What can I expect from my nutritionist regarding my weight?

What can I expect from my nutritionist regarding my weight?

The dietitian will work with you, along with the rest of your treatment team, to help you in all practical areas of your relationship with food, eating and weight. He or she will weigh you and help determine weight goals and how to achieve those goals. Although not every nutritionist agrees, many believe that treatment is most successful when clients are weighed with their back to the scale and are weaned from weighing or needing to know a number. I agree with this philosophy and have been practicing it for 30 years with great success. Scale weight is unreliable and people with eating disorders are overly sensitive to numbers.

The nutritionist and/or therapist can track the numbers and communicate with you about your progress. Weighing interferes with treatment. For example, people with bulimia or an eating disorder may have a good week without engaging in an eating disorder or other eating disorder, but then get on the scale and see weight gain or no weight loss, feel defeated, and then binge eat. People with anorexia who find that they have gained a pound are afraid and will usually do anything to lose it. Having a nutritionist (or whoever has that role on your treatment team) take over the weighing and weight management area is a key part of recovery. The goal is to resume normal healthy eating habits and eliminate destructive ones. A number on a scale is secondary. Of course, if you have anorexia, the only way to recover is to gain weight. You'll probably have to eat more than you imagine, and more than you would on a regular diet, to achieve this. A nutritionist can help you with this difficult undertaking.

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