Online Dietitian Consultation: What to Expect
Seeing a dietitian is about more than being told what to eat.
An online dietitian consultation gives us time to understand your health, symptoms, eating patterns, lifestyle and what you'd like to change. From there, we can identify where nutrition may be playing a role, explain what matters and work with you on changes that are relevant to your health and realistic for everyday life.
At Tailored Dietetics, consultations are provided by an Accredited Practising Dietitian (APD), with online appointments available Australia-wide.
What is a dietitian consultation?
A dietitian consultation is an opportunity to look at your nutrition in the context of your overall health, rather than focusing on individual foods or nutrients in isolation.
Before making recommendations, we want to understand what's happening.
Depending on your reason for seeing us, this may involve looking at:
Your medical and health history
Current medications and supplements
Symptoms or changes you've been experiencing
Relevant blood test results
Your food diary and usual eating patterns
Meal timing and structure
Protein, fibre and other nutritional needs
Food variety and nutritional adequacy
Your lifestyle, routines and responsibilities
Your goals and what you'd like support with
Not every consultation will focus on the same things. What we explore depends on you and the reason you've come to see us.
Connecting the dots between nutrition and your health
Nutrition rarely exists in isolation.
Low energy, for example, may prompt us to look at whether you're eating enough, how meals are distributed throughout the day, iron or other nutrient intake, protein and carbohydrate intake, relevant pathology and what else may be happening with your health.
Digestive symptoms may lead us to explore fibre intake and type, fluid intake, meal patterns, food triggers, bowel habits, dietary variety and whether restriction has gradually reduced the nutritional adequacy of your diet.
For metabolic health, we may look more closely at carbohydrate quality and distribution, fibre, dietary fats, meal structure and your overall dietary pattern.
The aim isn't to assume that nutrition explains every symptom. It's to understand where nutrition fits within the bigger picture of your health and identify the areas where dietary changes may be useful.
What happens during your initial consultation?
We'll start by discussing what brings you in and what you'd like help with.
We'll then work through the relevant information from your intake form, food diary, health history and any pathology you've provided.
As we go, we'll explain what we're seeing and why it may matter. This gives you the opportunity to ask questions and understand the reasoning behind the recommendations we discuss.
Rather than trying to change everything at once, we'll identify what is most important to work on first and agree on realistic next steps that fit your everyday life.
Your consultation is collaborative. We're not here to hand you a generic list of foods to eat and avoid. We work with you to find an approach that considers your health needs as well as your preferences, routines, family, work and the realities of your life.
What will I receive after my consultation?
Following your Initial Consultation, you'll receive a Personalised Nutrition Plan within 1 business day.
Your plan brings together the key recommendations and next steps discussed during your consultation, giving you something clear to refer back to once you leave the appointment.
Depending on your needs, your plan may include recommendations around areas such as:
Meal structure and timing
Protein and fibre intake
Food variety and nutritional adequacy
Dietary fats or carbohydrate quality
Hydration
Foods or nutrients relevant to your health
Managing digestive symptoms or food triggers
Practical changes to meals, snacks or everyday food choices
Goals and actions you've agreed to work on
Where useful, we'll also provide relevant educational resources to help you understand and put your recommendations into practice.
Personalised nutrition plan or meal plan: what's the difference?
They're not the same thing, and sometimes you may want one, the other, or both.
A Personalised Nutrition Plan is developed following your dietitian consultation. It focuses on the nutrition changes relevant to your health and explains what to work on and why.
A meal plan provides more specific structure around what to eat across the week.
Sometimes people want that extra level of detail. You may understand the changes you want to make but still find yourself wondering, “Okay, but what does that actually look like on my plate this week?”
Tailored Dietetics offers 7-Day Meal Plans for people who want more specific meal ideas and structure.
A meal plan can be a useful starting point, but the longer-term goal isn't to make you dependent on someone else telling you what to eat. It's to help you see what balanced eating can look like, put nutrition changes into practice and gradually build the confidence to make choices for yourself.
What can I see a dietitian about?
Nutrition can play a role across many areas of health. At Tailored Dietetics, our main areas of support include:
Women's Health
Nutrition through midlife and beyond, including changing nutritional needs through perimenopause and menopause, bone and muscle health, body composition and long-term health.
Energy, Fatigue & Burnout
Exploring food intake, meal patterns, adequate fuelling and nutritional adequacy when low energy, fatigue or reduced capacity are making it harder to eat well.
Metabolic & Cardiovascular Health
Nutrition support for insulin resistance, pre-diabetes, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, blood pressure and reducing long-term chronic disease risk.
Gut & Digestive Health
Support for IBS, bloating, irregular bowel habits and digestive discomfort, including fibre intake, food triggers, bowel regularity and maintaining a varied and nutritionally adequate diet.
Healthy Ageing
Supporting bone and muscle health, nutritional adequacy, strength and long-term health as nutritional needs change with age.
Plant-Based Nutrition
Helping you eat more plant foods or meet your nutritional needs on a vegetarian or vegan diet, including protein, iron, calcium, vitamin B12 and other key nutrients.
Why see a dietitian online?
Online consultations allow you to access an Accredited Practising Dietitian from your own home, wherever you live in Australia.
For many people, this makes dietetic care easier to fit around work, family and everyday responsibilities without the additional time involved in travelling to and from appointments.
Your consultation takes place by secure video call, with a link sent to you before your appointment.
What happens if I need follow-up support?
Not everyone needs the same number of consultations.
A Review Consultation gives us an opportunity to see what's changed, discuss what's working, troubleshoot anything that's been difficult and adjust your nutrition strategies as your needs evolve.
It can also be useful for reviewing changes in symptoms, food intake, blood test results, medications or other aspects of your health.
We'll discuss whether follow-up support is recommended based on what we're working on together.
Ready to get started?
If you're ready to understand your nutrition more clearly and work out what changes are most relevant to your health, explore our Nutrition Services and choose the service that's right for you.