Guest: Katie Hake

Podcast Release Date: 8/29/2021

Welcome to Trulyfit the online fitness marketplace connecting pros and clients through unique fitness business software. In today’s episode, we speak with Katie Hake to discuss intuitive eating.

Steve Washuta: Welcome to the Trulyfit Podcast. I am your host, Steve Washuta, co-founder of Trulyfit and author of Fitness Business 101. On today’s podcast, I have the pleasure of speaking with Katie Hake. Katie is an RD: a registered dietitian. She’s joined the Trulyfit podcast to mostly discuss intuitive eating.

Although we do go over other topics in the nutrition and fitness industry, Katie is also a personal trainer and works with different certifications to help them form their methodologies when working with nutrition because obviously as personal trainers and group fitness instructors, we have to deal with nutrition. But how exactly do we deal with that, and not sort of break those boundaries of what can be said and what can not be said? She had a brief stint as a bariatric surgery-related dietitian and that sort of helped shape her career she’s going to talk about that. She gives good advice on how to work with clients.

But again, not overstep those boundaries. As a personal trainer, we talk about is becoming an RD something that she recommends. Now everyone seems to be able to give out paid information, so why become an RD if you can just do it anyway? As far as intuitive eating is concerned, we talk about the misconceptions about intuitive eating obviously what exactly it is, and just in general, the entire industry surrounding personal training and nutrition and how those two collide. So it was a great conversation. And if you want to find out more about Katie simply go to Katiehake.com, with no further ado, here’s Katie. Katie, thanks for hopping on the truly fit podcast. Can you give the audience a professional bio and background of who you are and what it is that you do before we get into intuitive eating?

Katie Hake: Sure, thanks for having me. So I am a registered dietitian, I take a non-diet intuitive eating approach. So I currently have a virtual private practice where I see most of my clients virtually starting to see some back in person here locally in Indianapolis. But I also work in the fitness industry as a personal trainer, group fitness instructor, I spent probably the beginning of my career traveling the Midwest, in particular, and certifying and mentoring fitness instructors to teach group fitness. So that’s kind of my background. I’ve definitely worn lots of hats from both a nutrition and a fitness perspective. But right now, I’m working in private practice, and it’s a lot of fun.

Steve Washuta: Well, cool. I also know that you had a brief stint in a bariatric surgery-related, you know, dietitian career? How exactly has that shaped your path moving forward here?

Katie Hake: Yeah, you know, I’ve always had that entrepreneurial spirit, you know, I started my business when I was in college, you know, just helping my clients with nutrition while I was getting my degree in dietetics.

I never, ever thought that I would end up in weight loss surgery, you know, for me working in the fitness industry, in particular, I think I had a lot of my own weight bias, right. And this, these beliefs about certain bodies have to be a certain size in order to be healthy. So I actually transitioned from I started as what I call like a feeding coach, right out of college, and then a position opens up here in Indianapolis. The reason I took it was that it was about 80%, you know, one-on-one client focus and 20%, you know, admin behind the desk.

The job I was currently in was the opposite of that it was dealing with insurance companies, you know, working a lot behind the scenes, not actually using the skills that I learned to develop, you know, as a personal trainer, and building relationships. So I took that position in order to get more experience with motivational interviewing, and, you know, talking to actual people and what I learned, you know, first of all, I learned a lot about those people who came to get surgery, and a lot of them have experienced so much shame and guilt and discomfort, you know, in judgment in their bodies living in larger bodies.

So it definitely helped me to just get better at counseling and empathizing and really listening to people. But I did get to a point where, you know, I was seeing up to 28 patients in a single day, and, you know, quick 15-20 minute sessions, and I realized, Oh, my gosh, I have so much to give to people to really help them with a relationship with food. And there’s just not always the time for that in traditional clinical typesetting. So that’s kind of what pushed me to take the jump into private practice on my own.

Steve Washuta: Well, let’s get right into it here. What exactly is Intuitive Eating and I’m going to send a quick anecdote here. I was at I think it was Thanksgiving or something last year with my sister who is a CNS. And she had like mentioned it in passing, and I think thought it was a joke. I was like, what do you mean? And apparently, you know, how the internet works are if you’re, if you’re stuck in these bubbles of sorts, you see these things all the time.

