Marketing your nutrition business can often feel like a never-ending task. What better way to market your services and grow your business than to leverage the power of others? Word-of-mouth referrals are an often overlooked marketing strategy, but they're a powerful way to get more people talking about what you're offering and telling others how great it is.

We caught up with Stephanie Long, That Clean Life Ambassador and Business Coach for Nutritionists, to learn key strategies to spread the word about your nutrition business. She’s a registered holistic nutritionist, culinary nutrition expert, and host of the podcast Next Level Nutrition Biz.

As an expert in helping nutrition professionals build authority, Stephanie offers three strategies to get more word-of-mouth referrals:

1. Connect with colleagues
2. Approach other health practitioners
3. Incentivize current or past clients 

Before diving into these three strategies, Stephanie explains why referrals can be a game-changer in your business and how to position yourself as an authority and expert to receive referrals.

Why Referrals Can Be a Game-Changer in Your Business

A flow of authentic referrals is one of the best ways to create a nutrition business deeply rooted in trust and authority. Referrals can support your growth in many ways, which Stephanie explains below. 

They’re an effective way to organically grow your business.

We don’t know anyone who loves sending cold pitches that feel impersonal or intrusive. Instead, referrals arise naturally from satisfied clients who believe in the value of your services. 

When people refer friends, family, or colleagues, they’re essentially vouching for you. This word-of-mouth marketing taps into existing networks and relationships, reaching people who are more inclined to listen. This can become a continuous cycle that stimulates organic growth.

They allow you to build a more consistent income.

By leveraging satisfied clients and professional networks to provide referrals, you establish an ongoing source of new business. Sporadic marketing efforts may have unpredictable results. Referrals offer a steady stream of potential clients who already have some degree of trust in you based on the recommendation of someone they like.

These leads are more likely to support your income stability. Plus, loyal clients who refer others often become repeat customers themselves.

They increase trust and credibility.

A personal recommendation carries significant weight. Potential clients are more likely to trust the advice of someone they know rather than relying on advertising or internet reviews from strangers. As referrals flow in, your positive reputation grows, positioning you as a credible authority.

They create a network of practitioners you can refer to.

As you establish relationships with others, you learn more about their specific needs and goals. This is helpful for your practice, but when audience needs fall outside your scope, you want trusted people to refer them to. Stephanie says, “Referrals are not just about receiving referrals for your business, but it's also about referring out. 64% of marketing executives agree that referrals are the most effective form of marketing, bringing in five times more sales than paid media.”

How to Position Yourself as an Authority and Expert to Receive Referrals

To get word-of-mouth referrals, you have to be seen as an expert in your niche. Stephanie says several essential steps will help over time, creating long-term credibility: 

• Get clear on your niche. Who do you help and how do you help them? And what is the transformation you're providing? This is critical to make sure the right people find you.  
• Create educational content. The more educational content you create, the more authority and expertise you become in this topic or in this niche. The more people read and see this, the more authority you build, with more people seeing you as an expert.
• Continue learning. Keep building your knowledge by obtaining additional certifications and completing ongoing education. This helps you stay on top of current science and remain an authority in your space. 
• Put yourself in front of more audiences. Speaking at conferences, workshops, or community events allows you to showcase your expertise and reach new audiences. It also helps you become more confident, which supports your position as an expert. Get your name, face, and brand in magazines, podcasts, blog posts, or local news outlets. 

Strategies to Get More Word-of-Mouth Referrals from Nutrition Colleagues and Health Practitioners

How to get more referrals from your colleagues and other health practitioners

Stephanie highlighted several action tips to encourage more referrals from colleagues within your network:

• Join professional associations
• Participate in online communities
• Attend networking events
• Have a presence on social media so people can find you
• Look for opportunities for collaboration with others who can help elevate your authority
• Consider joining alumni networks to connect with people who have similar schooling

How to approach colleagues for referrals

It may feel awkward asking colleagues for referrals, but it doesn’t need to be. Stephanie shared the strategy she recommends. 

First, introduce yourself through an email, phone call, direct message, or in person at an event and explain who you are. Stephanie suggests expressing admiration for the work this person does. This can help open the conversation to tie in your background and expertise and form a connection. 

Next, she recommends acknowledging the practitioner and the value of the client relationships they’ve built. Telling them you’ve noticed and appreciated the work they put into growing their practice can go a long way. 

