Hi I’m Carie! Registered Dietitian, self-proclaimed foodie, former IBS sufferer and green bean fanatic. For my obligatory first blog post, I’d like to share my nutrition journey you with!

Be warned…It was a messy one.

I grew up in a foodie family. We were always fairly health conscious but I was never the thinnest or prettiest girl. In high school I was the girl on the verge of an eating disorder – limiting myself to less than 1000 calories a day in secret and sharing food with my friends so I didn’t have to eat as much. I tried the fad diets of the time – mainly the Atkins Diet.

Toward the end of high school I started suffering from digestive issues – I’m talking gas, upset stomach, diarrhea every day (I know, TMI! But I’m a dietitian – talking about poop is practically in the job description). Now I started journaling in a different way. Writing down everything that I ate and cutting out nutrition labels to compare the ingredients. Highlighting commonalities.  Nothing was adding up.

This continued through the beginning of college. I saw an allergist for food allergy testing (skin testing – which I now know is SO not reliable!). From there my parents sent me to a GI specialist – there I sat with my lists and labels. SHE DIDN’T EVEN LOOK AT THEM! That day I was diagnosed with IBS and handed one sheet of paper titled ‘FODMAP diet’. No explanation. No direction.

Thank you Dr. Google for explaining IBS and the FODMAP Diet.

Thanks to Pinterest I was able to find recipes and bloggers who were well versed in FODMAPs. I experimented with this diet for the rest of my college career but found it to be very restrictive without relieving much of my symptoms. Just like my clients tell me now – I would prefer a diet that tells me exactly what to avoid so that I can skip the guessing game.

Through this crazy journey I was studying to be a dietitian. With my new found title and existing love of nutrition I became interested in integrative and functional nutrition. Through a special blood test I was able to eliminate the guessing game. Exactly what I needed!

I continue to follow a diet that tailored to my personal results and have been able to add new foods to my diet regularly and maintained a symptom free life!

This experience has shaped the way that I approach nutrition and because of this I founded my own nutrition counseling company, Feel Good Nutrition, LLC! I look forward to sharing clean recipes with all of you and discussing ways to modify recipes to meet your specific needs!