We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jennifer Seay. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jennifer below.
Hi Jennifer, appreciate you sitting with us today. Maybe we can start with a topic that we care deeply about because it’s something we’ve found really sets folks apart and can make all the difference in whether someone reaches their goals. Self discipline seems to have an outsized impact on how someone’s life plays out and so we’d love to hear about how you developed yours?
People often say they couldn’t work for themselves because they lack the self-discipline or have a habit of procrastinating. I’m a solopreneur – I work by myself for the most part and occasionally collaborate with colleagues. Working solo, I really do have to find that drive mostly from within myself.
My self-discipline comes from the desire to provide a different patient experience than the systems we have in place in our healthcare system are able to provide. At it’s core, healthcare is about caring for and supporting individuals – lifting them up to be the best versions of themselves they can be. In our healthcare landscape, the opposite is often true – people find themselves bogged down in the details before they even get to receiving the help they are looking for. If you talk to anyone about their experiences in healthcare, it’s not long until the conversation turns to one of many terrible experiences they have had – not being thoroughly listened to, billing nightmares, difficulty with the simple task of making a needed appointment, lack of follow-through – I could go on.
As a solo-practicing dietitian, I have complete control over my patients’ experiences from start to finish and I love that. I can attend to them in the moment, address their concerns, and I can tailor my guidance to their highly individual medical history, ability, life experience, and culture.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I am a Registered Dietitian (RD) in private practice. I provide individualized nutrition counseling to clients on a 1:1 basis, helping them address digestive health issues, navigate perimenopause, and finding family meal planning solutions that support each individual’s needs. I love what I do! It’s the connection piece for me. My goal is to take away some of the stress people feel around meal planning, especially when navigating complex medical diagnoses or seemingly conflicting needs around the dinner table. Since my sessions are 50 minutes long I can learn a lot about my client, truly listen, and provide feedback that is centered in my clients needs. Food should be fun! When it’s not fun for people, it’s almost always a matter of providing some education, meal planning solutions, or creating a perspective shift.
To contextualize what I do, I’ll provide a little background on what my training consists of. RDs are the top providers of nutrition related care as far as training, education, and real world experience goes. Nutrition research is one of the hardest to interpret because diet is so complex due to all the potential confounding variables. Researchers look at not only the foods people eat, but also the way they are combined, the time of day they eat, the setting in which they eat, and other health related behaviors individuals may or may not do (exercise, sleep patterns, etc.). Then, because of the complexity of this type of research, we really need to see studies that are reproducible or different study designs confirming prior research before we really can start to draw meaningful conclusions.
RDs do a deep dive of nutrition research in college, then are required to have a Master’s degree to further explore those concepts. They then complete a supervised practice internship under experienced RDs to apply their skills in a real-world setting. Finally, they have to pass the RD exam and obtain and maintain their credentials (including licensing, depending on the state – Georgia does require RDs to be licensed) in order to practice.
I see myself as being on the front lines of preventive & proactive healthcare. I always say everyone should meet with a dietitian at least once every year or couple years to be reminded of how important diet is to our overall health and wellbeing. In my practice, I also prioritize helping people tap into their motivation and creativity – no matter what health related challenges people are facing, food should absolutely be fun and playful! I feel like the quote from Hippocrates is overused in my field but it’s so true! “Let food by thy medicine and medicine by thy food.” We know all too well that many chronic diseases are associated with a Western diet and the intake of too much food that is highly processed. But knowing this isn’t enough – or our stats wouldn’t look so bad! Engaging with patients in a fun way on these concepts absolutely helps to motivate people to change, then those changes in turn create a feeling of more energy, better digestion, more consistent and positive moods. When people experience those positive feelings, they want to continue to feel good! I tell clients all the time to use me as a check-in point to sustain that motivation, particularly in the beginning phases of change when it’s so hard and requires so much effort to CHANGE habits. After a while, new habits are created and this process doesn’t involve such a heavy mental load.
The way I work is I meet with clients virtually, and they can book on my site (www.outsideinnutrition.com) or reach out to me if they have questions prior to booking. Ideally if a client wants to create a lot of change in their diet and lifestyle we would meet every week or two for a while until they are really feeling confident. Then when they are ready to take things and run with it, they do! I’m always available to circle back and check-in when clients find that helpful, but those choices are all needs-based and client driven.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
As far as qualities go, I believe there are 3 invaluable qualities that have helped me in my journey as an entrepreneur. These qualities could also be viewed as skills, as they certainly take practice. No one does any of these perfectly, but they are certainly worth striving for!
