Today we’d like to introduce you to Julie Bays.
Julie, before we jump into specific questions, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I am grateful to have discovered my passion and career path early in life. I decided at age 15 that I wanted to pursue a career in nutrition and dietetics, and from that moment on never once wavered in my dedication to achieving that goal.
I grew up in a holistic health-conscious household in which balanced nutrition was just a way of life. Despite the healthy upbringing, I managed to develop an eating disorder at age 14 that would go on to linger over the course of a decade and ultimately play a powerful role in shaping where I am today.
My first job was at a women’s gym. I worked there for five years while I graduated high school and completed college coursework toward my degree in nutrition. My role was to help clients optimize their fitness goals and facilitated the in-house nutrition and weight management program. It was here where I first discovered my passion for nutrition counseling. I found that I loved connecting with people on an intimate level and getting to know their stories, their struggles, and their strengths while working closely with them to develop healthy eating habits that worked within the context of their complex lives.
While I was in college, I relapsed heavily into my eating disorder and checked myself into an IOP holistic treatment center in Pasadena. I needed help and, for the first time, I was ready to accept it. While I wouldn’t consider myself recovered for many years to come, it was my experience there that would ultimately save my life. It was there that I gained a tremendous amount of insight and understanding into the psychology behind eating and learned therapeutic tools that I still use with my clients to this day to unpack the cause of their struggles with food.
While it may have been my eating disorder that sparked my initial interest in nutrition, it was ultimately my struggle and recovery that gave me the personal insight, understanding, compassion and therapeutic tools that I use to this day to connect deeply with clients and help facilitate lasting lifestyle change.
After I graduated from California Polytechnic University of San Luis Obispo with a Bachelor of Science in Applied Nutrition, I moved back to Los Angeles and took a year off to work before applying for my dietetic internship. Everything came full circle as I got a job as a Dietary Technician at The Bella Vita – the same treatment center that saved my life in 2009. Here I was able to take my personal experience and channel it in a positive and compassionate way to help others understand and overcome their own struggles with food.
I moved to San Diego to complete my accredited >1400hr dietetic internship at UC San Diego Medical Center and subsequently pass the national board exam to finally achieve my dream of becoming a Registered Dietitian. I have lived down here ever since and currently have a private practice where I get to do exactly what I love.
I am passionate about nutrition because I believe that what you put in your mouth is the one thing in this life that you have complete control over. Throughout my recovery, the appeal shifted from the control itself to the realization that nutrition is one thing that anyone can take charge of to optimize their energy, longevity, confidence, happiness and quality of life.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Eating disorder recovery aside, my road to becoming a Registered Dietitian was actually rather smooth. The protocol for becoming an RD is very specific and structured, so my entire path had been carefully laid out for me, just the way I liked it. With a clear end goal in sight, I stayed in my lane and worked diligently to complete each step as I came to it. Until there were no more steps.
It wasn’t until I earned my R.D. credentials that I began to face some bumps and crossroads on my journey. I clearly remember the surreal moment I passed the board exam. I held the certificate in my hand and realized everything I had worked toward for the last decade had culminated to this moment, this piece of paper. I suddenly froze and thought, “what now?”. Where I went from there was entirely up to me, and that was an exciting and scary realization.
My first challenge was finding the right job for me. I have always known that nutrition counseling was my passion and had a clear picture of what I wanted my career to look like, but I quickly discovered that almost all of the R.D. job postings online were in clinical nutrition. After months of weeding through clinical dietitian job postings, I had to make a decision that I feel most people face at some point in life. Do I compromise with my passion and choose a job with better wages that drains me, or do I go with a job that pays less but aligns with my purposes and energizes me? It’s a deeply personal choice with no right or wrong answer, but I choose happiness. Every time.
I got a job counseling at a reputable weight control center where I was able to work with clients one-on-one at weekly visits to help them achieve their health and weight loss goals through balanced nutrition and lasting lifestyle changes. It didn’t pay well, but I loved the job and was able to fine-tune and further develop my counseling skills in my time there.
I had been working there for a few years when the company announced that the center would be closing its doors within six months. I was faced with a major decision. I could walk away from my clients and take my chances trying to find a clinical nutrition job I could tolerate, or I could continue working with the client base I had developed and keep doing what I loved by branching off on my own. With the encouragement and unwavering support of my innately entrepreneurial boyfriend, I decided to take the leap.
Starting my own private practice has been a challenge at times with a definite learning curve. Some people dream of being their own boss, but I have always sought structure and stability in every area of my life. It was never my goal to own my own business, but I realized that if I couldn’t find the perfect job for me, I was going to have to create it. I had to step outside of my comfort zone and confront the aspects of business that I never wanted to have to think about.
One major challenge was figuring out how to grow my client base on my own. Without any official marketing, I rely entirely on word of mouth and connections I make on social media. Just six months ago, my original client base was weaning to the point where I thought I was going to have to throw in the towel and start applying for a full-time clinical job. I figured out that the best way to grow my practice and my experience was to dedicate time each day to helping people overcome their nutrition struggles without expecting anything in return.