Finally, Stephanie says to outline the benefits their clients would receive from your services. Give them a clear purpose for why their clients should work with you. For example, perhaps you have specialized expertise that can build upon what they’re offering without stepping on anyone’s toes. 

"At the end of the day, there’s a mutually beneficial relationship to build upon, even if you’re in a similar space. A collaborative approach should always be emphasized, so make sure they’re aware that you’re open to reciprocating referrals or collaborating on future projects."

You can also sweeten the deal with a referral commission. For example, for every client you receive from them, they would receive a commission from you, and vice versa. Stephanie explains, "In industry standards, it's usually 10 to 20% of the consultation commission or program price. You can also find a commission rate that works best for you and is mutually beneficial for all involved."

Download the Pricing Handbook now to optimize your pricing strategy for your meal planning services and programs.

It may not always be the right fit or the right timing, so she emphasizes the importance of respecting boundaries. “Just thank them for considering it,” she says. Keep the door open, keep things positive, and let them know that you're really appreciative that they considered it.”

Did you know That Clean Life has an affiliate program? Learn more about how it works here.

How to Incentivize Current or Past Clients for Referrals

To incentivize clients to give referrals, you have to provide excellent service. After all, Stephanie says, satisfied clients are more likely to recommend you, so focus on delivering exceptional experiences people will remember. “The more you put out, the more you’ll get back,” she notes. 

Another option is to create a client incentive or loyalty program to reward your clients for each new referral they send. This could be a discount on a future service, a free session, or a small gift. 

Some examples include: 

• For every three clients they send, they get a 30-minute free consultation with you
• Free meal plan or guide
• Free supplements or product discounts (e.g. if you’re using a platform like Fullscript, you could temporarily increase the discount to incentivize referrals) 
• A gift basket of local goodies, a financial incentive, or a gift card to a relevant business they would appreciate 
• Host a friendly referral contest and offer prizes for clients who refer the most new clients to you within a defined period

Use That Clean Life to create your free gift like a meal plan or recipe book.

Stephanie says the best thing to do here is to choose something that feels good to you and you have a realistic amount of time to offer. Then, when you do receive those referrals, send a thank you note to show appreciation. Not only is this just kind, but it also encourages them to continue referring others and creates a positive relationship dynamic. 

Word-of-Mouth Referrals: The Takeaways

To recap, here’s a quick referral checklist you can follow to help build your authority and keep the referrals coming from colleagues, other health practitioners, and past clients:

• Niche down
• Network and collaborate
• Ask for referrals directly
• Send referrals for others you trust
• Provide exceptional service always
• Incentivize referrals
• Send thanks 

Learn more about Stephanie and her Nutrition Business Club here. 

Plus, watch a demo to see how That Clean Life can help you create beautiful nutrition plans for your clients.

One of the most common questions we get from nutrition professionals is, “What should I charge for a meal plan?”

Market research is an important part of setting your prices. It helps you understand the market value and what your peers are charging for their meal planning services. To save you time with your market research and help you confidently set your prices, we have analyzed the pricing from over 8,000+ health professionals.

Whether you are just starting with your nutrition business or have years of experience as a practitioner, this guide will help you consider (or perhaps reconsider) your prices.

This handbook will cover:

• How health professionals are using meal plans in their nutrition businesses
• Average hourly rates by profession
• Average and high-end prices of meal planning services and programs

Download the Pricing Handbook now to optimize your pricing strategy.

When you take the time to work out the numbers, you can confidently present your pricing, knowing you are charging exactly what you are worth and what you need to thrive both personally and as a business.

If your male client is experiencing changes in mood, weight, energy levels, or sexual drive - supporting their hormone health through diet and nutrition might be a good place to start.

In this article, we will cover:

• Key male hormones and their functions.
• Calorie and macronutrient considerations.
• Minerals and vitamins to focus on.

Hormones 101

Hormones are chemical messengers in the body that tell our cells what to do. They coordinate mood, digestion, energy levels, and bodily functions. Hormone levels can change with diet, activity levels, medical conditions, sleep, and age. For men, these hormone fluctuations can impact appetite, metabolism, sexual drive, risk of chronic disease, and body composition.

If your client has a hormone imbalance, diet and medical treatment can work together to solve potential nutrient deficiencies and to support the production of certain hormones.

