Utility of Nutritionist?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I am not asking for medical advice; I am asking if I have any real need to see a specialist that I do not think I have a need for.

I’ve lost 70 pounds in 9 months. I plan to lose another 70 to get me down to 125. I have had classes on the evolution of the human diet, and read quite a bit, to get myself nutritionally sound - 15% fat, 15% protein, 70% carbohydrate. (No alcohol.) I just had a physical today and I came out extremely well, with 44/40 good cholesterol, very low bad cholesterol (well under the threshold of normalcy), and significantly under the threshold of cholesterol overall. No other problems.

However, I’m on a restricted calorie diet and only eating around 1250 calories each day. I take a multivitamin (Flintstones chewables = love) each day, along with other foods to pad the lacking minerals and such. I used to have a very, very bad immune system that was hardly functioning; a few months ago, tests put my immune system at perfectly-normal-operation, although a year before that, I was definitely in the bad range. (This bears out in that I caught the flu and hardly noticed it, along with other improvements.) I am seeing that new research lately is saying a restricted calorie diet vastly improves the immune system of mice, gibbons, and now humans, and results in 30-50% extra lifespan for mice, and the same cellular improvements that led to the mice lifespan is seen in humans when this happens. Seems safe, right? I’m benefiting as research says I should, I am not lacking in any nutrients, etc.

Now my GP said he doesn’t think I need to see a nutritionist as my health is so good, and that a nutritionist would probably get upset and want me to take 1600 calories a day at least (he’s apparently worked with several in the area and they were all highly anti-restricted calories). It costs money to find a nutritionist and visit them, assuming any in the area are even in our health care plan. Would it really be worth the time and money to go see one when I have all appearances of being in prime health? I honestly don’t even know what a nutritionist would do for me other than probably spaz at the calories.

My doctor’s a good man, but I have no idea if a nutritionist would have better tests to see about any malnutrition (wouldn’t it have surfaced by now?) or something. I know I can easily just ignore the “EAT MORE FOODS RAGH” advice I might be given. So, would anyone recommend seeing a nutritionist when my GP thinks I am fine with what I am doing?

2

No.

3

Given that in all of that you, yourself, haven’t given any reasons why you think you might want to see a nutritionist, I think you might want to question yourself as to exactly what part of your psyche is recommending it, and why.

Keep up the diet, and good luck!

4

I just figured it’d be a guarantee, as I had no idea if a nutritionist could do more than a GP. That and the whole “If you want to lose more than 10 pounds contact your doctor!” which I didn’t at all. Doctor kinda did a double take the first time I came in after losing about 50 pounds (after several months of no visits), heh.

If it isn’t useful though, I don’t want to bother going. I wanted to back up my doctor’s opinion, instead of relying on my own judgment, when I had a dearth of knowledge on the subject. But thanks for the encouragement & info! If I ever feel like I am getting sickly or something I am certainly going to a doctor about it, just to see if I need another diet change or something.

5

My mother has been on diets as low as 800 since I can remember. 1200 is her usual; of course, any time she eats a pastry is one day when she’s eating 20-30% more than usual :smack:. She has been working with a superb nutritionist, who has the advantage of being a friend of the family since she walked on all fours, so she can call my mother’s bullshit. The nutritionist said that while the tables say Mom should eat 2000 cal, that would definitely send her ballooning. You just can’t spend 30+ years eating 1200 cal and then assume that the tables are the know all, see all. The nutro’s day job is at the town-owned old folks’ home, she tossed the tables out the window years ago. And when she wants tests run on a patient… she calls the patient’s GP.

Mom’s been losing weight steadily, which has reduced her snoring to almost-nothing, where three years ago you could hear her through two closed doors. She claims she doesn’t want to go below 80kg… but a year ago, she was saying she didn’t want to go below 85 :smiley:

Since your GP says you don’t need one, I’m quite sure you don’t.