And if you’re not, you never see it. So you don’t know what you don’t know. And I just had never heard of it. And apparently, I was the odd one out everyone else there had heard of it. So can you give me and the audience a quick definition, whether it’s a clinical definition or your definition of what exactly intuitive eating is? 

Katie Hake: Sure. So you know, intuitive eating is It’s nothing new, but it definitely is becoming more mainstream. It was developed by two dieticians who shared an office back in the 90s. Their names are Evelyn Tripoli, and Elise Rash where they realize, you know, we’re telling all our clients, these sayings, you know, these air, they’re, quote, the right thing to eat, and, and how to make behavior change, and it’s not working, and they’re all coming back, you know, feeling like failures, and there’s got to be another way. And so they developed what’s called the 10 principles of intuitive eating.

Katie Hake: The way I best describe it is it’s really a framework of eating, it’s a self-care model of eating, where it’s focusing on the internal process, right? How does somebody feel around food? What are those biological feelings, right? hunger, fullness cues, feeling satiated, you’re feeling comfortable in their bodies, and, and really doing what’s what feels best to them versus all these external cues. And so, anyways, fast forward, however many.

Katie Hake: There’s now over 150 research studies to support you know, the health benefits of intuitive eating the efficacy of it, and they now train and mentor health professionals, not just dietitians, to kind of train in that modality, I guess you could say it’s kind of like a lens that we come from. So there’s a book, there’s a certification, but it’s really, it’s really a framework. And I would almost say it’s a kind of a movement now.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, I mean, I think those that’s all that’ll make sense. It’s a framework, it’s maybe even an umbrella term, it’s a movement, it hypothetically, you could be on an intuitive eating diet. And so could I, and we could be eating two totally different things as far as amounts, food types, food timing, and all of that, is that correct?

Katie Hake: 100%? Absolutely. It’s very unique and individual to the individual.

Steve Washuta: So do you feel? Or is this? Does this happen to you often, where people come to you, and they already have a particular diet type, and you have to almost, for lack of a better term, like rework the circuitry and be like, okay, we’re gonna, we’re gonna stop, and we have to start over because you can’t use the modality in which you were using for intuitive eating? 

Katie Hake: Absolutely, you know, a lot of people I work primarily with women, but I work with some men as well, who come to me, sometimes seeking weight loss, right? thinking Oh, my gosh, I’ve tried everything out there, and nothing seems to work. But there is this underlying theme of, I’m exhausted, I’m burnt out, I’m sick of micromanaging everything that I eat, and I just want to eat, and not think so much about it and not be overwhelmed or stressed out about the decisions that I make.

And so really, one of the first steps that I take with a lot of clients is helping them, you know, like you say, like, rewire the brain and help them understand, you know, what is this diet mentality? And what are maybe some of the thoughts, but also the behaviors that I’m doing that are pulling me away from listening to my body and what feels good, based on my cues?

Steve Washuta: Is there a given a take, what I mean by that is, is part of the diet regimen and intuitive eating to say, okay, sometimes you’re going to go off base here, right? You’re going to eat something that maybe you shouldn’t have. But instead of being mad at yourself, and having a bad relationship with food, you just recover on the next meal, so to speak.

Katie Hake: I’m so glad you brought that up. That’s a great question. So that is another kind of key principle with the intuitive eating model is that, you know, there’s no good or bad foods, all foods can fit, you know, it’s starting to look at foods neutral. And that’s really one of the common misconceptions about intuitive eating is that people think, Oh, well, if I, you know, if I’m eating intuitively,

I’m just going to want chocolate and chips all day. And what we found actually, with the research is that you may have heard this term called Habituation where, you know, if we can get somebody to truly believe, you know, it’s one thing to say it, but it’s another thing to truly believe that they can have, let’s use that example: Chocolate, you know, at every single meal if they wanted. Nine times out of 10 that person gets, you know, they may experience that feeling of overeating at first but eventually, that wears off.

