't even know if I can get through it because it was just so terrible. I'll help you. Okay. I added a link if you want to look at it, Emily and I can add it in our description, too, if you guys are interested. Actually, no, we're not going to share because it's terrible. I don't want you guys to look at it. So the next thing I saw that really grabbed me was ten tips from models that will help you destroy weight. So this goes back to the very first thing we said, which is that you shouldn't just be taking information on nutrition from whoever, especially not models, unless the model is also a dietitian. In which case, go ahead. But yeah, good for them. So some of these tips were fine. Like eat protein at every meal, whatever. Sure, that's fine advice. But I'd rather come from a dietitian who follows up with how do you feel about that? And how will that actually work in your day to day life? Not just here's some information. Do it now and be fine. Notable one that I saw was one of the models says she only eats organic food because it makes her more energetic. Okay, I don't even know where to begin with that one. First of all, organic food is not healthier for you. We could do a whole episode on that. In fact, you probably will because that's a whole conversation. Organic food oftentimes is more expensive, and sometimes that's just not realistic in someone's budget. And also what do you call it? Non organic. The opposite of organic. Sorry, what did you say? Conventional? Is that what they call it? Maybe. Anyway, even then, you can eat conventional foods that are still healthy for you or healthy. In a sense. Also, I'm about to go off the term healthy. Just grinds my gears because healthy is different for everyone. This is going to go into our next episode because I was just looking at that. But make seems to have made the phrase healthy associated with weight loss. And that's not necessarily true for some people. Some people need to be gaining weight, and also some people they don't necessarily need to change their weight. And a lot of it is I don't even know how to start it thinking, Where am I going with this? But just the term healthy. There are so many different aspects of your health to your body than just your weight, because this is an article about how models lose weight or stay in shape. Also, those are in shape. We are all shapes. Everyone's in shape with your rectangle and be in shape. Yes, but it should be more about how you feel and how food makes you feel and not the number on the scale or what someone's perception of you is.

Participant #1:

No, I was just saying, sorry, I don't even know how I got on that. I just heard healthy and like,

Participant #1:

well, yeah. So it's not to say that wanting to lose weight is even a bad thing. You can want to lose weight in a healthy way, but that's just it. You need to do it in a healthy way, and that shouldn't be your main goal. I always say put it on the back burner. Like, focus on other things before that's kind of your main goal, because it's so hard to even keep your weight loss on a steady track because so many things influence it. I mean, you eat a high carb or high salt meal and your weight is going to go up like £5 because of the water retention. So focusing only on that one factor makes it really hard to assess how well you're actually doing. Exactly. But anyway, back to organic. I don't know how I got here. I'll take the blame for that. That's okay. This is going to happen more than once, guys. So just be warned. Yes, organic will make you lose weight by itself. That's definitely not the case. I don't know why she even said it makes her more energetic. That literally makes no sense or something in organic food that would make you more energetic than conventional food. So that one sucks. Don't do that. Forget about it. If you want to eat organic, go for it. If you can afford it. Great. Nothing wrong with that, but it's not providing you any benefit other than more so than those that aren't organic. Yeah. Okay. The next one that I saw in there that was not my favorite was she said that she starts the day with hot lemon water to get the metabolism going. Okay, kind of the same thing as the organic. If you want to have hot lemon water, go for it. It could taste good, but it's not going to do anything magical Besides hydrate. You maybe warm me up on a cold winter's day, but definitely not going to get your metabolism going. Another great way to get your metabolism going is eating food there it is. Organic or conventional choice. Is yours? Yes. Got to wake that baby up, but not with hot lemon water, because there's, like, is that a negative calorie food? It might be. I want to think about that. Just enjoy your hot lemon water if you like hot lemon water. Yeah, it's not going to cure you or do anything magical. Neither will cold lemon water. I've heard that one too. A lot. Shall I like the lemon? My water? Because it's good for me. It detoxes me, and we'll get to detoxing. That's a whole other conversation as well. But yeah, if you want to have it, if you don't like it, that's fine. Your metabolism will still work. Okay, next one is pretty similar. I think it was Kendall Jenner that said this. I can't remember how to reference it, but she said to drink green tea for fat burning and metabolism boosting. Why is that a thing? Is that because of the caffeine or what? Like why is that even something that people claim? I'm pretty sure I don't know how long ago it started, but like all the studies around green tea and I think there might be some cardiac benefits to it. Don't quote me on that.

Participant #1:

For those who can't see, I just hit my leg on the table and everything flew around. It got so riled up about green tea, but I know there definitely have been studies where there have been positive health correlations with green tea. And I feel like people have just hopped on to that. It's kind of like one of those foods that comes around where there's nothing really, necessarily. I would say bad about green tea, but people just kind of put it on a pedestal and have claimed it has all these incredible benefits. Right? Like, there's one study about it probably out there that says it's good and everyone goes crazy for it and blows it up at a portion. So yeah, same thing as the organic food and the hotline and water. If you like it, go for it. But don't expect any magical effects from it.

