Author: isabellab027

To finish off the internship I continued to finalize a recipe. I worked on creating a no bake PB chocolate cookies’ recipes with different variations. It won’t be completely finished and finalized because the recipes needs to be tested for taste and how it holds it shape.

My internship at Anne Till Consulting has been amazing. It was quite eye opening to see the different things that they do here. I feel like I have learned a lot more about nutrition, at least being more aware of what I am eating and being watchful of certain things like sodium and carbs. I hope that the work that I have put into the few projects that I have worked on make a beneficial difference for them. While the practice is small, I could definitely seeing it grow and would recommend people come and visit here.  I have had a lot of fun and loved the time spent here. I hope to see myself continuing in this field when I am older.

This morning was quite productive for the most part. It was slightly crazy with trying to prepare for the health fairs. We will go to two different companies and set up a booth to allow the employees to see what they can get at Anne Till Consulting. Such as how nutrition has a huge affect on the human body and how we feel, so lifestyle changes can help in monumental ways.  “Its not a diet, it’s a lifestyle!” They are trying to reach out and make people aware of the benefits that are under their health care provider. The health fair is also used to raise wellness awareness through the population.

 

The health fair was very cute. We went to a small company called Polyzen. It was very similar to a college fair, but instead it was a collection of about 15 different wellness centers. They ranged from Wake Med to a massage place to nutrition to gyms and even to self defense weapons (pepper spray, tasers, ect.). Most of the workers that stopped by had never met with a nutrition and a hand full of them didn’t quite know what they did. A lot of them were shocked that appointments were covered nearly next to nothing if not cover fully by their insurance. Hopefully a few of them follow through with their excitement about the possibility to help themselves nutritionally and come and make some appointments.

I spent the morning looking through my previously compiled recipes and continued to work on making their nutrition labels. For some of the recipes I had to go back and look through and alter some of the ingredients so they could fit the criteria better for the amount of carbohydrates, protein, fat/saturated fat, and sodium. From analyzing all these recipes, it has broaden my scope of various food combinations and new ideas to bring home to the family. I feel very helpful to Katie and Anne for completing the dine in menu and finding these recipes. I have spent quite a lot of time on this for them and I could only imagine how long it would take them with seeing their patients mixed in. While it was mostly just mindless work for the most part- copying and pasting, looking through recipes, inputting ingredients into NutriBase- but it was very entertaining for me. I like that kind of “factory line” work. It puts me into a zone and I can focus on certain things, it makes me feel productive and time flies. The morning ran into the afternoon and i ended up working on the recipes all day! I’ll be sure to include some of the recipes once they are completed!

Had the pleasure to meet a new intern that is also shadowing the nutritionists here. We talked a little about her journey through college and how she ended up with nutrition. She actually started with sports exercise and went to grad school for nutrition. She enjoys the wider scope she has with having both of her degrees in exercise and nutrition. In the morning I used the recipes that I had found and compiled into word documents last week to make nutrition labels on a nutrition analysis software. The goal is to have a few recipes to bring with us when we go to a health fair tomorrow!

In the afternoon, I spent time with a different nutritionist, Avril, and shadowed one of her patients that had gotten their meal plan at their last appointment. He was very open to the meal plan and I could tell that he was putting in the effort to change his lifestyle and eating habits. His questions even helped myself learn and understand more about the meal plan. I much more enjoy these appointments because of the interactions and individualized care. The way the meal plan is set up still fascinates me very much. I also like how a lot of the patient care is done with the patient. For example, teaching them what nutrition is/how it can be incorporated, creating the meal plan with the patient, reviewing questions and having follow up meetings to check in, etc. It is very cool how much care the specialists provide to each and every patient no matter the problem. It even makes me curious and want to see how they end up and their progress along the way.

Friday at the office was nice short and sweet appointments. The day consisted of a few follow up appointments and only one initial appointment. The first appointment I sat in with was a follow up about 2 weeks after receiving the meal plan. The patient was sticking to the plan, tracking, and overall was starting to feel better. During the appointment I learned a little more about how the meal plan is actual used at home and was able to better understand the numbers and how they came up with them. The second appointment I sat in with was also a follow up appointment. This patient was more energetic and was a fun person to talk with. The patient was a “newbie” when it came to nutrition, so she was very avid about taking notes and asking questions. She truly wanted to understand more about how the plan was working and understand macro/micro nutrients and their important purposes. Both the follow up appointments took about an hour, which felt a lot faster than the initial appointments, which in my opinion were long to sit and observe through but very useful.

Day 3 of a full work day hit me like a brick! I ran out of energy fairly quickly, but the work still kept me engage more than some of my classes. Today was laid back with not too many patients coming in. In the morning I started work on finding healthy homemade recipes that patients could cook easily at home. The goal was to keep them low carb and careful of how much fat and sodium was included. A few websites that I used that were very helpful were oldwaysot.org and skinnytaste.com. Both sites were loaded with tons of healthy recipes that everybody could use. They also included the nutrition facts which were extremely helpful when deciding if a dish was going to be good or not when fitting the criteria. While looking for the recipes, I developed a new way of looking at food. Small amounts can be calorie dense and other food might not be that dense at all. It was quite interesting to see all the different combinations as well.

Second day at the office was quiet but filled with a lot of information. Once I came in, I began to work on one of the project that was discussed yesterday. I started to work on revising and updating the old dining out menu ideas and did some research into new places. I was trying to find dishes and meals that were healthy and watchful of calorie intake. Most of the meals I found were protein heavy and paired with a salad or another healthy option such as mixed vegetables or fruit. While looking for the different options, I had to mindful of how much carbohydrates, protein, fat, and sodium that was contained. The task was fun and interesting, because I didn’t realize how many of the things that eat were actually quite unhealthy!

After lunch I went over how to make a meal plan with Katie. It was really cool and fascinating how they are created. It made so much sense and was so confusing at the same time. I loved it! I have seen a nutritionist in the past and being able to see what they do behind the scenes of appointments is very fascinating. Katie and I also talked about gut health and how nutrients and minerals play a big role in weight management and weight loss. I would’ve never thought that so many things can contribute to our body’s metabolism. I addition to our bodies, I learned some good life lessons, like it is good to delay gratification and be patient. Change won’t happen over night and be very eager won’t help your progress, both in weight loss and other life occurrences.

First day at Anne till consulting! I had the pleasure to meet the founder Anne till and one of her associates, Katie. I spent most of my day talking and shadowing Katie. We first discussed a little about what she does and went through the packet that patients receive at their first appointment. The packet was quite fascinating and gave a lot of insight to what was covered in the meeting as well as some additional information. In addition to the meeting being very fascinating, Katie would refer back to previously stated events/conditions that would affect there nutrition and would need to work around. After the informational presentation was over, Before Katie went into the presentation about the different components of nutrition, she went over what the patient had ate for a days worth and logged it into a program similar to MyFitnessPal. She went over the patients calorie intake and how it was split over the different macronutrients and micronutrients. She briefly talked about where the patient levels were compared to the goal amounts. In the next visit she plans on making a meal plan and continue to discuss nutrition and how it is affecting the patient to help them better reach their goals. To finish up the day, I helped assemble the new patient packets.

I would say the first day was a success. It was a fun experience to see what a day in the life of a nutritionist is like. It was eye opening to see how many people lack the knowledge/confused about the digestive process and what role macro nutrients and micro nutrients play in our lives. I’ve always been interested in this topic so it was just something that was in the back of mind, but others don’t.

LETS GET THIS BREAD!