Yes! Working with a nutritionist or dietitian can help you lose weight by creating tailored meal plans, addressing nutritional needs and barriers, whilst helping you to build healthy habits. They will help you achieve sustainable weight loss while improving overall health, considering your lifestyle, food preferences and any health and medical conditions.
Seeing a nutritionist or dietitian for weight loss will explore the areas that you find difficult to change when it comes to losing weight and where to make changes to support you in these challenges. They will discuss lifestyle factors that can impact on your weight loss progress, such as family, work and social environments. They will hold you accountable to the changes, whilst you meet with them regularly to feedback on your progress, discussing the areas you need further support with as you begin to develop the habits and changes to your lifestyle. Working with a nutritionist or dietitian is not a quick fix, but it will ensure that you do not repeat the cycle of fast but unsustainable weight loss through unhealthy crash dieting. Instead, you will learn to build in changes to your habits and lifestyle, whilst building consistency, so that you can keep off the weight for life!
What does a nutritionist do for weight loss?
- A qualified nutritionist is able to firstly analyse your diet and daily intake, as well as analysing your nutritional needs. From this, they can create for you a personalised meal plan that will meet your nutritional requirements, whilst adhering to your preferences and lifestyle.
- Working closely with a qualified nutritionist for weight loss will help you understand what is best for your body. Although there are millions of resources available online, many of these are not tailored to your requirements, and some can be dangerous and unhealthy to follow. A qualified nutritionist will help you to filter through this information, to only use evidence based approaches that are specific to your health and requirements.
- Understanding what portion sizes of foods are best for your body and weight loss goals, to keep you sustained and satisfied, whilst ensuring your vitamin & mineral requirements are also being met with the foods in your plan. Looking at the best times to eat, the frequency of meals and education as to why these changes are appropriate for you.
- Motivates you! Making the commitment to regularly see a qualified nutritionist can help you with motivation and accountability. This can make you more likely to stick to the changes you are making along the way.
Does a dietitian do something differently for weight loss?
Yes, a dietitian’s approach to weight loss can differ from that of a nutritionist. Dietitians are licensed healthcare professionals and are registered with the HCPC. This is the professional body and Trade Union for dietitians, responsible for maintaining the highest standard of the profession. Nutritionists are not required to have a nutrition related degree and there is no mandatory professional body for nutritionists. Therefore, the scope of what a dietitian can offer for weight loss is further than what a nutritionist is able to provide.
A dietitian has the understanding, experience and training to focus on weight loss, whilst taking into account a persons medical needs and health issues. This can include for example, having kidney disease, fatty liver, diabetes or high cholesterol. These factors should be considered when creating a weight loss programme for a client. Nutritionists are not qualified to create meal plans based on a persons health and medical conditions.
Dietitians can tailor the plans created to help manage and even improve health markers, as well as coaching a person on specific lifestyle changes to work on in order to reduce the symptoms of their medical issues.
Success rates of nutritionists and dietitians when helping people lose weight
A 2019 systematic review and meta-analysis by Lauren T Williams, Katelyn Barnes et al looked at 14 randomised controlled trials studying the effectiveness of a dietitian intervention, compared to minimal to no intervention for weight loss. Six studies showed a significant effect for dietitian consultations, and a further four found a positive change for both the dietitian intervention and control groups. The groups receiving the dietitian intervention lost an additional 1.03 kg of weight, which was deemed as statistically significant.
At Dietitian Fit & Co, we have seen a 90% weight loss success for clients seeking weight loss support whilst working with a dietitian. Average weight loss for females was 1lb (0.5kg/ week) and for males 1.25lbs (0.6kg/ week) with the diet alone, therefore roughly 6.5kg (1 stone) in 3 months for women and 7.8kg (>1 stone) for men.
As well as the weight loss, there are several important benefits of working with a dietitian. The risk of regaining the weight loss is significantly lower than when losing weight with a fad diet. This is because we focus on lifestyle changes, to ensure you are not under eating to less than what your metabolism requires, reducing muscle mass loss, which will otherwise negatively impact metabolism. This detrimental effect of crash dieting has long term health consequences, even more so after menopause for women.
How long does it take to see results?
There are several factors to consider when working with a nutritionist or dietitian, that can impact the time it takes to see results. Some of these include your individual weight loss goals, any medical or health issues and adherence to the plan. Factors such as your metabolism, level of physical activity and movement, stress levels and sleep quality can also influence progression.
Short term changes (within 2-4 weeks) can be seen in areas such as improved energy levels, with a possible slight reduction in weight.
Moderate changes (within 3 months) can be seen with consistent effort and ongoing support, which could be equal to or more than 5% of your body weight.
Long term changes (+6 months) you are likely to see significant weight loss, as well as improvements in any chronic health conditions, when you have been focusing on sustainable habit and lifestyle change.
Should you choose a nutritionist or a dietitian for weight loss?
There are several factors to consider, before deciding to see a dietitian or nutritionist.
If you have a certain medical condition and have a weight loss goal, a dietitian would be more suitable. This can include having diabetes, PCOS, IBS or heart disease. However, if you are looking for general health-focused guidance to support you with weight loss, consider a nutritionist.
Both nutrition professionals work with people to improve their diet, though dietitians are specifically qualified to support those with nutrition advice related to medical conditions. Whether you see a nutritionist or a dietitian, ensure the person you are receiving information from is qualified and are registered with a governing body.
If you are unsure, contact us for a free call. Working with our team of private dietitians can help you meet your weight loss goals. Dietitians are the only nutrition professionals to be regulated by law, and are governed by an ethical code to ensure that they always work to the highest standard.
