Functional medicine, as practiced by Dr. Taylor, takes into account the whole person when helping achieve optimal wellness. She doesn’t just look at your symptoms, but at the underlying environment, social conditions, genetics, and physical aspects that promote or detract from your wellness.

Nutrition is a key part of this whole-person approach. The food you eat becomes you. It immediately enters your system and can affect your mood and digestive health. If you have intolerances to certain foods, it can manifest as physical symptoms, such as rashes, headaches, and fatigue. Optimizing your nutrition plan helps optimize your health.

Dr. Taylor and the nutritionist will ask about your current eating habits and may even request you keep a detailed food log for several days. In this log, you’ll also record your hunger levels, sleep, elimination schedule, exercise, and mood when you eat to see if there’s a correlation between what you eat and how you feel.

Based on this log, you’ll receive recommendations as to nutrients you should boost and those you should deemphasize. You’ll be steered toward specific foods and away from ones that don’t support your health needs.

Anyone can benefit from learning more about food and nutrition, but you’ll get particular value if you’re having issues with weight management, migraines, GI issues, food intolerances, depression, heart conditions, fatigue, diabetes, or menopause. Nutrition counseling is part of an entire treatment plan to support your health.

The staff at Dr. Taylor’s practice will take into account your preferences and cultural influences when coaching you on nutrition. Making significant changes to your diet is not an easy process and won’t happen overnight. You might benefit from multiple visits — each asking you to make small steps — so you eventually create real change in your eating habits and your health. If you’re open to making healthy changes and need less guidance, one or two sessions may be enough to get you on the right path of healing.