You know, it’s like the first time. Are you married Steve, do you mind me asking? [I am.] Do you remember the first time you said I love you to your wife? [I do.] It was magical, like warm. fuzzies that felt so good, you got excited, right? Like when you first started dating and now, you know, I don’t know how long you’ve been married, but I’ve been with my husband for, you know, gosh, a decade now. And I love to hear it. It’s so great to hear. But it doesn’t have that same effect, right? So we see the same thing happen with food.

We call that habituation where it’s it’s not as exciting. It loses that alert that often happens when we put different foods on a pedestal or label them as good versus bad.

Steve Washuta: That makes perfect sense. I guess my only hold-up is, that if people are coming to someone like you, that means they care about what they eat. So of course, they’re going to eat more or less clean, for lack of a better term. But if there are people who don’t care about their diet, and they’re eating intuitively, couldn’t that be a problem? 

Katie Hake: I love that question. You know, that’s kind of the beauty of it. I’ve seen it in the research. But I’ve also seen it now being in practice, specifically in private practice for about six years now is that you know, clients actually end up eating a wider variety of foods, they end up eating more fruits and vegetables, because, you know, maybe they’ve experienced a time in their life where, they didn’t like vegetables, they don’t like eating any sort of vegetables. I’ve actually had clients like I hate vegetables.

What we learned through the process is that, well, they’ve actually had, you know, negative experiences with vegetables for them growing up, it was green, mushy green beans out of a can, or it was, you know. They had to have plain broccoli with chicken, breast, and rice. So as we start to peel back some of those rules and the rigidity around food, they actually become more open and more adventurous with trying a variety of foods, and trying different cooking methods, and really bringing back kind of that eating experience.

Because you and I both know, if you’re really listening to your body, and you’re eating, you know, chips and cookies, and all this, you know, hamburgers, fast food if you’re eating that all day, every day, it doesn’t feel good, right? And so I get the example too like, if you’ve ever gone on vacation, right? Where you’ve eaten out like every single meal, we all get to that Sunday, we’re on that plane ride or drive home and right. Oh, my goodness, I just want a salad. Like I need something green. I need a vegetable. 

Steve Washuta: Oh, totally. Yeah. I mean, it happened to me, actually on my honeymoon, when we were in Vietnam. Yeah, but we couldn’t find it [vegetables]. I like American vegetables, right? So like, we just wanted greens or like, or a shake. And finally, when we got to one of the bigger cities like the sixth day in, we found a smoothie shop and a salad shop and we couldn’t, we couldn’t have had enough of it, it was the best meal. It’s ironic, because like, you know, you’re traveling, you know, across the world, and you want to be immersed in their culture and eat their food. But eventually, my body just was craving like a salad and a shake.

Katie Hake: Right? I’ll use that dieting example too if somebody for so long has forced you to know, themselves to eat, you know, “healthy foods”, like just fruits and vegetables, is that there’s also this mentality associated with it, right? If I, if I eat these, then that means I’m on a diet. So we do see sometimes almost like a rebellious phase where they’re like, I don’t want to eat fruits and vegetables, because I don’t have time.

Now I’ve got that permission to eat whatever I want. So we do see sometimes a little bit of that rebel eating kind of come in, I guess you could say, but it’s long term, what we end up seeing is more balance and variety in an eating pattern.

Steve Washuta: I have been unknowingly on the intuitive eating diet for most of my life. And I think the only thing that may not fall into this, and you can tell me I’ll present the scenario is I typically will write out every single dinner I’m having throughout the week.

Now those can be interchanged. Meaning that on Tuesday, I have some sort of like chicken and sweet potato, and I don’t feel like having that. But on Thursday, I had, you know, sausage and potatoes, I can switch those two, but I will write out every meal that I’m having, just so that I have a sense of what I’m eating for dinner every week. Would that still fall into the intuitive dieting umbrella, or is that too regimented? 

Katie Hake: Absolutely. You know that’s another misconception is people think that you know, nutrition or planning can’t coexist with intuitive eating. But I would say a lot of it comes from the mentality, right? If we’re talking about intuitive eating as the self-care model of eating, well, planning out your meals for a week, right? And using a little bit of that structure could actually give us more freedom.

