A couple of weeks ago, I finally had the opportunity to see a nutritionist during my vacation in Munich. I had made the appointment through my health insurance. I was very pleasantly surprised to find out that up to three one-on-one sessions of an hour each are fully covered by my insurance so this didn’t cost me a penny.

The nutritionist read through the letter by my endocrinologist which details my diagnosis and her recommendations for me in terms of diet and fitness. She also asked me about my eating habits, and gave me very positive feedback about all the changes I have already made in the past two months. The consensus was that I am already doing many things right, and she gave me some excellent advice on how to improve my diet even further.

Calories

As you may remember, when I first blogged about my insulin resistance diagnosis, this was what I took issue with the most of the diet advice my endocrinologist gave me. She told me to eat between 1,000 and 1,200 calories a day. From what I knew about nutrition, this seemed way too low, and I was adamant that my endocrinologist (who is not a nutritionist after all!) got it wrong. Well, she did get it wrong. My nutritionist told me that I should definitely not eat fewer than the 1,600 calories I currently consume and could probably even up them to 1,800. She told me what I already knew, but it was so nice to hear it from a professional: 1,000–1,200 calories is way too low and would cause the yo-yo effect. They don’t even do 1,000 calories a day for patients at weight loss clinics because it is too low! I told her how much weight I have lost already and she said that is perfect, but I shouldn’t be losing it at a faster rate, so I should up my calories if needed. Since I do eat more than 1,600 calories on most days as I also eat back most of my exercise calories on top of the 1,600, I am going to stick with this goal for now.

Working out

My nutritionist was super happy when I told her that I work out regularly. I got the impression that most people, who see her, don’t. Or maybe she just didn’t expect me to work out regularly, based on my looks and weight. I learned that working out, especially exercise such as running, lowers blood sugar, so it is excellent for me. You can’t imagine how great it was to hear that.

Meals

While my endocrinologist had suggested 5–6 small meals a day, my nutritionist recommended 3 meals a day – preferably without any snacking in between, except a handful of fruit in the morning or after lunch. But as I eat breakfast at 7am and don’t eat lunch until 12pm or 12:30pm, she understood that was a long time to go without anything to eat. I always get hungry again at around 10–11am and usually have a yogurt or a granola bar then. My nutritionist suggested adding a protein component to my breakfast to see if that would keep me full until lunch. The way I currently do that is by eating a yogurt shortly after I get to work. I like my breakfast oatmeal the way it is so I prefer to eat the yogurt separately.

Treats

Of course, I heard what I already knew. That I need to keep treats to a minimum. Big surprise there! I told my nutritionist about the little bars of chocolate I buy. Anyone living in Germany, try Moser Roth chocolate which you can find at Aldi. It is really good, and I love their variety of dark chocolate. They are five individually wrapped bars of chocolate (25g each) which makes it so easy to portion. The nutritionist found the solution I have found to my problem with not being able to portion chocolate (and candy in general) quite clever. For me it is simply a way of handling my weakness, though in the long-term, I want to learn how to portion treats such as chocolate or gummy bears.

As I have realized that sharing everything I learned in that hour is too much for one blog post, I have split this up into two posts. Please stay tuned for part II which will be posted on Friday.

Have you seen a nutritionist before? What was your experience like? Did you get any helpful advice?