Healthy Intake, Healthy Output, Healthy Life

Although AlignRight Chiropractic is best known for Dr. Z’s chiropractic expertise, did you know that nutritional counseling is a service offered here to help supplement chiropractic care? The food and nutrients you take in can greatly impair or improve your ability to heal from an injury and pain, which is why we are thrilled to welcome you if you find yourself in need of professional, trustworthy nutritional guidance.

Dietician and patient talking about nutritional plans.

What Is Nutritional Counseling?

Nutritional counseling helps ensure that our patients are making the right choices about healthy foods and nutritional supplements. Because AlignRight’s ultimate goal is to help our patients return to optimal health, we provide this service tailored specifically to each person who joins. We’d like to introduce you to Dr. Z’s wife, Janel Kobza-Chukhman, RD,LD. As a registered dietitian, she is uniquely qualified to help patients find a nutritional plan that will support the chiropractic treatment they receive from Dr. Z.

Nutritional counseling for a patient learning diet information.

Who Can Benefit from Nutritional Counseling?

Now as a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist and Licensed Dietitian, Janel is capable of counseling people who need a variety of diet and nutrition counseling, including:

  • Weight Management
  • Sports Nutrition
  • Medical Nutrition for diabetes, thyroid, heart, kidney disease, cancer, and autoimmune disorders
  • Malnutrition
  • Wellness

Janel has completed a dietitian internship at the Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas and has more than 15 years of nutrition counseling experience. In addition, she draws on her own life experience when counseling patients. She has personally dealt with her own health problems, including the effects of inflammation, and has worked to maintain a weight loss of more than 40 pounds for many years.

Also, your needs may change as you go through nutritional counseling. There may be new developments in your health that have nutritional implications. Patients sometimes develop high blood pressure or diabetes. As a result, you may have questions about how this affects the diet you need to maintain. There are also food allergies to consider. Janel and Dr. Z will work together to optimize the nutritional aspects of your care.

Older couple smiling and making healthy food together.

What Is the Nutritional Counseling Process?

Nutritional counseling begins with an interview in which the dietitian will ask questions about a person’s typical food intake to analyze their expected energy and nutrient levels. Questions that you may want to ask your dietitian when receiving a dietary evaluation may include: “What types of nutritional supplements are okay to take?” and, “How frequent should they be consumed?” There are many barriers to change that have to be identified first when creating a nutritional program such as:

  • Food preferences and choices
  • Cost of nutritional food
  • Lack of knowledge
  • Inconvenience of obtaining nutritional products

Although there are hundreds of fad diets and instructional books to help you maintain a healthy diet, sometimes your best option is to see a professional who can assist you with a plan. This is especially true if you are facing a health challenge, whether it is chronic such as an illness or acute such as an accident. You and Janel will plan your meals together, and with regular progress checks, you’ll be able to stay motivated.

In addition, research on nutrition is ongoing, so what was recommended five years ago may no longer be the case today. Your nutritionist studies journals in order to know the latest research and apply new recommendations to your specific needs. Nutritional counseling is an ongoing process that can take months or even years.