The Nutritional Supplement

1. What Course did you graduate from at CNELM and when did you graduate?

BSc Hons Nutritional Therapy in 2012.

2. What made you decide to become a nutritional therapist / practitioner?

My son became very ill when he was only 4 years old. He developed an allergy to peanuts and was having anaphylactic shock reactions.  I was a fitness instructor at the time (and still am) and decided if food was so powerful that it could kill you I need to find out more, so I decided to do a Diploma in Nutrition from Premier. After I had completed the Diploma I felt that I needed to know more, so I decided to do a degree.

 

3. Do you specialise in a particular area of health?

My primary leaning is towards digestive health. Clients present with a range of health issues including food allergies and sensitivities as well as clients with inflammatory bowel disease.  Even if the client does not report digestive symptoms, I always use gut health as a starting point as I feel it’s at the core of good health and all the latest research on the microbiome and the integrity of the gut supports this.

I also believe that the way our society is set up, it can condition some of us to believe that food is ‘bad’ and that you shouldn’t eat too much of it.  I believe we need more education on the right foods to eat and less on the wrong foods to eat.

 

4. Did you start practising as soon as you graduated?

Yes, I hired a local village hall and did lots of talks.  A friend of mine printed some leaflets for me which I just handed out to people in the village where I live.  It’s quite a small village so word gets round quite quickly!  I also sent out emails to people and used social media.  I focused my talks on particular themes, e.g. sleep; menopause; etc. and I got around 7 – 10 people attending each talk. Some people came to all three!  I charged a nominal fee of around £3.

I started my practice from a clinic in the village where I live.  I also practised from a local Hairdressing salon at one point but they moved premises so then I hired a room through Regus, however this became quite expensive.  Eventually we added a room to the front of our house so now I practice from home in a specially-dedicated clinic area, which is much easier.

 

5. How did you kickstart your practice?

One of the ladies who came to my nutrition talks wanted to work in the field of nutrition, so she came up to chat to me afterwards.  She ended up getting a job in the Revital shop in the village, so they started recommending me.

In addition to the talks I also did nutritional pamper evenings in people’s houses. The host / hostess would provide snacks, etc. and I would bring along my Tanita body composition scales and give a short talk on nutrition.  The host / hostess would then get a free analysis on the scales by way of a demonstration, and then everyone else was charged £5 each if they wanted their own personal weight and body composition analysis. This made the evening financially viable. In addition, new clients for my clinic were generated.

I also met another nutritional therapist Jenny Philips from attending the BANT Regional meetings and we hooked up together to do cookery demonstrations.  We now do cookery demonstrations in people’s homes, so we go in and literally teach them how to cook.  We send them a menu in advance and tell them what we’re going to cook, so they watch us to see how easy it is to cook and prepare healthy food and they get to taste the food as we go along.  We will normally prepare/cook a breakfast, lunch and dinner and the whole thing takes about two hours.  It’s a really practical way of showing people how they can prepare and cook food and learn to eat healthily as a result.

6. How many clients do you see per week?

My practice is now quite busy, so I will see clients for 2-3 days per week, and then I allow 2 days for writing up client reports as I like to send my clients full reports following their consultations.  I normally see around 3 clients in one day, so I see about 9-10 clients per week.

7.  How have you found the transition from Student to Practising Nutritional Therapist?

I’m quite a confident person, but the hardest thing is the continuous learning. Even though you’ve qualified with a degree and have seen clients in the student training clinic, the learning really starts when you begin working with people in your own practice. 

For example, my first client presenting with inflammatory bowel disease was a local lady with Crohn’s disease. Working functionally with this client provided me with a great experience and increased my confidence to work with clients with inflammatory bowel disease. One thing I always ask myself with clients, particularly when their health history is complex is: “What can I learn out of this? How can I do that better?”

