HOW DID I START MY BUSINESS? AND WHY EATING DISORDERS?

A lot of people ask me how I started my business, and why I got into the field of eating disorders. While I do usually tell whomever asks, I have put-off writing this for a while. Maybe because I haven’t felt that I have really “made-it” yet, maybe because I don’t want to get that personal. Anyway, here’s how I came to be “Not Your Average Nutritionist.”

​When I first passed my Registered Dietitian exam, I was about to get married, and was looking for a local job in my field. 

That was going to be a lot harder than I first realized.

I spent about a year and a half (!!!) applying for, interviewing (several rounds), and networking for various jobs in any position as a dietitian. Unfortunately, there was always someone with 10 years of experience, or bilingual speaking, that would swoop in and get the job. (Eventually I did end up with a temp job with County Public Health after that year and a half). 

While I was looking for my first “real job,” an email had come through our local dietetic association from a ​young woman who was starting college locally, and was relapsing into anorexia nervosa (for which she had previously had some outpatient treatment). She was looking for a female, Christian, dietitian to work with her.  I sent an email back asking if she wanted to give me a try (being new and all).

Now to give a little more background on the eating disorder part of this, in school/internship we spend very little time on eating disorders as undergraduate nutrition majors. Of course we had to learn some about it, but it just does not go very deep at that level of education (which is also why I went back for my Master’s). So why did I think I could do it?
#1, I was desperate; and #2, I had struggled with restrictive eating during my early college years, and understood her mindset.  She agreed, and I met with her and her mom to see if we would be a good fit. This was the start of my entrepreneurial journey.

Fast forward a few months and I had read countless books on eating disorders and sought out a mentor in (who I didn’t realize at the time was a founding expert in the field, and whom many others call “a rock-star!”) a local RD, Francie White, who allowed me to come watch her work, and help with the IOP/PHP treatment center in Santa Barbara, CA. Since I (still) didn’t have another job (other than teaching some group fitness classes), I set my mind towards making a legal business.

With the help of a local non-profit organization, SCORE, I figured out what I needed to do to get a business license, and set up bank accounts. My first business name was “Libby’s Fit Nutrition.” I thought I would focus more on helping stay-at-home moms with weight loss and fitness. I did have a handful of those clients (whom I met in their homes), but pretty quickly I was finding that a lot of people who desired “weight loss” really had disordered eating or bad dieting practices, and I found myself doing more education around that. The more I worked with these clients and learned about EDs, the more passionate I became. I took some more psychology classes through community college, and contemplated what to get a Master’s degree in.

Fast forward another 2 years or so, I was working as a teacher (Allan Hancock College) and in Corporate Wellness (Provant/PG&E). My online presence had generated a lot of interest from college students who were having issues with disordered eating. I was seeing so many students from Cal Poly (the local college), that I was talking on the phone almost every week with one of the school’s nurse practitioners (the amazing, June Stanley) about shared clients. One night as we were talking about how many students she was seeing with eating disorders, she (I thought, jokingly) said “we should just have you on campus.” Little did I know that conversation would lead to BIG things for me.

​A few months later, I turned on my phone to see a voice mail from Dr. David Harris, Cal Poly’s Executive Director of Campus Health and Well-Being. His message asked me to call back and set up a time to meet. He heard I was THE person to go to for eating disorders, and wanted to hire me to be on campus to work with the students at no cost to them. (Fun fact: when I walked into that first meeting after saying hello, his first words were, “when can you start?”)

I started working at Cal Poly in Spring of 2016, as the first Registered Dietitian (as far as we know) to be specifically hired at a CSU to work with students with eating disorders!

I love my job! It is so nice to have co-workers who respect me and my opinion, since starting we have developed a multi-disciplinary treatment team, getting involved with athletic trainers and coaches for more open communication about the college athletes health and eating disorders, and I have been able to provide some in-service trainings to the medical staff.

This past year I changed my business name to “Not Your Average Nutritionist,” to better represent what I was doing (not many RDs are competent in the area of eating disorders, and even less seem to focus more on the person and coping skills than the food piece), and I was no longer focusing on the fitness aspect. I also changed the legal structure from a sole-proprietorship to a LLC, for more legal support and the ability to hire staff in the future.  I have a lot of lofty goals for my business in the next 10 years or so, but for right now I want to slow-down and savor the process.

So, where am I with my business now?
– Still working part-time at Cal Poly (over-booked, but feeling competent)
– Seeing some private clients.
– Almost done with my M.S. in Nutrition Science (emphasis in EDs).
– Working with a supervisor (Cynthia Saffell, MS, RD, LCSW, CEDS) for an advanced credential in EDs (IAEDP – CEDRD).
– Teaching at Allan Hancock
​- Feeling better about my own body image than ever.
​- …and getting ready to launch a new phase of my business in 2018! Stay tuned for online nutrition courses!