Frequently Asked Questions

We provide individual counseling and group classes. To read all about our counseling services and pricing:

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Click here to read all about our other services!

Real Good Nutrition offers both in-person and virtual visits. Emmy is our Wisconsin dietitian, located physically in downtown Madison. Both Jackie and Emmy provide virtual services to a number of states - the next question will give you a lot more information on this.

Here is a breakdown of eligibility with each Dietitian:

Emmy

• You must be a resident of: AZ, CA, IL, MI, MN, VA, or WI

• In-person appointments available?: Yes (located in Wisconsin)

• Virtual appointments available?: Yes (all eligible states)

Jackie:

• You must be a resident of: AZ, CA, IL, MI, OR, VA, or WI

• In-person appointments available?: Not yet

• Virtual appointments available?: Yes (all eligible states)

Please note: We only work with adults ages 18 and up.

We only work with adults. You must be 18 years or older to work with us.

This is totally up to you! Most of our clients like to meet biweekly or at least monthly. With that said, we don’t suggest going more than one month between sessions so we can make sure we’re still on the right track and giving you all of the support you need.

For sure! For up to 1 month between sessions, you can send your Dietitian messages through your Healthie portal. We think it's really important to stay connected between visits because it's all about that support and accountability.

What can you message about? Almost anything! Confused about something we talked about, or need a refresher? Having a bad week symptom-wise? Experienced a binge episode last night and want to talk it through? Do you have an upcoming event or meal out and want to review the menu with us? Do you want to send me a picture of a dinner you made to brag a little? 😉 Or maybe you want to celebrate a big win. Either way, think of your Dietitian as someone you can count on between your sessions… but that someone is a trained and certified food and nutrition expert right at your fingertips!

Your initial session will be 75 minutes and your follow-up sessions will be 45 minutes.

Of course! We regularly collaborate with our clients’ doctors (or PAs, NPs, etc.), therapists, physical therapists, etc. We like to make sure your care plan is well-rounded and that we are all on the same page.

No! A defined medical diagnosis is not required to work with us. However, if you are planning on using insurance or would like us to prepare a Superbill for you to give to your insurance, then we will need documentation of the applicable diagnosis via the ICD-10 diagnostic code - we can walk you through getting this if you need help!

Nope! We don’t even have a scale.

We strongly believe weight is not the best metric used to track your progress, and we are both HAES-based (Health at Every Size) providers. This means we don’t use weight as a measure of health. Instead, we love exploring how someone feels, how their energy levels have changed, and how confident and comfortable they feel around food. Other than that, because we are clinically trained, we may look at different labs or blood work ordered by us or your doctor to see how things are going. However, at the end of the day, how we track your progress toward your goals is totally in your hands, and we want to honor what makes you feel comfortable.

We’d love to work together to come up with a plan of attack when it comes to meals and snacks (including specific ideas and recipes), but we don't offer specific meal-by-meal plans or recipe guides.

We'll challenge you to ask: Is it realistic for you to follow a strict meal plan? Is it a sustainable practice? Will it cause more stress than relief? These questions may help us create a nutrition plan that comes about more organically and makes sense for you. We really believe that following a plan that was made by someone else doesn't always inspire long-term behavioral and lifestyle change. Plus, it's not likely sustainable to follow a strict plan forever, right?

Our goal is to help our patients find realistic solutions for sustainable change when it comes to their health and wellness. Because cleanses are very restrictive and can promote disordered relationships with food, we do not promote them. Let's chat about another way to meet your goals!

We totally understand the draw to try a keto diet, it’s literally everywhere these days! Did you know it was invented in the 1920s as a way to manage seizures in children with epilepsy? Most people don’t know this!

You also don’t hear much about the downsides (and dangers) of following a keto diet like increased cholesterol, fat accumulation in the liver, insulin resistance, and obsessive eating, and decreased lean body mass, exercise performance, and gut health. The most serious side effect is called ketoacidosis, a potentially life-threatening complication, which is why a keto diet should really only be done under physician monitoring to measure urine and blood ketones. More than all of that, it’s just not sustainable for the long term, so why put yourself through it now?

Instead, we take a non-diet approach to nutrition in that we don’t recommend any of the typical fad diets we see today (i.e. Whole 30, paleo, intermittent fasting, gluten free, etc). I focus more on strategies that are realistic for the long haul, ones that have been really well studied (like long-term studies!) without extreme diet restrictions and rules. After all, 95% of all restrictive diets like keto fail after 1 year and up to 60% of people experience additional weight regained!