Get to Know Me

Who I am & What I Value

If you want a general intro to Thoughtful Nutrition, head to the About page, However, if you want all the deets, keep reading!

I’m Rachel, a Registered Dietitian (RD) that is passionate about discrediting diet culture, advocating body positivity for everybody, encouraging people to listen to their body’s needs and wants, and promoting healthy, non-restrictive habits that can hopefully help you feel your best.

On Thoughtful Nutrition, you will see posts discussing all kinds of topics including anti-diet culture, body positivity, Intuitive Eating, Health at Every Size, and much more!

Goals of Thoughtful Nutrition

The goal of Thoughtful Nutrition is exactly what it sounds like, to pursue overall health and wellness in a thoughtful way. I am here to empower you to be confident in yourself and your body. Additionally, I am here to help you to be thoughtful about how you treat your body, how you view the foods you eat, how you perceive yourself, and how you perceive others.

In my posts, you will never find info promoting weight loss, diets, specific body types, harmful exercises, or anything involving restrictive behaviors. Instead, you will find posts that aim to take down diet culture and empower you to implement non-diet approaches to health.

The Inspiration Behind Thoughtful Nutrition

A Little Backstory

When I graduated high school several years ago, I had this grand idea that I wanted to go to college for nutrition so I could help people get healthy. Back then, I defined “healthy” only as living in a small body.

Fast forward about 2 years and it’s 2015. I transferred to the university where I would complete my degree in Nutrition & Dietetics and pursue the title of Registered Dietitian (RD).

During my first semester, I started feeling lethargic and worn out but I couldn’t pinpoint what was causing it. After this went on for months, I started to get a little concerned. I continued to become more tired and started gaining weight, which was strange for me because I had always stayed a consistent weight throughout high school.

I explained this occurrence to friends and family but received comments such as you’ve just become comfortable in your relationship and that’s what happens when you go off to college and party.

Both of these statements were inaccurate assumptions. I hadn’t “let myself go” because I was in a serious relationship and I didn’t go to college parties on the weekends or binge drink.

Another comment I heard and will never forget is Wow! You’ve gained as much weight as I’ve lost.

That statement still hurts today.

An Unwelcomed Diagnosis

As I continued to feel worse and gain additional weight, I decided that I needed to see my primary care provider. Immediately, I made an appointment where the doctor ran several lab tests, and my labs indicating Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis were through the roof. 

What is Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis?

To describe Hashimoto’s briefly (read an in-depth description here), it is an autoimmune disease where your body attacks the cells of your thyroid gland resulting in a decreased production of thyroid hormones. These hormones are what keep your metabolism up and running.

With a decreased production of thyroid hormones, your metabolism slows down to where you have no energy, feel lethargic, unmotivated, and gain weight.

After my doctor’s appointment, I was glad to finally know what was going on. However, finding out my diagnosis didn’t fix any of my problems.

Disordered Eating, Weight Obsession, and Exercise Addiction

Almost a year passed before my endocrinologist determined the correct dose of thyroid hormones that would restore my normal rate of metabolism.

While I was waiting for my hormones to balance out, I began to spiral out of control. I learned to hate what my body had become. I was disgusted with what I saw in the mirror, to the point that I was terrified of looking at my own reflection.

Throughout the college semester, I would attend my nutrition classes and feel out of place. After all, who would take nutrition advice from a person who couldn’t even control their own weight? I determined that I HAD to lose the weight if I was going to continue down the path of becoming a registered dietitian.

So what did I do? I skipped meals, I fasted for long periods of time, and I over-exercised. My weight, the food I ate, and the number of calories I burned at the gym constantly consumed my mind. It controlled my life and I found myself staring at an eating disorder. 

The Real Problem

My problem wasn’t that I had gained weight and become less important as a human being.

The problem was that I hated the body I called home. I thought losing weight would magically make me love myself again, but it didn’t.

My problem was that I was confused about what made me valuable. I thought the skinnier I was, the more beautiful and accepted I would be. Wow, what a lie. If you’re reading this, I beg you to not fall for that lie.

Your value is not based on your weight or your body shape.

It took me over a year after I lost the weight (and gained it back), to come to the realization that my worth isn’t based on the number the scale shows. It also took time and lots of research to realize that health is not determined by size.

Health cannot be determined simply by a number on a scale. The scale doesn’t consider genetics, gender, race, age, disease states, body composition, economic status, health care access, social environment, or really anything of importance when it comes to health. It’s quite literally just a number.

So What Now?

The experiences that I’ve had during college, and now post-college, have shaped me to be an advocate. An advocate for loving EVERY body, eating intuitively, practicing joyful movement, discrediting diet culture, learning how to operate life post eating disorder, and fighting for those that are misrepresented and mistreated in the health care scene.

Now, I am definitely not saying that I have this all figured out. I struggle on a daily basis.

However, it doesn’t matter that I still struggle. In fact, I know I’m always going to struggle. What does matter is that I keep pushing and I keep trying. As long I as never give up, I’m happy with my progress.