It can actually let us feel more relaxed when we have a general sense. But where I see people run into the challenge is when they get stuck on “well this is what I planned”. So I have to eat it as part of that intuitive eating. You know, practice is allowing yourself that permission, just like you said to go, Okay, well, this is what I had planned. But you know, I’m gonna be flexible, because I don’t actually want that today, I’ll leave that again, you know, tomorrow, and being able to have flexibility within that structure is really key. 

Steve Washuta: Yeah, I’m sure you can speak to this because this is not what I do. But it would still be sort of a good recommendation to have a ton of different options available, provided you have the fiscal, you know, the finances to do that. Because still, I think the problem most people have is we’re lazy. You might be craving like you said that green, that salad, you really just want to eat it, but you don’t have that available and what is in your fridge is quicker and easier to grab. And you’re sort of like your hunger will win out over your, your wants, and your needs if you don’t have the food readily available.

Katie Hake: Yeah, sometimes I describe, you know, with my clients, as we’re going through the process, sometimes I explained to them, Listen, it’s like we’re putting on training wheels, or we’re putting on a cast like to kind of heal your relationship with food in that, you know, the cast might look like, Alright, we are actually going to plan out some meal ideas for the week, or we’re going to aim to eat, you know, regular meals and snacks, or it might look like, Hey, we’re going to try to get balance at each plate, we’re going to try to get a protein of fat, carbohydrate, we’re going to start there kind of with a checklist, in order for you to then get to the point where, oh, can you learn?

Yeah, if I don’t have any fruits readily available? I’m less likely to eat them, right. But again, they’re coming from a different mindset. It’s, it’s making those options and those choices because I can not because I have to.

Steve Washuta: Should we do an episode with a CNS, and it was basically about the differences between an RD and a CNS or any other sort of certification-related thing concerning nutrition. I have to be honest, it’s quite complex and convoluted,

I don’t think the average person in the general population understands the differences. And because now everybody feels as if they have the credentials to give dieting information, how do you combat some of this from a professional standpoint? And from a personal standpoint? Or do you just say, there’s nothing I can do? I’m gonna give my information and do what I can, but it’s whatever is out there is out there. 

Katie Hake: Yeah, for sure. It’s definitely a challenge that I face pretty regularly. You know, the biggest difference I would say is that you know, every dietitian is a nutritionist, but not every nutritionist is a dietitian, so a dietitian is required to do get an undergraduate degree at an accredited program, after that they are then eligible to, to apply for an internship program. So again, it’s not like a lot of jobs, you go apply, again, internship hours towards, it’s kind of a matching program.

Katie Hake: So if anybody listening was involved in the Greek system in college, you know, it’s very competitive, it’s ranking. It’s almost like med school. I believe, it’s like a 50% match rate, it’s very competitive. So once you get accepted to an internship, you then complete over 1200 hours of supervised practice. So that includes rotations in the hospital during medical nutrition therapy, working with a variety of disease states, it spends time in the community that might look like working at a gym or a wellness center, or food pantries, those types of situations. And then there’s also time spent in food service working in the kitchens and a hospital kitchen. And then a lot of times, there’s a little bit of wiggle room for the student to, you know, do something that they’re passionate about, you know, for me,

Katie Hake: I spent my, I forget what they called it, but kind of the extra time working in a university rec center type wellness setting. After somebody completes those 1200 hours where you know, they have to get signed off on they’re being supervised by other registered dieticians, they’re then eligible to sit for the Registered Dietitian exam. So that’s a, you know, nationally certified exam, they’re required to keep up with their CEUs, and then in some states to practice they have to also be licensed. So the reason Yeah, so that’s the biggest difference between a dietitian is nutritionist, whereas with a nutritionist, you know, really anybody can go online or take a certification or they don’t even have to take a certification.

They can label themselves as a nutritionist. And you know, what I’ve what I see with a lot of clients coming to me is that a lot of them have experienced a lot of harm, whether from a physical standpoint, but also a lot of mental and psychological damage as well. 

Steve Washuta: Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me at all. And it’s unfortunate, but I don’t know what would stop it. There’s there are more laws and regulations that are in place in some respects, but they’re not upheld. It’s almost impossible.