Participant #1:

Okay. A couple more this next one, maybe you laugh out loud and literally all the world. Oh, it's so stupid, she says. This model says when exercising, it's important to use your butt more than your thighs. And this whole article is on destroying weight, quote unquote. So I don't know what that has to do with boosting your weight loss. But when you're exercising, feel free to use your butt and your thighs. That's okay.

Participant #1:

It's so dumb. Yeah. I don't even know where that is coming. And it's funny because she didn't elaborate that's, like all that it says is just focus on using your butt more than your thoughts, period. Okay, that one's moving on. Okay. This one's also exercise related. So this model says when she was a kid, she used to exercise by sucking in her stomach when she was young. And she says also to get in more exercise when you're in the car, for example, always set up straight because it will help you get AB muscles,

Participant #1:

the whole sucking in thing. I don't really get that. I can't understand. Maybe like, I'm blanking on the word when you activate, it's not activate. I'm blanking on the term of like when you tighten something.

Participant #1:

Yes. Like your muscles. Yes. They're going to be working because you're contracting them. It's more of like, I feel like it's multitasking. Not really. In the sense of this is going to do so much more for me. Also, sitting in the car where you're more relaxed. I feel like that makes more sense compared to you sitting up and focusing on all your muscles and holding yourself up compared to a relaxed position. That's not necessarily like something crazy. I know, it doesn't make any sense because you've probably heard, like, ABS are made in the kitchen or ABS are made in the gym. There's kind of polarizing ideas. There are many factors that go into, like, body composition that aren't just so just sitting up straight is not going to be the one thing. If it was that easy, we would all have six

Participant #1:

so you can use your butt and your thighs. And if you want to suck in your stomach, you can. But it's not going to give you ABS. So that's the bottom line there. Yeah. Can this be real? Like, are people actually writing these things down and thinking it's a good thing to edit and post out to the world. I can't comprehend that. I don't know. I feel like this is going to go along with a lot of things we're talking about where people and I was also a victim to this, too, for the majority of my life since I was a child, into an adolescent girl, where there's a lot of factors going into that around body image and such. But people see these figures that they might look up to and assume that if I do the exact same things they're doing, I'm going to look like them or they know what they're talking about because they look a specific way. So if I listen to what they tell me to do, then I'm going to look just like them. I remember a conversation I think it was undergrad where you told me you found a Taylor Swift diet. Lively one. Oh, yes. And who even knows if those are accurate? Like what they're putting out is actually a representation of an accurate representation of what they eat. Also, they probably don't eat the same thing every day. At least I hope not. I feel like that could be quite boring. But it goes along with the issue of a lot of people can just put out whatever they want, and people think that they'll look exactly like them if they follow what they say. When one that could be giving you inaccurate information. Two, they can be doing whatever it is for money, like giving their two cent to the magazine. They could probably make something up. Or also their genetics are a huge component of their body conversation and what they look like along with their access to health care professionals. I feel like a lot of models probably have dietitians working with them and then also the personal trainers. And there are probably so many more disciplines that work with them that the average person doesn't have access to. And it's just there's a lot going into what we see on a screen, and there's a lot going on behind the scenes that we don't know about. Their black and white diet is not going to make you look like them. I think I saw that somewhere. I don't want to take that quote and call it mine, but I definitely read that somewhere. So whoever's quote that is Kudos Kudos forgetting who said it. It's so true. Emily and I could eat the exact same way, do the exact same workouts, have the exact same daily lifestyle. And we would look totally different because genetics just daily things here and there. It's just not possible. So well said my last little pitching. I'm not going to go too much to this one, but I did see the last little pin I saw was about metabolic confusion for endomorphs, which, if you don't know, there's like, different body types that apparently you can have. So the ectomorph mesomorph endomorph and certain practitioners will say you should eat a certain way to kind of work with your body to meet your goals faster and better. I'll be honest, I don't know how much truth there is to that style or that approach, but I want to touch on the metabolic confusion because why would you want to confuse your metabolism? It's not going to make it work any better, work any faster. That's not how metabolism works. And like we already said, just by eating just by getting calories in you, you're going to activate your metabolism. It's going to do what it's supposed to do. There is the whole phenomenon. We can get to this a different time of, like, metabolic adaptation, where if you do eat way too little for a long, long time, then your body thinks it only needs that amount of calories at this point. And so it does start to require less. And that makes it harder for weight loss. If that's your goal, if that is the case, it's a good time to work with a dietitian and other health care providers. But this whole thing about metabolic confusion is just nothing to worry about. There are bigger battles to fight than trying to confuse your metabolism. Like, are you getting three meals a day? Are you getting protein at every meal? How much exercise are you getting? Are you drinking plenty of water, all that kind of stuff? Little tweaks here and there are going to be more beneficial than trying to confuse your metabolism, whatever that means. Yeah. Plus from what we've learned in school, and obviously a lot of people might not have this information in their head, but your GI track is very smart and very complex. It knows what it's doing. It's not trying to trick you or make your life worse in any way. Obviously, there are associated GI disorders and different diseases, which that will definitely throw a wrench in your plan or whatever it is you have in store for your GI system, but it knows what it's doing. For the most part, I'm trying to protect you, too. Yeah. Trust your body. The biggest Disclaimer with that is I know with a lot of, like, eating disorders and disordered eating, there's a lot of influence from the brain and what someone might be seeing or observing. So in that sense, their sense of different things with their GI tract might be off. But at that point, hopefully they're working with someone to help them through that and figure it out. So our advice for those people might not be as applicable.