The first one is belief in myself. People will doubt your ability to accomplish your goals and you can either let that creep into your subconscious and destabilize you or let your belief in yourself be so strong that those voices just aren’t allowed in your space. I do believe the people and voices you surround yourself with matter immensely. To support belief in yourself, choose relationships that lift you up, inspire and motivate you to be your best. Spend your valuable time with who truly listen and help you tap into your intuition, and be the same for them. And most importantly, pay attention to how you speak to yourself. If your self-talk becomes anything less than compassionate and motivational, examine the reasons why and try to get back on track with healthier ways of relating to yourself.
The second quality is having an excellent work ethic. I believe this is especially important in jobs that are meant to help others. It is my job to show up for others in a way that is educational and also as a motivating and uplifting presence in their lives. That means I have to both care for myself so I show up as the best version of myself, but also keep up to date with research and current ideas in my field so I can best communicate those ideas to my patients in a way that connects with them personally. I find that my daily rituals are a huge factor in being able to embody these things. I feed myself well and move my body daily, and I make time to keep myself informed of new research, community resources, and make sure to know where I stand on ideas and trends in my field that my clients may find interesting or want to explore. While there are a lot of quick one-hour webinars out there to help reach the educational requirements to maintain my license, I always try to go to in-person conferences as much as possible to be fully engaged in that learning process to best serve my clients. I feel maintaining my education and keeping abreast of current trends is one of the most important parts of my job.
Third is the ability to motivate others. I may be motivated to have certain habits and rituals, but unless I connect with my clients personally they won’t be inspired to do the work to create change in their own lives. Motivation to create change comes from a combination of belief that a certain behavior will be beneficial (education), belief that that behavior is achievable (self-efficacy) and addressing barriers to creating that change. It helps when people can invite play and fun into the equation! I find it the most rewarding part of my job to be a detective in this way – asking the questions I need to ask to find out what’s missing from that motivation piece for people and addressing that, and providing education and guidance when necessary. Often times it is that emotional piece though, not some huge gap in knowledge. It really lights a fire under people to let go of any emotional baggage they may be holding onto that is keeping them from achieving their goals and move past that and into being able to take action.
Who is your ideal client or what sort of characteristics would make someone an ideal client for you?
I consider myself a primary care type provider in the realm of diet and nutrition. I have 17 years of experience in my field working with individuals who are well and looking to optimize their health, people who have multiple chronic diseases and everyone in between. Individual differences are celebrated in my practice and all are welcome! I always say the only way I judge people is on their character and how they relate to others.
Digestive health, family wellness, and women’s health are topics I’m very passionate about. The most challenging part of my food-related life personally has been receiving and working through a diagnosis of celiac disease. It was interesting to see how much better I felt as my body healed the year after my diagnosis and removing gluten from my diet. The experience of being a parent helping my children work through their sensory & other challenges while keeping food positive and fun has also been truly rewarding. As far as women’s health goes, I have found it very eye opening learning all the information that has been part of the discourse lately around the lack of medical research in women’s heath and how providers tend to lack knowledge about how to handle women’s healthcare in perimenopause and menopause specifically. I’ve used that knowledge to motivate myself to learn all that I can learn from the present research in women’s health so I am fully attending to clients’ concerns and current issues they are facing.
Generally speaking, my ideal client is someone who is truly curious about what changes would create better health and wellbeing in their body, and someone who is willing to make positive changes to explore that.
More specifically, in my practice about half of my clients consult with me on their digestive health related concerns – i.e., celiac disease, Crohn’s and colitis patients, IBS, post-intestinal surgery. The other half are a combination of family wellness clients, peri- and postmenopausal women and individuals looking to improve their health and wellness generally. I always tell people if they aren’t sure if I could help them I have a great network of awesome RDs to refer people to, so don’t hesitate to reach out and bend my ear!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.outsideinnutrition.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/outsideinnutrition/?hl=en
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-seay-99b5b5140/
Image Credits
Monica Conlin