As you know, as certified personal trainers through the National Academy of Sports Medicine, we are not supposed to give paid dieting advice. And I can tell you, you can go on to Instagram right now and find 1000s of people who are currently doing that. And the certifications themselves don’t have the money or the time or the manpower to stop it, nor do they have maybe the legal authority to stop it. So it just happens. And there’s not much you can do to combat bad information, except to continue to put good information out there and hope the good information wins out.

Katie Hake: Sure. 100% and that is one thing I get very fired up about. And I actually work on an industry level actually sit for the committee on the American College of Sports Medicine, and in helping with you know, some of those processes and having ongoing conversations about how do we keep sure that specifically work with the personal training committee, you know, how do we make sure that these professionals coming in, understand their scope of practice understanding of what they can and cannot do, they know how to refer out and what that looks like.

So that is something I get very fired up about. And, you know, I spend a lot of time educating other professionals either in gyms or, you know, on calls to helping people understand, you know, and the same goes for fitness, making sure that people do their homework that the consumer is investigating, or, you know, researching or asking questions, almost interviewing any type of professional before they hire, to make sure that they have the background, they have the education. And they have the experience.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, and I think something that’s missing, I can’t speak to your industry, but mine is just there’s no real shadowing process, at least one that’s that is that you have to go through. So of course, you can reach out to a gym or other personal trainers, and do it yourself. But there’s no forced shadowing process.

And if there was, and there was more of a wholesale approach where you had to shadow as a personal trainer, or a yoga instructor for whatever, 30 hours, you have to shadow, another personal trainer for 100 hours, and then you have to shadow a, you know, an RD for 50 hours, right, some something like that, where it’s a more wholesale approach, at least should have a baseline to know what you shouldn’t be saying and what you should be saying. And I think that would maybe, you know, cure some of the issues going on? 

Katie Hake: Yeah, absolutely. It’s definitely a systemic problem. You know, obviously, for dietitians, there is that in place, right? Like somebody has to have those, those shadowing those supervision hours in order to sit for their exam.

But I was actually very fortunate, my undergrad, they had a program that actually was almost like coursework, like if you were taking a course, to become a personal trainer, and that was one of the requirements to, to actually train at that university was that you had to shadow, personal trainers, and you had to go through extensive training, but you’re absolutely correct, you know, there’s, people can go online and just do a self-study and not have not necessarily had an undergraduate, you know, background in fitness, in order to train.

So I think that really falls on the integrity of the trainer, the health professional, whatever it is to make sure you know, am I doing my due diligence, to make sure that I’m staying within my scope? 

Steve Washuta: Yeah, it certainly does. It falls on them, I hope down the road, it falls more on the certifications, I only say that because unfortunately, it’s a combination of integrity and just naivety. So yeah, you know, 71 years old, you’re eating something in particular and you’re working out in a particular way, and it’s working for you. So your mind goes, Okay, this works for everybody else, you don’t know that age and genetics and injuries and, and family history and all these other things come into play and they’re just, again, it’s a naivety thing, as well. And I hope that you know, sometimes the only way around than naivety, unfortunately, I’m not for like, like oversight and control at all times. But I do think in this particular case, it would be useful. 

Katie Hake: Yeah, you don’t know what you don’t know. Absolutely. You know, I definitely agree that you know, I myself as a fresh you know, new trainer, new dietitian, looking back, there’s a lot of probably advice recommendations that I give clients, you know, that oh my gosh, I would never do that now. So we learn and we grow right. And that’s what we go from there, we do the best we can. 

Steve Washuta: So staying on the topic a little bit about, you know, sort of general diet-related concepts and how all called misconceptions. Are there any that are floating around now or that had been floating around for a long time that you think is you know, antiquated or just pure nonsense? 

Katie Hake: I would say the biggest one right now and it’s definitely you know, a hot topic and you could say controversial if you ask some people is that you know, you have to be a certain size in order to be healthy and there’s a lot of research on weight science and some of the issues With some of the research studies out there regarding, you know, weight and link to links to diseases, but what we’re finding in a lot of the newer research and specifically if anybody’s interested, look up Health at Every Size by Linda Bacon, talking about that, you know, correlation does not necessarily equal causation.

