Experts will recommend their favorite supplements and foods encouraging everyone to consume them to achieve their best life.

The problem with this is everyone has different genetics, different nutrient-depleting stressors, and different health circumstances.

One person may need more protein while another needs more fat.  One may be deficient in zinc and the other Vitamin B.  One may be tackling a digestive issue while the other is pre-diabetic.  One has autoimmune thyroid and the other gallbladder dysfunction.

The important thing to understand is that nutrition is bio-individual.

AND... your needs can change throughout your life.

So how do you know which foods and nutrients YOUR body needs right now?

Through a symptoms assessment (and/or labs), and learning how to tune into your body’s responses to specific foods, you can tailor your meals and food choices to YOUR unique needs.

Because each client that comes to me is unique in their needs, I never take a one size fits all approach to nutrition.

Instead I conduct a thorough health history, symptoms assessment, and food and mood journal review as part of my new client onboarding process.

The symptoms assessment helps guide our nutrition focus by highlighting which of the 6 nutrition foundations are the highest priority. It also highlights which nutrients are likely deficient.

In the symptom burden graph example below, we can see which body systems and organs are needing the most support.

Everything to left of and including “sugar handling” cover the top priority foundations where we focus initially.

Everything to the right of “sugar handling” is what we call the “consequence systems.”  These are the systems that often break down because one or more of the priority foundations are not working well.

For this client, we focused heavily in the beginning on foods that support digestion and reduced inflammation in the upper GI while making shifts in her eating habits and meal composition to support blood sugar.

Below is a list of potential nutrient deficiencies from another client.

Our symptoms assessment pointed to these nutrients as the top priority for her so we focused heavily on foods (and some supplements) that included these nutrients.

At the end of our first 3 months together, we repeat the assessment to see how well we are tackling the issues and reducing the nutrient deficiencies at hand. Then we adjust as need, or simply keep going in the direction that’s working. 

Yes, it can be this simple!

So if you are ready to take the guess-work out of your nutrition and fuel your body with the nutrients and foods it needs most, what are you waiting for!!

Let's get you booked for a discovery session so that you can tell me more about your health concerns and goals, and we can discuss how Nutritional Therapy can support you in resolving your health challenges, enabling you to get back to living your best life! 

In health,

Heather Glenn, FNTP, RWP, HHC