Very proud to share my latest article published on Consumer Health Digest's website on cardiovascular disease and mortality.

It's always very exciting when being approached for your advise as a nutrition professional but when the opportunity arose to collaborate with additional folks on healthy recipe development I jumped at the chance! Everyone always says healthy food doesn't taste good but take a look at a few true foodies viewpoints on how to put a healthy twist on your favorite recipes!

Quick! Get my tips on incorporating your favorites into a healthy lifestyle and STILL loose weight just in time for the holidays!

I am very excited and proud that my third article for Consumer Health Digest's website was published this morning on fad dieting versus lifestyle change. It's such an important topic so many of us dietitians battle with clients daily. Everyone is looking for that quick fix unknowingly putting themselves at risk for weight gain and comorbidities that correlate with fad dieting. I hope you all enjoy my article, and hopefully many more to come!

As a nutrition health and wellness professional my entire goal within the industry is to spread my wealth of knowledge to positively impact people. I’ve been in senior living as a registered dietitian and certified dementia practitioner and my passion lies in impacting those senior’s lives daily. Since I will always have my direct clients, residents and patients I thought to myself “what about the others that would benefit from nutrition advice”?
That’s when partnerships such as the one I’ve created with Consumer Health Digest are crucial to spread as much information as possible. So, when this opportunity came up for me to be contributor and panel expert on the Consumer Health Digest website I was very excited and honored. Not only did this opportunity provide me with a much larger base of readers to influence but an excellent chance to partner with such a well-known organization.
I’ve more recently established my own consulting company RLM Nutrition LLC, so I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to be a part of. Since I have vast experience within Food Service Operations and Gerontology Nutrition I was tasked with researching osteoporosis prevention in the elderly for my first article. Although I’ve written numerous articles in the past for various organizations, it’s mostly been in my senior living and skilled nursing “wheelhouse” so I’ve learned a lot through the process of being assigned a new topic and then researching correlating studies and statistics. My writing opportunities have helped me achieve a substantial wealth of knowledge with my research on different areas of nutrition so I am able to share with my readers.
Calcium and bone density in the aging process was a fun first attempt afterwards received great feedback from the Consumer Health Digest’s team to improve my writing skills. For my second article, I wanted to do something a little different and we came up with the topic of pre-diabetes, something many are struggling with right now. I knew as a clinician the key is preventative care so I developed many tips in the article Risk factors for type 2 diabetes-Key to prevention before diagnosis. I received even more advice for future articles and excited that I am able contribute much needed nutrition health and wellness information to their readers. Through great reputable websites such as Consumer Health Digest it’s crucial for industry leaders to partner and influence a broader audience and I look forward to our continued partnership.
So please stay tuned, there is even more to come, and keep checking my page  on Consumer Health Digest for new informative nutrition topics!

Have you guys had what the grocery stores are calling a "garlic spear"? I bought these at a local farmers market (they also sell them at Whole Foods) and I am obsessed. We grilled them this past weekend with a little olive oil and salt. And oh-my-gosh they are delicious! It's like if garlic and asparagus had a baby, literally! Go out, try them and let me know what you think!

Fourth of July is fast approaching and you are FREAKING OUT. PRETTY MUCH ALL THE SUMMER PARTIES mean bathing suit season is HERE and you have been avoiding it like the plague for the past eight months. So….You read up on all the latest cleanses. Detoxes. Jucing. Starvation Diets (let’s try this bone broth thing…) And then think OMG CARDIO ALL DAY EVERY DAY.   
Gross…
Your typical googled low calorie diet packed with 60 minutes of cardio is NEVER going to be sustainable long term. Will it trim you up for the 4th? Sure. Will it last all summer long? All year long? Sorry folks, go fish. You’ll also be starving, tired and cranky. What a FUN 4th of July party!
THIS IS WHY YOU'LL NEVER GET IT RIGHT OR GET IT TIGHT:
Step 1 (Bring it!): You go on a cleanse, detox, super restrictive diet and start hitting the gym every single day.
Step 2 (YAAS): You lose weight. (fat and muscle) You see results. You’re PUMPED.
Step 3 (I’m starving): You’re hungry. You start eating more than you had before this diet. And it’s not your fault, because your body wins every single time. IT’S HUNGRY! This could happen two weeks in, or it could happen two months in. But it will happen. Pinky promise.
Step 4 (What, when and how?): You gained the weight back? WHAT?! You’re bloated and you may have gained more weight than you originally lost. By starving your body, you mess with this lovely thing called metabolism. After these crazy fad diets your metabolism is a lot slower than it started out because your body begins storing the food you are eating, not knowing when you’ll feed it again. You’ve decreased your muscle mass (therefore you’ve lowered the number of calories your body is burning on a daily basis). YUP, that happened.
As a dietitian, I know there are still some of you (you know who you are) who aren’t buying the whole “don’t starve and run yourself skinny” mentality. And then we all use those two words again…lifestyle change. It makes you run for the hills, but WHY?! Personally, if I’m going to walk around in an itsy bitsy yellow polka dot bikini, I want to feel good and not just for that 4th of July party. So LETS DO THIS!
LET’S ACTUALLY GET IT RIGHT AND GET IT TIGHT:
Step 1: You don’t have to cut out whole food groups (which isn’t good for your body) if you practice portion control. This also limits the need for binging on cravings like those cookies that have been calling your name all week. Watch your portions, plug in whole grains, vary up your veggies, stick to lean proteins and allow yourself to eat one or two squares of chocolate (GASP). You’ll feel better without feeling deprived. BONUS? You won’t want to punch your coworkers in the face because YOU ARE STARVING. DOUBLE BONUS? Eating regular balanced meals will get that metabolism BACK!
Step 2: Get out there and MOVE YO BODY! Cardio is great but if you are trying to get it tight (building muscle = increases fat burn) you need to incorporate weight bearing activities. There are plenty of party like a Rockstar workouts out there, my favorite? Burncycle PDX or SoulCyle if you’re in LA or NYC. Spin class that incorporates weights PLUS have club music playing. THAT IS MY JAM. How about this thing called Barre? Looks easy, right? SO NOT EASY. Orange theory Fitness (whoo raa). The list goes on. So, don’t spend 60 minutes staring at the elliptical tv and wanting to poke your eye out. Get your jam on, make new friends and GET IT TIGHT.
Step 3: DITCH THE SCALE. Everyone is so worried about numbers. When you start working out and building muscle mass the scale will most likely stop going down and may even go up. GASP. It’s okay, it will all be okay. I always suggest using your clothes as a guide, you may be up five pounds but down two dress sizes. I think I would call that a win, no?