Participant #1:

Bottom line is, don't take advice from Pinterest. That's just the overreaching statement here. Pinterest. I love Pinterest. Use it for recipes, use it for, like, bathroom renovations, but don't use it for diet advice, please. And thanks. Yeah.

Participant #1:

Okay. I'm all riled up. Let's see what else you got.

Participant #1:

Okay. Should we just jump right into our good friend medical medium? Yes. Now I want to preface, because I know we said we're not doing this to

Participant #1:

show that we think we're better than others or that were, like, the perfect decisions. This medical medium guy, which I'll get to where they're nutritionists out there who aren't qualified, like I am who know more than me. They're personal trainers who know more about nutrition than I do. But this guy really is the pits. This guy really stinks. I'm just not a fan. So if you guys have heard of the celery juice cleanse medical medium is the guy who created that. He has a huge following on Instagram. He's very popular. And I had always thought he was a doctor. And so we kind of had a platform to use to talk about nutrition. But I was looking at his website today. This guy is not even a doctor. Did you know that? I didn't know that I thought he was a doctor. Yeah. So from his website, this is what it says. Anthony William medical Medium is not a licensed medical doctor. Chiropractor Osteopathic physician. Is that natropathic doctor, nutritionist, pharmacist, psychologist, psychotherapist or other formally licensed healthcare professionals? And if you guys look at his information, he actually wrote a book, too. That's kind of something he really pushes you to purchase from him, which is another reason why he does all this is just to make a buck. But he has really no right to be saying that's what he says. So I was looking today at his Instagram specifically, and I saw a few wonderful claims that he makes. And again, he has a lot of followers. He has people that are, like taking his advice so seriously and believing everywhere that comes out of his mouth. But his celery juice cleanses the biggest thing. So he says things like celery juice strengthens the reproductive system and celery juice flushes toxins out of the liver. And just those wild ginormous claims cannot be true. Like, you can't just single out celery juice to be the one thing that betters your reproductive system. It might be part of the process. It could also be like something that's also happening while you're working on other things to better your reproductive system. However, that needs to go. But it's definitely not the only thing that is working towards that. If that makes sense. Yeah. Plus, he doesn't cite his sources. Yes, I was going to say for me, I like reading the studies or whatever backup information they normally I guess they don't even normally do that. I've seen a lot of people on Instagram where they make claims about nutrition, and there's no evidence behind it, and that's just very suspicious to me. So every single one of his posts, the caption is to buy his book. That's what I was trying to say earlier is like, yeah, not every single one, but a big chunk of them. He doesn't really elaborate. He just says celery juice strengthens the reproductive system and then says in the caption, buy my book to learn more. So like Emily just said, you don't really know where he's getting his information from unless you pay him and get his book where he might cite it. Who knows? He's not going to have money for that to find out. I'm not going to contribute to his agenda, but you just got to be weary and kind of dig a little deeper before taking advice from just anyone. Yeah, some other notable claims he makes, aside from celery juice, is that wild blueberries safely remove toxins. And this is a great one. Zucchini removes debris from the digestive trap. I love that.

Participant #1:

That's how fiber works, right. Also, what debris is getting in there, right? Is there, like a fire going on in your stomach? Like, what's going on? Is there, like, a little smoker in there just getting Ashes everywhere. What is happening with this guy's? Patience. Maybe he like, does he have patience? I was going to say maybe he has his own practice and he actually has, like, these crazy scenarios. Zucchini actually does remove debris from his patient's digestive, tracks something you'd see on, like, a medical show. I know, like, Grey's Anatomy. Medical media would be great in Grey's Anatomy. And I also want to point out, aside from him saying that or that the captions just to buy his book. I don't know if I just didn't dig deep enough, but every single one of the comments is like people glowing and saying how great he is and how celery juice or whatever changed their lives when I know for a fact that there are people out there, like dietitians and others who have commented and said things like, Whoa, this is completely off the wall and false. So I don't know if I just wasn't looking hard enough, but I wonder if he does, because you can do that. We can just delete comments that you don't want people. Oh, yeah. So again, who knows that's actually true? I'm just speculating, but you got to wonder when he's doing those other things. Oh, okay. I'll get off my soapbox about medical medium. He's just one of my least favorite. I know. I was sending Emily some great reels and videos that he's created. Oh, yeah. They're hard to watch. I think the first question I asked was, Is he okay? An answer we may never know. Yeah. Well, speaking of, like, non doctors providing nutrition information, we should say first, there's a fine line, too, with doctors providing nutrition information, because, yes, they go through a ton of education. They are well versed in so many areas, but they truthfully don't often get a lot of education and nutrition. And so they're just really not the best person to go to why we exist. I think I remember that. I do know that not all medical schools require a nutrition class, which is wild to me, not even one nutrition class. I know a lot of doctors that have gone down that path of creating a lot of books around nutrition advice when obviously you can read the research and gain an understanding from that. But there's so much more to Die's headaches and nutrition than just putting out claims. And from what you might read from research or whatnot or even like your own personal experiences, which is my pet peeve of mine. Right. Like we learn about how to counsel people about the behavior changes that come with it. It's not just like black and white nutrition. We burn that too. That's a big part of it. How protein breaks down in the body and that kind of stuff. That's what doctors probably get. The biggest gist of is like stuff like that. But I would say half of my job that I do now working with patients is more so kind of talking about the behavior modifications, the emotional aspect that comes with reaching your goals, all that kind of stuff. And thankfully, we will learn that stuff in school, because if we didn't, I would not feel very well equipped to do that. No. So bottom line is just be wary. Like I said, a lot of books written by doctors on nutrition are out there. There's tons. I was looking at that, too, before we recorded this, but one that really cracked me up that I really wanted to point out was that Dr. Phil, did you know he has a diet book? I did not. But it makes sense. It's called the 2020 Diet, and it's funny because he's not even like, he's not a psychologist, right? Like he's not any kind of doctor at all. Oh, I'm confusing him in Doctor Oz. Oh, Doctor Oz is a doctor, I think, right? Yeah, I'm pretty sure he's a cardiologist. Yeah, but Doctor Phil, I do not know. I'm pretty sure that was, like a whole thing when he was big on TV is that he's not even a real psychotic, not any kind of doctor. I hope I'm right about that and didn't just call him out, but everyone's saying, no, he's a doctorate in clinical psychology, PhD, doctor, not a medical doctor. Which either way, I mean, you shouldn't be writing books for nutrition, but still, what is the twine twin diet? I'm curious to hear. Do you know, I just got angry and moved on. Let's see what our friend Doctor Google has to say about Dr. Phil. Oh, this will be something you love. The first thing I see says the 2020 diet consists of eating 20 specific power foods. Take a lot of energy to break down, which may increase your calorie burn rate. So you just burn more, calculating them.

Participant #1:

Okay. Oh, my local library has it that I can borrow. Maybe I should I'll report back on that for research purposes. Okay, Emily, I kind of took over my personal experiences and things that's in the lines or anything you wanted to add about just things that really have grinded your gears or you feel like we kind of cover the bulk of that.

Participant #1:

Most of my experiences were honestly with social media, like influencers, especially in high school and first or second year of College when I was really not that knowledgeable about nutrition and how to go about all this information online and figure out what was accurate. But I think I really felt victim to this is how they look and eat. And I should change my diet to adapt to theirs, which is really frustrating. Looking back and I was like, oh, so young, so naive. But yeah, that's something to know. I like looking at what people post about. They eat now more. So just a sense that I want, like, recipe ideas, right. Like, call me or dinner ideas. Yeah. Sometimes they look really good, and I want to try something like that. But I'm not looking for the sense that I want to look like you. And I know eating like you is not going to make me look like you. And also the entire topic of body image, which we will go into the next episode. I am comfortable with who I am. There's a lot to unpack there. Yeah, we'll get to that. That's going to be a whole thing. I did not have any specific people that came to mind just because I feel like I saw so much of it through so many different people that, oh, my gosh. It's like everywhere, everywhere. And it's so frustrating because people are looking up to these influencers or whatever they want to call themselves because the thing is, it's hard to be upset with them because they usually do have good intentions. They're like, not bad people. Yeah. And so they're not trying to provide that information. They just truly don't know any better because they don't get education and they probably don't even know that dietitians exist and that we should be the ones doing it. And so they just think that it's okay for them to be doing it. And that just starts the whole snowball effect of what we just described. But yeah, it's everywhere.