And there’s a lot of and maybe see this out in the field to right trainers or fitness instructors or you know, even dieticians living in larger bodies, but they come back and they have great lab work, right? And they’re able to run marathons and do all these amazing things. But so I’d say that’s probably one of the biggest misconceptions that I see in our industry is that you have to be X number of pounds X percentage body fat in order to be healthy. 

Steve Washuta: Yeah, and I think it’s a facade I think the people who try to portray that are really just vein and they’re really just working on their vanity, but they’re telling people that they’re healthy. And all in all, you know, like you just said, your labs, tell the tale, the tape as far as your health is concerned, not how many ABS you have. So, but that’s just, I think it’s it’s an excuse, it’s easy to say, Okay, I want to look a certain way, which is fine.

But you have to be honest about that not try to put other people down and say, because I look this way, and you don’t, I’m healthy. And you’re not like Well, do you want to show me your labs, because, you know, half the people who look a particular way or on supplements, I’ll be nice when saying that terms that are illegal, and their labs are horrific, and they have to do a reset, and they have to do a lot just to counteract that.

And we’ve, I mean, you can run down the who’s who in the bodybuilding industry. None of them live past 55. There’s a reason why right? It’s not that that is not just a correlation, that is causation. In that case, it’s because of, you know, what they do to their bodies. Not only from a lifting standpoint. But again, these extra things we’re putting in the bodies. Because vanity sometimes supersedes health. Even if they try to hide that. 

Katie Hake: Yeah, 100% you know, and I’ve definitely been there. I actually had kind of one of those realizations yesterday. I went to donate blood. And I remember for so long for so many years. In my days of you know, disordered eating and over-exercising. That I was never able to give blood because my iron was always so low. And I always think back to that time, where, you know, I was at my leanest. But it was by far the most unhealthy that I’ve ever been. From a nutritional standpoint, from a mental standpoint. From, you know, looking at wellness is the total picture. Versus a lot of people think it’s that nutrition and fitness. Like those, are the two pieces, but we know that it’s much more complex is that? 

Steve Washuta: How much blood can you donate at a time? I’ve never donated blood. 

Katie Hake: Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve never one of those, like double I think there’s a term for it like double donor? I don’t know. I’m sure whatever, whatever I can.

Steve Washuta: I’m definitely afraid of needles. I will give money I will do what I can to help any industry. But I stick a needle in me as I’m going to avoid it at all costs. Outside of necessities. But I get that is. With all that being said. All we talked about is becoming an RD something that you recommend still.

Katie Hake: Absolutely. I mean, I think for somebody depending on where you’re at, in your journey. In your career, definitely think about it, you know. Do your research, do your homework, because it is a large investment, you know. Not just time but of money of energy. They are now as of I believe 2022 it is required in order to be a dietician. You also have math, you have to have a master’s degree. So, you know, for somebody going back to school.

Yeah, it’s a big commitment. You know, I was fortunate to know. Pretty early on when I started my career that okay, you know. I knew for sure I wanted to do fitness. I wanted to, you know, personal train and teach group fitness and educate and do all those things. But I knew at the same time, I also need to understand this nutrition side of things. Because I think it’s such a huge piece of the puzzle. So for somebody listening, and they’re, you know, on the fence. Deciding what to do, I would say definitely shadow dietitians. Talk to dieticians.

Katie Hake: The reason I love this field is that there’s so much flexibility. There are so many varieties and specialties that I could work in or I could pivot you know. And there’s always so much that I can learn, you know. But somebody maybe they’ve made the decision of, I don’t know. If I’m can take that commitment, you know, time, money and finance.

So I would recommend them especially as specifically as trainers listening. You know, find a dietician that you can connect with and have a relationship with. That you can learn from that you can cross-refer, you know. I have a lot of local trainers who I work with. Because I’m not at the moment doing one on one personal training. So I have some great trainers who really believe in a lot of the philosophies. And ways that I work and so it’s really awesome to have those sorts of relationships. And chips when you can say, hey, I’ve got this trainer. Who I really think would reinforce a lot of the work that we’re doing together. So it’s really fun to see that. And ultimately, it’s, it’s what’s best for the client.

