As a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist specializing in women’s health and menopause, I see the same hard things every day: Women are stressed about their shifting body shape, fearful about worsening labs & potential diseases, and overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information – both true and wildly inaccurate – that is confronting them 24/7.
How do you know who you can trust?
I’ve said this before, but I’m concerned by the number of professionals and influencers who are profiting off women’s fears around menopause nutrition, without providing good care.
So, in this article, I’ll walk you through who the right experts are to have on your team and what it can look like to have a healthcare professional validate your experience, listen to your concerns and goals, and work with you to improve how you feel and function in your body.
Let’s dive in with what a “nutritionist” can mean.
Is there an expert in the room?
First things first – who is offering you advice?
My first caveat is that the term nutritionist can mean different things depending on where you live. For example, where I live in the state of Virginia in the United States, there is no nutrition licensure. So, anyone from someone who took a weekend course to someone with their PhD in nutrition (and everyone in between) can call themselves a nutritionist. This can be very confusing for consumers.
Know that Registered Dietitians and licensed nutritionists (in states that offer licensure) meet educational, supervised practice, and continuing education requirements that help protect consumers from nutrition misinformation.
Whoever you work with, ask about their background and credentials. I’ve been a Registered Dietitian for 25 years, and I have additional credentials in intuitive eating, menopause, gut health, and PCOS. I share more about my own perimenopause journey — and what it changed about how I practice — in this article: Why I Shifted My Nutrition Practice to Perimenopause and What I Learned as a Dietitian Going Through It Myself.
As a credentialed health provider, I don’t make promises based on something that worked for me. I do promise to present information based on science, not something that personally worked for one of my clients.
I can give you a safe place to land.
To share your health history, your fears, your goals, and your values. And I can support and guide you as you move towards achieving your goals, whether it is healing from a long history of emotional eating, balancing your blood sugars, or finding non-restrictive ways to improve your cholesterol levels.
I am a fierce ally for women’s health, and my mission is to protect women from disinformation and predatory products.
BTW, when I use the term menopause, I’m also referring to perimenopause, which is the 5-8 year period leading up to menopause (sometimes longer!) characterized by hormonal fluctuations, hot flashes, hunger changes, and often body changes.
Why menopause-specific nutrition matters
Let’s face it: food and nutrition these days look different compared to our 20s. In our relative youth, our bodies were a whole lot forgiving, and for many of us, health concerns were few. I remember life feeling a lot more easy-going – did you?
Or maybe not. If you were embroiled in diet culture – the false narrative that the most important thing a woman can be is small – your teens and 20s might not have felt easy. I’m so sorry.
The good news: it’s never too late to kick diet culture to the curb and to embrace our lives to the fullest. Because, let’s be honest, hyperfocusing on our body size doesn’t allow us to achieve true health!
As we head into middle age (which lines up with perimenopause and menopause), things change.
- Our hormones fluctuate
- Our metabolic health changes
- Our tolerance for BS plummets (amen!)
- Our responsibilities weigh on us heavily – job, family, aging parents, and more health concerns mean that our stress levels can make life even more challenging!
The lifestyle habits we cultivate now can help us stay active into our 70s and 80s, so we can do everything we want to do – perhaps:
- conquer that glorious hike you’ve always dreamed about – the Dolomites are on my bucket list!
- chase a pickleball around the court,
- volunteer at the animal shelter,
- continue to compete in road races,
- play hide and go seek with our nieces, nephews (and maybe even grandkids), and…
- Just enjoy life to the fullest!
Take a moment – what are the things you want to be doing now and over the next 30 years?
To put it briefly, the menopause transition (that 8-ish year period from fertility until a year after your last menstrual period) is full of physical and mental change, as well as increased societal demands. You need the support of an experienced professional to help you navigate this change.
So, how do we turn this potentially vulnerable time into a season of strength? It starts with getting intentional. Together, we identify the key pillars of your health that deserve the most attention right now.
What things might you choose to prioritize in menopause?
- Preserving muscle
- Preserving bone
- Keeping metabolically healthy
- Heart health
- Keeping active
These are all valid and great goals…we just don’t want to change everything at once. That is a recipe for overwhelm and burnout. The right care provider will work with you to see the big picture, prioritize your needs, and break down the journey into reasonable chunks to tackle one at a time.
What does it look like to work with a menopause nutritionist?
First, I want to say that not all menopause nutritionists are the same. As a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist and Menopause Society Certified Practitioner (MSCP), I pledge to you that my guidance and suggestions are evidence-based or evidence-informed. I also operate within a weight-neutral, Health at Every Size framework, and use research studies to make my recommendations. And as the research evolves, so too does my advice.
All of this translates into helping my clients make behavior changes that work, not sharing the fads that helped your Aunt Sally.