 

8.  Do you miss studying at all? How do you keep up with CPD and the latest research while running your business?

I am currently studying part-time at the University of Surrey doing the MSc in Nutritional Medicine. I specifically chose this course because I wanted to gain an insight into mainstream medicine and to understand nutrition from their point of view.  At first I did struggle with the different ways of thinking and approaching nutrition, but when you hear some of the external lecturers who are practising at the ‘coal face’ as it were, it feels much more in line with what I’m doing and is very inspiring.  Although the course is not taught from a functional approach, I tend to include this approach in my coursework and so far have got good results!

9.  Have there been any particular influences, or influencers, e.g. tutors, other practitioners, books etc. that have inspired you in your work?

I am a big fan of Amelia Freer at Freer Nutrition.  She is someone who is really passionate about what she does and really believes in what she is doing. I find that very inspiring.  A colleague of mine has overcome breast cancer and changed her whole life around as a result, so she is a great inspiration to me to keep going, even when the going gets tough.

 

10. What is your vision for the future in terms of your career?

There are lots of exciting things taking shape at the moment for me.

I was recently contacted via Facebook by a fitness instructor who was looking for people to collaborate with to run retreats from his villa in Spain.  He rents out his villa for holidays in the summer but as it tends to be empty during the winter he was looking to hire the premises out for winter retreats.  I went out there to visit the place and decided to give it a go.

The plan is to run one in Sep/October and then another in April/May and see how it goes.  I have put the programme together with some input from the owner, as he has run retreats before.  So I will be doing talks on nutrition each day of the retreat, which will be very similar to the ones I did when I first started out.  I have brought in a chef in to do all the cooking and I am in contact with a yoga teacher based in Spain who will be providing yoga classes.  As I’m also a fitness instructor, I’ll be doing aqua-aerobics classes in the swimming pool too!  All participants also receive a health questionnaire to complete on booking.

I have also been contacted by a TV company and invited for auditions to be a presenter for some kind of food programme – I’m not sure yet of the details.  I attended the first round of auditions and I have been called back for a week’s filming in August as part of the second round of auditions.  So, I don’t know if anything will come of it, but I thought why not?

One of my future goals is to extend my home practice to include a cookery demonstration kitchen alongside my clinic.  I would like to get involved with the local Council to provide cookery demonstrations for children.  I believe we need to be taking people back to basics to show them how to cook and prepare food.

I will continue with my private practice, but something I would also like to pursue is working with other nutritional therapists in the same way that you might have several GPs working together in a mainstream practice.  I would love for this to be integrated somehow with a GP surgery so that people are aware of the choices available to them.

 

11.  What advice would you give to those just who are just starting their training?

Make the most of opportunities such as getting involved in BANT student groups etc. I was a BANT volunteer while I was studying, and I found this really useful for many things, for my learning, for contacts and networking and for hooking up with people to work together etc.  I worked on the CPD committee, and the work gave me great insights and practical experience in how to run a business and streamline my practice for when I did qualify.

12. What advice would you give to those who are just about to graduate?

Look around you in your local area and see what you can tap into to move your practice forwards.  Know who your target market is and find out where they hang out.

I would also add: Don’t give up!  Even when it seems like nothing is working, you have to keep going, keep knocking on doors, always be friendly to people.  It took me about two years of bumping along the floor and then suddenly I had an explosion of clients and haven’t looked back.

13.  Do you have any tips, hints, regrets….??

Use social media – it’s free and there are so many different platforms you can use.  I graduated from CNELM 3 years ago and I still don’t have a website!  I wanted to earn money first before I started spending it on a website, and so far I haven’t needed one.  I just used social media and local contacts to start with, and now I work through social media and word-of-mouth.

The other thing I would add is, put your prices up every year. I do this, and I communicate with all my existing clients to let them know.  Sometimes clients say they cannot afford it, but mostly they are fine with it.  The way I see it is that they are not only benefiting from my education and ongoing training, but they are investing in their health.  It is also important to value yourself, and it’s vital to maintain your knowledge and training, and this requires continual investment.