Participant #1:

Cast helps people be skeptical of the information you see out there. Even sometimes things I see dietitians post. Yeah. And it's not a perfect science. Like things are always changing. Like what was it like years ago? Like fat was the evil nutrient, and now it's carbs or probably protein. Next, science is always evolving. Fad diets are always coming and going, especially that you like that. You mentioned the fad diets a lot of times people ask to see the science behind why fat diets don't work. And that's not how science works. We're not trying to guess what fad diets coming next to prove whether or not it's beneficial to your life. Oftentimes there are so many different in the science universe. There's so many things going on. Nutrition specifically, there's a lot of different topics that we're still looking more into, like the Mediterranean diet. I've seen so many new articles come out about it when we seem to have a pretty good grasp on it and its benefits. But there's still so much more to learn. And a lot of what we do is we are evidence based, so we don't want to recommend something to you based off our opinion or something we personally experienced because testimonials aren't always they're actually the least accredited. Maybe. Yes, I'm remembering the pyramid. Me too. Strengthen the weakest. There we go. Wow. Sorry for testimonials aren't the strongest source of evidence. And a lot of these fad diets start that way because I think, wasn't it? Kylie Jenner posted Celery Juice and the entire world blew up. She's got like, millions of followers. Oh, yeah. They look up to her and she has a body. People want to have their selves. So they think again, back to what we said earlier. If you look like that, all you got to do is eat like that the amount of juicers I've seen since then. If you like juice, there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that. Go enjoy your juices. I'm a big fan of juice, but just the impact someone with that big of a following can have by one post is insane. And then all the dietitians have to stop what we're doing and backtrack and be like, wait, let's look into this. More

Participant #1:

is the research behind it. Are there any claims that could actually make sense based on what we know? And then we go from there. Yeah, exactly. And I don't think celery juice really harms your body in any way. At least that's good. A new, fun way to hydrate like that. I don't know. It even tastes good, though. I feel like it probably wouldn't taste the greatest controversial opinion, but I believe celery is the worst vegetable. I agree. It's stuck in your teeth. It tastes like bitter. I know it's only good if you put peanut butter on it and then you put raisins and you have ants on a log. That's the best way to eat it.

Participant #1:

Also say, luckily, the most harm done was to the grocery stores that ran out of Celery. I mean, good for them. The demand. Celery farmers are probably like raking in the dough. Yeah. There could also be claims that aren't that harmless, which someone of that who has that much following or I guess respect, could potentially damage people's lives. Anyway, I think this leads well into some of the consequences of working with someone without proper nutrition education. Yes, the celery people are just getting hydrated. Celery farmers were having the time of their life, the sales juicers, they were killing it for them. But the positive claims associated with it weren't necessarily there. There are other claims you may hear that aren't so harmless, and those are the more I wouldn't say more important, but those are the ones that can be harmful, of course. So just being cautious of all, if it sounds too good to be true, you better look into it and see if it really is or not. Yeah. And it is hard because like Emily said, there are things that we don't know. We might say to patients or clients, and we think we know what's best. We try to give the best information, but science is always changing. We never quite know what is truly the best information out there. Some other consequences of working with those who don't get educated in nutrition. A big one is disordered eating promotion. I think I think that's a huge one that definitely happened to me. I had a battle case of orthorexia growing up, which is when you're kind of obsessed with healthy eating. And like I kind of said earlier, it led into my sophomore year of College. Even as I was learning about Dietetics, people out there say all these wild claims, like we just keep saying and you take it to heart and then you follow it, and even it doesn't really apply to you. And then it just becomes a whole cycle of disordered eating. Yeah. And even in the worst cases, it could lead to like, eating disorders, which we do not want. And yeah, it could be just really negative on someone's life to really think about the information you're putting out there because you might think your intentions are good, but they could be negatively affecting someone in a way that you had no idea. Yeah. Another one I like that we have on our little list here is sometimes they will use fear tactics to kind of, like scare you into eating healthier, exercising, whatever it might be. You know, the ones, the ones that are like, you better work out five days a week for 2 hours or you're going to be obese forever and have diabetes. That's not how you counsel someone that's not going to make someone want to change want to become a healthier version of themselves. Like I was getting out earlier. It's all about working towards on the mindset and the behavior changes more so than just kind of freaking them out with the science and the facts. Because while that may be true. What they said. Putting it in that way is not going to be helpful in any way. No. Plus, they're going to be miserable while they do it. They're constantly going to be working against them like I'm doing this. So these negative things don't happen to me. You should be doing it because it feels good and you're happy from the outcome, not because some person is scaring you to follow their advice for whatever reason. Yeah, exactly. That being said, should we go into just the best part of this? Yes. This is my cup of tea. I was looking into this today and a lot of feelings were going on. I was experiencing a lot of different emotions, so something that isn't nationally uniform across United States with the dietitian profession is licensure. So licensure also, that's a weird word. I do not want to be saying that a lot, but I'm going to have to. Licensure is basically