I’m not promoting fad diets, counting calories, or cutting out foods. I am about meeting you where you are and helping you with your goals.
So, let’s get to the punchline.
What can a menopause nutritionist do for you?
1. Understand Your Unique Health Needs and Build a Practical Plan for the Years Ahead.
As a menopause nutritionist, I take the time to understand your distinct physiology, lifestyle, challenges, joys, and goals. This is where truly personalized care comes in.
While many of my clients face common hurdles—like a changing body or shifting lab results, no two journeys are identical. Solving health issues is often like piecing together a puzzle, and I love using my 25 years of clinical experience to help you thrive.
The best part? Many of these nutritional tweaks are much simpler than you think!
2. Help you find a way to eat for your body in a sustainable way.
All the research-backed advice is worthless if it requires you to make changes that don’t align with your goals and your life!
Let’s face it, you’re flooded with an endless supply of advice from AI, podcasters, menopause influencers, and doctors. You feel like a squirrel gathering up acorns! You have all this information, but you’re still stuck, and the months are ticking by.
You don’t need cookie-cutter advice. You need a partner – someone to walk beside you, understand your unique needs, and help you make changes to support your health, whether it’s labs trending in the wrong direction, a heart health scare, or feeling like your food cravings are ruling your life. You also deserve protection from the harms of diet culture and predatory practices.
3. Deal with body image issues.
Did you know that women in middle age report a resurgence of body dissatisfaction that is second only to puberty? It makes perfect sense since the transition to menopause is basically a reverse puberty that involves pretty rapid changes. It’s not uncommon to wake up one day, look in the mirror, and think, “Is this me?” We feel different and look different.
While our culture may tell us we need to fight these changes (and we can if we choose, because body autonomy is important), there is a different path possible: One where we acknowledge that aging is a privilege and that we can address some of our modifiable risk factors to live the rest of our lives with joy.
That involves a mindset shift; body-image work is a passion of mine. (In fact, I’ve been continually training in it for the past 8 years!) I love helping women focus on what matters to them and helping them achieve their long-term goals.
4. Collaborate with your medical and mental health team.
Our health care is so much better when our care team collaborates, rather than operating in silos. I love collaborating with my client’s team members to make sure that things aren’t slipping through the cracks.
I also help my clients advocate with their medical providers for less reliance on the scale and BMI to assess health. You are healthier when you’re not avoiding your medical providers because of unhelpful comments about your weight.
Working with a Menopause Nutritionist
I take a highly personalized approach with each client, but here’s what a typical path might look like:
1. Getting to know your past.
As women of a certain age, we have a lot of history! Many of us might have been through years of yo-yo dieting, counting points, cutting out food groups, and so on. As I help each woman plan for her best thriving throughout middle age and beyond, I want to know:.
- Do you have any current health concerns? What is your family health history?
- Do you have annual physical exams with labs?
- Your goals – Do you want to remain active and travel, or do you have a family history of heart disease, diabetes, etc., that is making you fearful?
- Your hobbies
- How you feel about food: do you love to cook, grow your own vegetables, or does your fridge only contain prepared foods? Do you eat out 80% of the time? There’s no wrong or right answer here.
2. Developing a plan.
Taking all this information into account, we develop an initial plan. I love combining the intellectual and the experiential – which means I teach you some science-based facts to increase your knowledge, but then give you some action steps to put this knowledge into action. Because we all know what information without action does… nothing!
3. Keeping you supported between our sessions.
My clients often have “aha” moments between sessions, which is why I offer safe and secure messaging between our 1:1 appointments. While we don’t go as deep as we do in session, it’s a great way to get answers to your burning questions or process a situation that comes up.
4. Follow-up appointments.
Continued care through follow-up appointments (I see my clients every 1-2 weeks) gives us the opportunity to review what worked – and what didn’t – and to provide accountability. We can learn so much from “failed’ experiments too!
5. Collaborating with your health care team
Check-ins with my client’s medical and mental health care providers are a key part of the work, because I can confidently say that having a collaborative team makes all the difference.
I’m honored to guide women through this vulnerable time, helping them reclaim their health and feel at home in their bodies—no restrictive rules required.
Key takeaways
Perimenopause and menopause present unique health and body image challenges. If you’re a woman in this age group, I don’t have to tell you that!
Working with a menopause-trained nutritionist can help you weather the storm of this phase, so you can emerge stronger and well-equipped to thrive through midlife and beyond.
I specialize in helping women bridge the gap between “I want to feel better physically” and “I refuse to diet ever again.” My approach is non-judgmental, weight-inclusive, and deeply supportive of your autonomy (including for those navigating GLP-1 medications).
Let’s start with a Midlife Nutrition Conversation: This is a low-pressure space for us to look at what’s currently feeling “off” and see if this approach is the right fit for your life. No scales, no food rules—just a path toward feeling like yourself again.
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