A focus on food and diet, led by Nutritional Consultant Dr Nikole Grbin, is core to our philosophy at Professional Integrative Medicine.
Our approach to treatment begins by exploring whether your body has everything it needs to function properly. The popular saying ‘You are what you eat’ has more than a grain of truth in it.
There is often a direct relationship between food, gastrointestinal health, and systemic disease. Food intolerance testing and microbiome mapping can help identify issues with your current diet, and your gut. Your body may be reacting to something you are eating, or it may need something which is missing. Sometimes genetic variations, surgeries, or immune conditions may affect your ability to absorb or utilise specific nutrients, too.
Clinical nutrition planning is a major element in your recovery strategy
Dr Grbin’s study and practice have given her deep understanding of digestion, absorption, interactions between food and the microbiome, immune regulation and food intolerances. She sees how issues can contribute to inflammatory conditions every day. She helps you restructure your eating habits to look after your body instead of harming it.
A clinical nutrition consultation takes up to an hour and includes many of the following elements:
- interpretation of your test results within an integrative medicine framework, and including impact on diet
- understanding your current dietary habits, issues and challenges
- meal planning advice
- strategies to manage family meals so you can enjoy eating with your partner, your children, your parents and other family and friends
- practical tips and support for how to handle grocery shopping, eating out and traveling with food intolerances
- ways to get back on track when things go wrong
- addressing your concerns and questions about your diet, your body and your health
During your consultation, Dr Grbin will work with you to develop a customised 7-day meal plan for your goals and your situation.
Personalised nutrition plans for your health, your preferences and your lifestyle
Your meal plan takes into account not just your specific medical requirements, but also your personal preferences.
It covers breakfast, lunch and dinner for a 7-day period, plus two between-meal snacks each day. You won’t go hungry! Instead you’ll enjoy varied and flavoursome meals, which you know have all the nutrition you need.
Your plan comes with recipes for each meal, plus a shopping list for the week. Having just one major shopping trip reduces temptation and makes the plan easier to follow.
The recipes list ingredients and have step-by-step instructions. They’re chosen to match not only your nutritional needs, but also your level of interest in cooking and the amount of time you have. Many have added tips such as:
- serving suggestions
- flavour variations
- options to increase or decrease levels of specific nutrients
- substitutions in case you’re missing a particular ingredient.
The plans include every support we can give you to adjust your diet and rebuild your health. Dr Grbin’s goal is to make it easy for you.