Participant #1:

from state to state. It's not regulated on a federal level, but basically with Licensure, it's keeping people safe and focusing more on the safety and I guess appropriateness of care from different individuals. So Licensure will basically, as I said, it will protect its consumers. It's going to help you identify who's actually qualified to provide you with nutrition services. And this can be, for example, such as nutrition education, meal plans, anything like that that requires a proper education. And when you see the LD or LDN at the end of someone's name, that means they're a licensed dietitian, and there are actually different levels of licensure. So there are 28 States, and this is all updated as of July 2020, according to ericpro. Org, their Licensure map, which is the Academy of Nutrition Dietetics map. And there are 28 States and territories that follow this practice exclusivity label. And this basically means that if you have a license or it means that you're required to have a license to practice medical, nutrition therapy or Dietetics, and it's subject to any exemption shown in pop ups and such. So basically, this really locks it in that if you're not a dietitian, you can get in trouble for giving out nutrition advice that could potentially be harmful. And then going from there, there are 18 States that are categorized as Licensure of little only or certification of RDNS. And this means that the state only licenses the title, license, dietitian, or similar title, and it only provides an optional certification which may facilitate reimbursement or employment in certain facilities. So in these States, there's a board that exists like a mini Academy within that state, and there's a board that exists in the wall. But there is no license required to practice MNT or Dietetics. And then there are two more categories. But the last one I'm going to talk about is there are three States that are categorized as title protection without formal state regulation. And this means that the state restricts use of the title to certain credential professionals, but there's no board that exists, and there's no license required to use the title. So really, you don't know if there could be any harm put out to you or provided to you with the advice you're getting in these States that don't have the regulation with it. And it's something that dietitians often advocate with for often, because I'm going right into this thing because it's not that we don't want other people giving out nutrition advice for our own selfish reasons because we want to be the only ones doing that. It's from a safety standpoint that we've seen so many negative effects come from people giving out their advice on something they're not qualified to. And then it leads to a domino effect nationwide and sometimes even like worldwide, where society now hates the new macronutrient or something or follows some type of diet because someone said so. And now there might be repercussions that come from that. Before I go into my specific example that I brought up that I'm so excited to talk about, is there anything you want to say about that, Hannah? Not much. I do believe that my state, Indiana, is one of the 18 that licensure is kind of like an optional thing where I work. I believe it's required. I do have my licensure, and I believe we require it because it helps with, like, insurance coverages for our patients, because our state is one of those States where it is required in some cases. And I believe Michigan, an hour north of where I live, there's like, no laws at all. So it's tough because Michigan and Arizona are the two States that aren't any of these categories. They have no regulations. No, it's crazy. So literally, any average Joe in Michigan can just be providing meal plans, two feeding recommendations, like whatever. Yeah, crazy. It's kind of crazy. I think Illinois where I am right now, we're part of the practice exclusivity when the first one where it really is strict about consequences, which that's that's good, good dietitians do a good job of advocating for that. And that comes with, like, working with your public, maybe politicians. I guess I was going to say I don't know what I was going to call them public. Maybe, like local politicians. They're the ones who make those changes we just advocating for. Why it's so important. And it's all coming from a good place. I would love it if I don't know if I would love it. Actually, I take that after the years of education, I don't know if I'd love it if everyone gave out nutritious information. Yeah, our jobs will be pretty obsolete, but I get the point. But just the harm that comes from it can be really detrimental. So my specific example that we are going to talk about today that this was a historical time in Dietetics history. I went back to the Timestamp on this and it happened in May 2019 that long ago. Yes, so things could have changed and we are open minded and people make mistakes. But in May of 2019, the official CrossFit Twitter page retweeted an article from the organization R Street, and it argued so the specific quote they retweeted and Typed in their little blurb with the retweet of the article was rather than genuine health and safety concerns. Licensed dietitians are mostly just worried about protecting their monopoly status as the only group that can provide nutritional services in States like Missouri, which, after everything we just talked about, what are we benefiting from from having this monopoly? And we don't even have a monopoly now, as it is, since there are so many people that give out nutrition information or provide nutrition education and such. But CrossFit decided to retweet this from their official page. And of course, it blew up where a bunch of dietitians are like, yes, we want licensed medical professionals providing advice. I think I commented on that, like on my own personal Instagram. I said something, wow, I'm going to look for it while you keep on going. I did not have Twitter back then, but maybe I shouldn't comment now. No, they might have changed. They might have changed. And we don't know. But I looked more into the article that they retweeted since I was just so curious. What was so interesting about this. And another quote I saw was articles arguing to allow non licensed professionals to provide diet advice. And then another fun quote was it said, while the concept of professional licenses may seem like a helpful way to ensure safe diet advice, it actually works instead to flock out many qualified professionals from advising clients on how to eat healthier and live better. Like, we're not trying to make it so that less of us can help it's that we want only those of us who know the safety of it to help. If that makes sense. This is coming from a standpoint of like. I think one of the best examples I brought up was, Would you trust your dentist who either passed one exam or took a four week course on dentistry to fill in your cavities or to perform a phrenctomy? Or like, sorry, that's relevant to me because I just had a fragment to be done. Like five months ago, I was like, what? No. Or even in terms of like, a doctor if your doctor passed one exam or I guess, surgeries, that's a really drastic change in your body. If your surgeon took one seminar on hip replacement surgery, would you trust them? Or would you rather go to someone who's gone through years of medical school and residency and knows what they're doing and has some associated education with that? It was so frustrating to me because I saw more comments from CrossFit how they wanted their trainers to be able to get out nutrition information and nutrition advice. And it's totally fine if they're also dieticians, but they're more than welcome to go to school with us. They're more than welcome to go back to school for it so they can provide information. But it was just very much a slap in the face that this a big fitness organization was coming after dietitians. Right. Like, what did we do wrong? I don't quite understand where that even came from. I guess there's a language about us monopolizing, but we're not doing that. Nurses are monopolizing. The nursing industry, right. Like, what the heck? Nurses. Yeah. Or like I'm linking to anything else. Any other profession, right. Engineers get out of the engineering. No. It's like I always say, would you want me to be your chiropractor as a dietitian? Want me to come? I don't know. Adjust your spine. I don't have the right to do that. It wouldn't be safe for me to do that. No. Or like, even like me, I'm not a personal trainer. I took a lot of health and kinesiology classes during undergrad, but that does not mean I'm not going to give you a fitness plan. Yes, because I don't understand how it works. The harmful effects that could come from giving someone a plan that might not work best with their physical restraints or make it individualized exactly to them. It's very much understand where we're coming from. And it's not a place of, like, we're not trying to be malicious. We're just trying to make sure that people are safe and that all these harmful potential, like fad diets and trends and rumors don't affect people and start to consume their life. Because so many people I've talked to, their weight is what kind of is a big priority in their life because of things professionals not, I would say, health care professionals, but things like their friends and families have told them or some other person in their profession when it's not really warranted that they give their advice on that because they might not realize it at the time that it could be harmful. But it could lead to long term negative side effects that could haunt that person for the rest of their life, where they have to have ambitious battle with the relationship with food.

