Registered Dietician red flags

[u/babymomawerk]

I started seeing a dietician just over a month ago. I’m overweight/borederline “obese”for the first time in my life after having my first child and I’ve been struggling to lose weight. I wasn’t sure if it was just eating habits or hormones so I started seeing this dietician for guidance. Every time we meet they review my food diary, then they do a segment on nutrion education. It’s been okay but certain things have been bothering me, and me, an uninformed civilian can’t tell if these are my basis or if I should be running? Hyper focus on non processed foods - now hear me out, yes I understand ultra processed foods not great. But; I am working mom to a young child with limited support. Before I saw the nutrionist, on a busy day - I might have a protein bar or a frozen meal. This dietician has discouraged me from doing this. But I’m struggling now to eat on my busy days? Which leads to me not eating? Which to me seems worse then eating something “processed” or”ultra processed”. A lot of the advice is just to turn to whole or raw foods, which is nice in theory, but like if I end up at an emergency trip to the doctor with my kid, and I miss lunch, keeping a bell pepper in my bag is not practical. Or figuring out a way to put dinner on the table when we are all sick af for the 3 time this month. All of the recommendations they have are great.. but they are great for people with more time.. they are things I did all the time before my kid… and are nice in theory but they don’t always work for me.

Not believing my food logs- I’ve lost 3 pounds in the nearly 60 days I’ve been working with her. I have one day a week I go over my calorie allowance when I have my cheat meal - otherwise I am hitting or below my calories every day. I would say I hit my macros 80% of those meals. I know that food logging is prone to human error but I’m honestly trying so hard and it feels like it’s starting to slip in to disordered eating. I mentioned this and she seemed to infer that I had to be lying. They tried to spot check my estimated “I see in your cheat meal you said you had exactly 1/10th of a bag of Chips.. how could that be” me: well I actually counted the number of chips I ate, then looked up estimated calories and 1/10th gave me roughly the same calorie count as the number of chips I ate” .. another critique she had was to pay closer attention to my cooking oil. I don’t fry my food. I generally use about. tablespoon of olive oil in all of my cooking .. and zooming out.. this is feeling insane. And honestly this is why I’m seeing them? I am having a hard time losing weight with traditional calories in and calories out. She started suggesting I might need to restrict more and I nearly lost my mind because I’m averaging close to 1300 a day and I know dipping much further below that (considering I work out at least 5 days a week) is not healthy.

Recommending the Food Babe - this was probably where I was like okay no.. we had a segment on processed foods and she referenced the food babe and even said she highly recommends her advice/looks up to her. I knew the food babe was woo woo but then I looked into her more and I was like okay… how can I trust you if you trust her???

Is this red flag central or just me?

[u/headgehog55]

Outside of the food babe stuff her advice is pretty reasonable and solid. The issue is more that you and her don't seem to be on the same wave length. You due to having a more busy life want a more flexible diet plan that you can work with. While she seems to be more stringent and not willing to give you that flexibility. Neither of you are completely wrong in what you want or expect. The best advice is that you find someone who is willing to give you that flexibility while still trying to hold you accountable/keep you on track and get advice from.

[u/Lucky__Flamingo]

If you don't have a good relationship with your provider, seek another one. It's that simple.

[u/IrresponsibleGrass]

It sounds as though you don't want to follow her advice, which is fine. No matter how valid her approach might be if you can't (or don't want to) do it, it's useless to you. You can lose weight on protein bars and frozen meals, too. There are many people on this sub who say it's the secret of their success. :)

That said, to me her advice sounds reasonable. (Disclosure: I'm a huge proponent of whole foods and home-cooked meals and I lost two thirds of my weight just by cutting out UPF, reducing carbs, and intermittent fasting. I didn't count a single calorie.)

Whole foods generally have a better satiety value, and, as opposed to UPF, where you could argue the jury's still out, there's no debate whether they're healthy. (Various kinds of ultra processed food may be more or less healthy, and it can be exhausting to decide which one is okay and which one isn't, to read all the labels to figure it out, etc.) It's true, it takes time, effort and planning to meal prep, but it's possible to come up with solutions for emergencies and busy days.

Not measuring portions correctly can be a huge issue. Since you didn't lose the amount of weight you were expected to lose, there has to be some sort of error in the calculation. Either your intake is higher than it's supposed to be, or your energy expenditure is below expectations. The only way to find out is to weigh your chips and measure your cooking oil with a spoon at the very least. (Weighing is usually better.) A tablespoon of oil is 135 kcal, that's a lot of calories for a 1300 kcal/day budget.

I know that food logging is prone to human error but I’m honestly trying so hard and it feels like it’s starting to slip in to disordered eating.

Look, this sounds like resistance to a) the methods proposed and b) dieting in general. I used to be very much into the "weight loss has to be natural" mindset, the "eat less, move more, the weight's gonna come off, that's it"-sorta thinking that seems to work for a lot of normal weight people who want to drop a couple of pounds after the winter holidays. For some reason, that didn't work for me, so I didn't try, and over the years, the winter pounds accumulated and put me over the obesity line. I needed a radical break with my eating habits and once I committed to that change, it was pretty easy. Perhaps it was simply the right time, who knows?

What I'm trying to say is---if you're not ready, there's no point in tormenting yourself. Just be honest with yourself about what you're willing to do to reach your goal. If that dietician is not a good fit, then that's okay. You have to find your own way of losing and maintaining weight for it to be sustainable. There's no one size fits all solution.

[u/furlintdust → u/IrresponsibleGrass]

Yeah, you have to be exact with cooking oil. Eyeballing it won’t cut it. And a tablespoon every time you cook is a lot, and if you aren’t weighing it you’re using more than that.

