I love parts of the Whole 30 diet.  

Eating foods with very few ingredients ✓
Consuming ingredients that you can pronounce ✓
Healthy gut ✓
 
Given these great parts, I (and many other RDs I know) still rarely recommend the Whole 30 diet to clients. It’s simply too unrealistic for most people. 

Bottom line, diet choices affect many things. Some of the majors factors include:

1. Prep Skill and Time: Whole 30 requires a ton of preparation, which is a skill in itself. Most people (even experts) still struggle with weekly meal prep. In addition, most people need to research and become knowledgeable enough to prep the right way!
2. Knowledge: Part of the Whole 30 preparation requires massive amounts of time reading, reading, and reading nutrition labels. This includes reading the labels of products that appear healthy, but actually are not.
3. Lifetime habits: Whole 30 It isn’t a true representation of how most individuals will eat over the course of their lifetime. For instance, I love legumes…I think they are a nutritious source of protein for almost everyone and should be included in many people’s diets.
4. Taste: It will take time to learn how to make food delicious and with enough variety that it will provide lasting enjoyment.

 
Instead of suddenly diving into a popular trend diet, work with a dietitian on a plan that is tailored to you. This will ensure that it’s realistic. In addition, it adds a level of accountability because you helped create the plan. There is also ample research that shows how elimination diets (no dairy, no wheat, etc.) can actually have detrimental effects for people who don’t really have food allergies or intolerances. All in all, take the positives from this diet trend (e.g., think about how you can add more vegetables) and add it to your own tailored program. ​

Dietetic interns are valuable resources as they bring new and fresh information from various settings (e.g., hospitals, universities, etc.) to private practices like Nutrition Rites. We're lucky enough to have Kari Johnson join our team.

ABOUT KARI: 
Kari is currently a Dietitian Nutritionist student at Eastern Michigan University online while residing in Beaufort, South Carolina. Before entering into school, Kari was a SC chef with a purpose of incorporating local, fresh produce and products into each dish she served. Kari has worked with MUSC’s Heart Healthy camp for children, volunteered at long term care facilities, and is currently working with a local school to incorporate nutrition programs for elementary age students. Nutrition has truly changed Kari’s life and she is excited to share the positive results a healthy diet can make on one’s life. When Kari is not working on school, she enjoys spending time with her family, camping, backpacking, woodworking, and traveling the world.

Specific to Nutrition Rites, Kari is spending her October coming to Charleston to shadow consultations, create blog and newsletter content, work on marketing plans, research new foods, etc.