Step 1: ????????? with your Master’s in Nutrition and finish your dietetic internship.
Step 2: Start working as a university/ campus dietitian and have ALL the students come to you for meal plans, weight loss tips, and ways to speed up their metabolism with dietitian magic dust.
Step 3: Spend hours creating these meal plans and magic potions and sharing your words of wisdom only to see most students fail and come back frustrated.
Step 4: Work with your first client that has an eating disorder. Listen to them tell you about their past diets, food rules and desire to lose just 5 more pounds even when you wonder what else is left to lose.
Step 5: Realize that a lot of the weight loss advice you’ve been giving actually sounds a lot like the behaviors your patients with eating disorder are engaging in. ????
Step 6: Go through a dietitian identity crisis. Realize everything you learned in school (obesity kills, eat less, reduce your portions, weight loss can cure any disease) is wrong and that you’ve been lied to.
Step 7: Find other dietitians that have rebelled against the dominant paradigm and learn from them.
Step 8: Evaluate your own relationship with food and your body. Note to self: it sucks.
Step 9: Work with a therapist to address these issues and wonder why you waited so long to go.
Step 10: Decide that you’re done with dieting and with helping people lose weight. Still struggle at times (especially after 2 babies) but remind yourself to be the change you want to see.