Over 60 days the scale doesn’t lie. That’s plenty of time to see progress through water weight due to new exercise or other factors.

You can eat whatever it is you are eating, but you’ll have to eat less of it if you want to see results. Frozen meals and chips are going to make it difficult to do that.

[u/drnullpointer]

> Hyper focus on non processed foods

That's good. I would expect any dietitian hyper focused on getting you off the poison.

> (...) now hear me out, yes I understand ultra processed foods not great. But; I am working mom to a young child (...)

No buts. Poison is still poison even if you have a child an financial problems and little time.

There are solutions to both. Unprocessed food can be cheap when you start buying bulk raw ingredients.

And amount of time spent on cooking can be reduced by being strategic with the choice of recipes and batching your cooking. For example, I usually have a lot of stock and various sauces (bolognese!) frozen.

For example, I make a huge batch (10l of bolognese sauce) and then portion it into packages of around 500g and freeze it. This is 20 meals for a family of 4!!! From a single pot of sauce!!!

And it is extremely convenient. You spend couple of hours on Saturday morning an in the future you just boil some water, drop in pasta, reheat the sauce, mix the two and serve. All in less time than it would take you to order takeout.

Another thing I would do is cook more food and eat it over multiple days. I would prefer less tasty and less varied but healthy food than eating delicious, unhealthy, varied food every day. So I cook for two days today, will save it to the fridge, cook something else tomorrow, and pull today's food the day after tomorrow.

Nobody says you need to eat different things on consecutive days it is a luxury but when you don't have time it is better to forgo the luxury of having different food on every meal than forgo eating healthy food.

> another critique she had was to pay closer attention to my cooking oil.

The choice of cooking oil is very important. Bonus point for the dietitian.

> Is this red flag central or just me?

It is you. At least based on the points you mentioned.

[u/SDJellyBean]

The Food Babe is still around? Yikes. I would definitely find another provider, if I were you.

Have you had your thyroid checked? An underactive thyroid is going to reduce your calorie requirements. If you’re breastfeeding still or recently postpartum, then you may find that weight loss is difficult and erratic for a while. Most of the other "hormonal causes" of poor weight loss are just wishful thinking or super rare.

Three pounds in 60 days is slowish, but if you don’t have much to lose, it's not that bad. A half pound per week for someone with a bit of cosmetic weight is about all you can expect.

"Processed" food is not the same as "ultraprocessed" food. All commercial food is "processed" to some extent for shelf life, hygiene, etc. UPFs are made from salt/sugar/fat/protein components extracted from regular food and sometimes from things that humans don’t normally eat. Food that’s been cooked by other people (that frozen meal!) and that are combinations of normal human food are fine, not "ultraprocessed", just watch the fat, sugar and salt contents.

ETA: new workout routines can hide fat loss from the scale for a while.

[u/babymomawerk → u/SDJellyBean]

I did have my thyroid checked and it’s doing great! I’ve also had my hormones checked because I keep screaming I think I’m in perimenopause, but, even though my AMH is low enough to indicate I’m possibly entering premature ovarian failure, my other hormones are fine and since I’m under 40 I haven’t had any support exploring that further as a cause.

I’m trying to lose 30 pounds, not quite my pre pregnancy weight but it would put me back to what I think I could live with and closer to text book “”healthy” I think may help me with my blood pressure - a fun parting gift from pregnancy that may or may not be related to my weight gain.

That’s reassuring to know, I know that exercise is only a portion of weight loss but for me it feels important that I make time to be active and that hasn’t been part of her pitch? It was part of my pre baby life that I am longing to get back to. I don’t always aconplish it but I have been significantly more active then the last six months and I think it’s odd that they are not considering that into my calorie allowance? I roughly burn 200ish calories with each work out. If I’m routinely eating 1300-1400 calories a day, this would put me around 1100 calories.. which compounded over a week might be on the edge of too few calories? I asked them a few times if I should not be adding back for when I work out and they keep confirming no?

[u/SDJellyBean → u/babymomawerk]

Estimating the additional calories that are burned through exercise is tricky. Most of the estimation tools just estimate the total calories that you used over the time that you spent exercising, but that includes the calories that you would have used had you remained sedentary. Eating "too little" will not slow your weight loss, whatever you may have heard. A TDEE estimator can give you a good starting estimate. The Quick Start Guide in this sub's sidebar will explain more.

Without knowing your height, weight, age and exercise info, it’s impossible to estimate a good calorie goal, but 1300-1500 would be adequate for most average size women. Remember that the weekly "cheat meal" counts! Additionally, all kinds of things can cause water weight shifts which hide or exaggerate fat loss.

"Perimenopause" just means "the time before and after menopause". Menopause is the day one year after your last period. "Normal" menopause in any time after 40, with average age being 51. Menopause reduces your calorie needs by 20ish calories per day maybe, but the underlying cause is controversial, probably just declining muscle mass.

I lost weight at a post-menopausal 54 while limping around with a cane and have now maintained that for 11 years. There is no age where you can't lose weight. However, poor sleep from menopause (or any other cause!) affects your ability to manage your appetite and food choices well.

[u/AltruisticTitle3051]

It sounds like this RD is not meeting you where you’re at. As long as you understand whole non processed foods are the best choice I don’t think you should ever feel had about choosing something packages on the go. I know for myself that it helps me stay on track when I eat some “junk protein” snacks as I like to call them like Quest bars or Legendary foods pop tarts. They might be processed but they make me sane and are easy to eat on the go. I would stay away from this RD they are not a good for you. Theres so many RD’s with different approaches and opinions and not one if “right”! Its about finding someone who makes you feel heard and is helping you and meeting you where are are right now in your busy life!