Participant #1:

Absolutely. That's my story that got me. All right. Well, that leads really nicely into what I want to go over next. And that is more about the scope of practice of personal trainers and dietitians. We also have our own things to work on, and I'll probably repeat this later. The goal is for us to work as a team because so much of your health has to do with both nutrition and exercise. They work together, obviously, in so many ways. And so that's why the line is pretty faded and kind of tricky of where it really is. There are rules in writing of what should be covered by personal trainers, not by dietitians and vice versa. Thankfully, you can do both, like, I, for example, am a dietitian and a personal trainer. So I am able to and I am grateful to be able to cover both with people that I work with. But we'll start with, like, personal trainers. What they kind of can go over. It's just like, basic information about nutrition. Talk about my plate, the dietary guidelines for America. What does protein do? What they had for dinner last night that they really like that kind of stuff. What they can't do is give to the recommendations, like a calorie goal, a protein goal, carb goal. That kind of stuff. They can't do any kind of, like nutritional assessment, one that they would use to then make individual nutrition recommendations. So that's a big one there. They also cannot offer any kind of, like nutrition counseling. Again, they can go over just basic general nutrition, nothing individualized. That's kind of the biggest takeaway is they can't do anything individualized in terms of nutrition supplements. That's a huge one. We'll do a whole episode on supplements because that is a heavy topic. But trainers definitely should not be recommending those and trainers to make their own supplements. That's kind of a whole other

Participant #1:

conversation. I don't quite get how that can be allowed. But anyway, we'll get to that in a future episode. We're already chatting like crazy people right now. So I'm not making bored with that right now. And then. Lastly, they obviously can't say they're a dietician unless they truly are. That would just be crazy. Just like Emily would never say she's a personal trainer, even though she has had schooling in some of those classes. And, like, information that trainer would know about. But you can't call yourself something you're not like I could never say I was a doctor, a chiropractor or a dentist. That would just be crazy. And so, on the flip side, what dietitians can cover unless they are a trainer, they can go over kind of everything together. But for dietitians who are not personal trainers, it's kind of just the opposite. Dietitians cannot give specific exercise advice, exercise prescriptions. They cannot write an exercise program for someone, unless, again, they are a personal trainer as well. Again, kind of the opposite. Rds can discuss, like, the physical activity guidelines, just like trainers can discuss the dietary guidelines, but they can't just give individualized specific recommendations. So that's just it. The goal, like I said earlier, is to make sure that we work together so you can give the full benefit to clients. That's the biggest takeaway I feel like to wrap. I wouldn't say to wrap the episode up, but to just wrap up all these thoughts we've had about these different various bullet points we've hit. There's a reason why people going to specialties. There's a reason I'm thinking very much in the clinical from a clinical standpoint, there's a reason why there's a pharmacist on the team. There's a reason why there's a nurse there's a reason why there's a speechlanguage pathologist. They are very good at what they do in that specific setting. And that's why we have these interdisciplinary teams that we can work together because it's never just with the patient or client. It's never just one thing is wrong. There's all these contributing factors, and it's about finding what combination might work best for you. And it's very much so I don't know why. Well, I do know why nutrition is a very popular topic. Everyone I know as soon as you tell them you're studying Dietetics or you're a dietitian, they want to hear your latest thoughts on this new fad diet. Or tell me if eggs are healthy for me. I've heard that so many times, but it is a very popular topic, and I don't want to say the phrase saying your Lane, but I understand my place, and I'm not going to go into someone else's profession when I know I could be potentially harming someone with what I tell them. And that's very against the code of ethics that the Academy has, and all the dietitians basically follow. And it's why we do not try to go into I guess I can't speak for all dietitians. I don't know. Not all dietitians are good. I don't know. There's so many of us I can't speak for everyone. But the intentions are not harmful when we are trying to give out the most accurate nutrition advice that's backed by science and what we think will work best for you as an individual. Yeah, a copy of everything she just said exactly. Okay, guys. So we know this episode was heavy, a lot of facts and some opinions as well. Like we were all over the board, so we decided this is our first real episode we want to start doing at the end to kind of like bring things back to more of a fun approach, which we had fun doing that I don't know about you guys listening. I think that was great. But anyway, something more light and just exciting to talk about. We want to always go over. Me and Emily are going to talk about kind of like this or that kind of thing. And so each time we'll have a different one. But today our kind of, like, fun bonus, this or that is going to be when you pour when you pour a bowl of cereal. Do you do the cereal first or the milk first? And I think it's also important to note, why do we do that? All right. I'll go first. I do cereal first because I think it's more so I don't know how much I'm eating of the cereal, and I actually don't do a ton of milk because I'm eating it more so for the cereal rather than for the liquid that's my thoughts on that. So if you have milk left over, will you ever add more cereal to it and eat more 100% okay. Unless it's a cereal like cinnamon toast crunch, where it makes it like a cinnamony milk, like, kind of like. Orchada I will drink that plain. Anything else? Normally, the milk is a vehicle for the cereal for me, so you don't usually drink it unless it's flavored like a good flavor you don't usually drink. I always drink it at the end. Okay, I have enough left. I will definitely be adding more cereal. Yeah, I'm pretty much the same. I also do the cereal first. That's just the right way to do it. If you want to tell me why not, then please do. I'd love to hear your side, but I do cereal first. I do quite a bit of milk, actually, because I like it crunchy, but I also like it when they mix together quite a bit. So I do quite a bit of milk. And then I also drink it at the end. So basically what you said, but I do more milk. Do you usually do like almond milk or you do like regular milk? So pre senior of high school. I always do regular milk. And I developed my weird milk sensitivity, which was literally probably one of the worst things that happened to me. Nutrition boys. I know that's dramatic, but I was one of those kids that would drink a full glass of milk every day. And I know some people are like that's. The weirdest sound like milk tastes so good. And then it started hurting me. I haven't really found like, I drink mostly almond milk, but it doesn't taste the same, which is very upsetting to me. I have not found a milk that tastes the same. It's just not the same cereals forever a sore topic with me. We're starting off with a good one then, I guess. Right. Have you ever tried that, like, lactate milk before? I have. Is it not as good? It's really sweet. It is. Yeah. Although now my sweet tolerance has changed a lot. I can't tolerate sweet things a lot anymore, which makes me sad because you know how much getting older. You used to love sweets. I know. Here I am, so old at 23, the right age of 23. You're ancient. Yeah. I'm glad we agree on this one. I feel like we might not agree on future ones, but that's okay. That'll make it fun. Exactly. I just think people have put in the milk first. I'm afraid of what have they seen? What have they gone through? Because I'm like, you don't know how much you just can't get the proportions, right? Yeah. What if it overflows? Yeah. What if it overflows? Please explain. Please write us comment on our Instagram. Something like that. Just let us know. We have to know. Yes.

Participant #1:

Okay. You guys, so so much for listening or watching, you can find us at our social media links you'll attach at the end of this description. Please let us know if you'd like to see in a future. Your episodes. And we can't wait to hear from you. Yes. Okay. Bye bye.