Steve Washuta: As somebody who’s plugged into both worlds here. As an RD, and as a personal trainer. And someone who works with personal training organizations. I’m gonna ask a tough question here. But are what are your thoughts. On the extent to which personal trainers should be giving food and diet information? You know, without having the educational credentials that you do? Is there a, is there a scope that you think they can work up to, but not go past? Meaning, maybe they can recommend certain food types, but not right out a diet? Something, something to that extent?

Katie Hake: Yeah, absolutely. And that’s, you know like I said, that’s part of the work that I’m doing with ACSM right now. Is to develop some of those questions and help people really understand. Because trainers are absolutely allowed to talk about food, right? It’s, it’s only natural that that comes up in a session, right? Somebody is there to improve their health.

So naturally, the way that he is going to come up so what trainers can do. Is they can talk about, you know, General nutrition. What is a carbohydrate, what is a protein, what is fat? You know, why do you need all three of these macronutrients. And direct them to resources or give them you know, meal ideas. But where it draws the line is when some give specific nutrition prescriptions right. Telling them the number of calories that they should or should not be eating. The foods that they should or should not be eating specifically.

Katie Hake: Because a lot of people may have underlying, you know, history with certain foods. They may have a history of an eating disorder. That can actually end up doing more harm than good. And so I would say to any trainer, listening, again, if you’re on the fence. Or you find had a personal trainer emailed me today saying. Hey, this client of mine tells me that she actually can’t or has to avoid. She has these intolerances. So I think to use your gut. Recognize when Ooh, this is more than I know. Or I should be told I should probably refer out.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, that’s, that’s great information. And I couldn’t agree more and echo those thoughts. And I will add to that, you know, and in our industry, we don’t want people stepping on our toes. We shouldn’t Yeah, oh my gosh, professionals toes, right. So if we see somebody on Instagram, who, who doesn’t have certifications. Or even people who have a higher-level certification. But are stepping into our realm, so I’ve had like physical therapists who have recommended. Like, particular cardio things that my clients don’t like, well, that’s just not your realm.

Right So you’re in a rehabilitative fashion, you don’t understand the cardio aspect. So that’s, that’s not your realm. So we shouldn’t be stepping on people’s toes, we should be networking within the industry. And that’s how you get more clients and specialize in something. Aneesh out and garner the respect of everyone else in your industry. By sending clients to them, and we’ll send clients back to you.

Katie Hake: Yeah, I think it elevates our profession as a whole. You know, I’ll give the example like as a dietitian, obviously, I can prescribe both, both nutrition and fitness prescription. But you know, if I were just a dietician. And a client came to me, you know. Wanting to be healthier and we were just talking about nutrition. Naturally the talk about movement comes up and exercise and so if I were just a dietitian. I might be able to say hey, here are some options that you could do for cardio. Here’s some options that you could do for strength training.

This is what is the recommendation of you know, X number of minutes per week. But I’m not saying you need to do this. And that I would then give them options and resources ideas. But then say hey, you know if you really want to take it to the next level. Or you know to get more specific, tailored advice. Really recommend meeting with a trainer.

Steve Washuta: Katie this has been fantastic information on intuitive eating and a host of other content. Where can the listeners find you if they want more general information. On what it is that you do if they want to work with you. If they want to follow you? Where’s best to search for Katie?

Katie Hake: Yeah, I love to hang out on Instagram. Instagram is my jam. So my Instagram handle is @katiehake, H-a-k-e or you can go to my website at  Katiehake.com 

Steve Washuta: Katie, thanks for joining the truth podcast. I hope to steal you for another episode down the road about another nutrition-related thought. 

Katie Hake: Thanks, Steve. Have a great week. 

Steve Washuta: Thanks for joining us on the Trulyfit podcast. Please subscribe, rate, and review on your listening platform. And feel free to email us we’d love to hear from you. What are your thoughts on intuitive eating? Have you tried intuitive eating?

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Thanks again.

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