Today, my private practice is thriving and rapidly expanding to the point where I am considering limiting the number of new clients I take on each week to preserve the quality of care and to try and uphold some semblance of a work/life balance. I offer each of my clients unlimited text support between their weekly counseling sessions. Working with 40+ active clients each week from all across the U.S., I have become glued to my phone at all hours of the day and night supporting them. My current challenge is to continue providing the same incredible level of client support while setting reasonable boundaries and business hours so that I can put my phone down, take off my dietitian hat, and get back to a place where I can be fully present in the moment and show up for the people I love as much as I show up for my clients.
While there are always going to be challenges, each challenge is an opportunity for me to grow and become more well-rounded as a dietitian and as a person. I am still figuring things out as I go along and have a lot to learn, but with the support of my incredible boyfriend, I have pushed past insecurities and challenges and accomplished something I never knew I wanted to and never thought I could. I am now able to make my own hours, work from home, and choose how many clients to take on. Best of all, I get to do what I love on my own terms.
Please tell us more about your work. What do you do? What do you specialize in? What sets you apart from competition?
I created Vibrant Nutrition RD because there is nothing more rewarding to me than working with clients each week to facilitate personal growth and lifestyle change. I specialize in mindfulness-based weight management and health optimization and utilize my role as an R.D. to help people create vibrant lives and achieve their goals through healthy lifestyle choices and proper nutrition. Many people don’t realize until they experience it for themselves that there is a whole higher plane of health, energy and vibrance they never imagined was possible.
During my in-person and remote counseling sessions, I provide relevant nutrition education and customize programs for each individual to match their particular goals, health concerns and dietary preferences. I use evidence-based nutrition approaches proven to maintain lean muscle mass and reduce body fat while providing the body with all the nutrition it needs to thrive. With my local clients, I use the InBody 230 scanner to accurately track changes in body composition to ensure clients are getting the appropriate nutrition they need to achieve their goals. The detailed information provided by the scan allows me to assess individual nutritional needs and adjust their plan to optimize results.
What sets me apart as a dietitian is my dedication to working alongside my clients every step of the way to help them implement changes in a meaningful away. I don’t believe that simply handing someone a nutrition plan or sitting with a client for one hour will make a real difference in their health. I offer each of my clients unlimited text support between our weekly phone sessions to help them address any challenges they may encounter, providing them with an unprecedented level of accountability and support. I am always available to my clients to help them assess nutrition labels, advise them on menu selections, review their daily food journals, help them navigate challenges, or talk them down from emotional eating at 3 am.
While most dietitians focus strictly on the food, my approach is unique in that my counseling sessions focus just as much on the practical and psychological approaches that allow clients to take what they learn and make it work in their day-to-day lives. I meet them where they are and set manageable S.M.A.R.T. goals each week to help build the microhabits that lead to lasting change. Clients learn to set the stage for mindful mealtimes by removing distractions, eating slowly, tuning in to hunger cues, and learning the difference between physiological and emotional hunger. All of these strategies and more lead to natural portion control, freedom from ingrained habits, and over time clients find themselves naturally making choices that energize and fuel their bodies in a healthful way. At the end of the day, it really comes down to making choices that make you feel good in the long run.
My experience in eating disorder nutrition has given me unique insight into the psychology behind eating and the way in which many people use food as a coping mechanism to avoid confronting what’s really going on inside. My approach is to show people that they are in control, even if it doesn’t always feel that way. In my counseling, I use mindfulness techniques such as urge surfing, journaling, and breathwork to help clients recognize their emotional triggers and free them from the binge/shame cycle. I help them learn to identify and confront their feelings rather than numbing or acting them out with food. It’s one thing to tell someone what to eat. It’s another thing entirely to get them to the point where they are making those choices on their own.
I have used my mind/body approach to help hundreds of people achieve their health and weight goals and discover a level of vibrance and wellness they never could have imagined. My clients experience improved quality of life, optimized blood panels, freedom from the burden of daily medications, and newfound confidence in themselves and in their ability to make lasting changes. I help clients achieve optimal health, one healthy habit at a time.
What were you like growing up?
Growing up, I was reserved and thoughtful. Adults would often tell me I had an old soul. My mom would tell you that, even as a toddler, I was always careful and would think things through before I acted, whereas my sister would walk confidently right off the side of a coffee table without thinking twice. I was naturally quite shy and have worked hard over the years to overcome that.
When I was about 13, I remember having a tearful conversation with my dad about how insecure I was about being shy. I told him that I didn’t know how to speak up and be heard in groups of people and that I often felt invisible, disposable, and interchangeable. He heard me out and respected my feelings, but ultimately shared with me that he was shocked to hear I felt that being quiet or shy was a bad thing. He had grown up shy as well, and he shared with me how powerful it was to be able to connect with people on a personal level, hold space for them and be a good listener. Being interested, not interesting.
While I continue to work on coming out of my shell, I have become more confident in myself and have learned to appreciate my natural qualities. It’s my calm and peaceful presence that allows my clients to feel comfortable opening up and being vulnerable with me. I am still introspective, compassionate, gentle, and considerate, but now I understand it’s these qualities that allow me to understand and connect with people on a personal level and allows them to feel seen and heard – because I know what it feels like not to.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.juliebaysrd.optavia.com
- Phone: 858-848-0507
- Email: VibrantNutritionRD@gmail.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/vibrantnutritionrd
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/JulieBaysRD/
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