Key Male Hormones

There are some key hormones that are essential to men’s hormonal health. Once you have a good understanding of what these hormones do and how they impact your client's health, it will make it easier to provide nutrition recommendations to keep these balanced.

• Insulin is released from the pancreas after you eat and takes glucose from the blood to cells for energy. It helps maintain normal blood glucose levels and weight management which can affect energy levels and the risk of developing diabetes and heart disease.
• Leptin and Ghrelin are responsible for hunger and appetite control. Leptin is released from fat cells and helps control appetite and maintain weight, whereas ghrelin is responsible for stimulating appetite.
• Thyroid Hormones. Both an underactive or overactive thyroid can lead to unfavorable symptoms such as weight and body temperature changes, fatigue, low mood, infertility, and sexual dysfunction.
• Testosterone plays an important role in fertility, sexual function, bone health, and muscle mass. Testosterone has beneficial effects on several cardiovascular risk factors, which include cholesterol, endothelial dysfunction, and inflammation. Men with low testosterone levels are more likely to suffer a cardiovascular event and develop insulin resistance.
• Cortisol is a steroid hormone released in times of stress and increases blood pressure and heart rate. It helps modulate the immune system, supports anti-inflammatory responses, the nervous system, blood sugar levels, and blood pressure. Long-term exposure to high stress levels can alter the level of another stress hormone DHEA which in turn will lower testosterone production.

Nutrition Considerations for Men’s Hormones

What your clients eat affects the production of hormones and their signaling pathways. A healthy diet can help keep these hormones in sync.

These are some important considerations, nutrients, and foods to help keep your client's hormones balanced.

Energy Levels

Excess calories and obesity disrupts the male reproductive function and increases the risk of infertility. This happens through changes in hormone levels which impact testicular metabolism and sperm composition, quality, and function. The opposite is also true where not eating enough calories can disrupt metabolism and downregulate the production of sex hormones. Calculating your client's calorie needs and creating a meal plan can help them stay within their energy and weight goal.

Tip: Use That Clean Life's Automator to set your client’s calorie and macronutrient goals when creating a meal plan.

Healthy Fats

Heart-healthy fats are provided by foods like olive oil, avocados, nuts, and seeds and can support healthy leptin and ghrelin levels as well as testosterone levels. Erectile dysfunction appears to lessen in men adhering to the Mediterranean diet which contains plenty of omega-3 and omega-6 fats. These types of fats influence sperm maturation, motility, and acrosome reaction. Omega-3 fats can also assist with stress reduction by lowering cortisol concentrations. These healthy fats are found in fatty fish such as salmon, tuna and mackerel, walnuts, ground flaxseed, and plant-based oils.

Tip: Use our pre-made Mediterranean Diet with your clients, built with high-fiber, nutrient-dense foods, heart-healthy fats, and quality protein.

Protein

Protein is considered to be the most satiating macronutrient as it induces prolonged ghrelin suppression. Eating protein regularly, especially at breakfast, can help lower ghrelin levels and may reduce overeating later in the day. Getting enough daily protein also helps to balance blood sugars and maintain muscle mass.

Tip: When creating your client's meal plan, try to choose one protein source with every meal and snack.

Complex Carbohydrates & Fiber

Eating the proper amount and type of carbohydrate is important to help balance insulin levels. Dietary fiber intake is associated with several health benefits including lower blood pressure, improved blood glucose control, and weight loss. Soluble fiber found in foods like oats, bran, and beans has been shown to delay hunger and increase satiety through effects on certain gut hormones. To increase the fiber in your client's diet, you can encourage them to swap out refined carbohydrates for more complex sources from whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and legumes.

That Clean Life offers a range of ready-to-use templates to help you create a comprehensive, evidence-based meal plan for your clients. Check out our Men's Hormone Balancing Diet.

Zinc

Zinc plays an essential role in the immune system, male fertility and in maintaining the lining of reproductive organs. A deficiency in this mineral can cause sperm abnormalities and lower testosterone concentration, growth impairment, hypogonadism, and some endocrine diseases. Zinc is also important for the metabolism and synthesis of thyroid hormones which help maintain body homeostasis. Good sources of zinc include seafood, beef, pork, legumes, dairy, and oatmeal.

Tip: Use That Clean Life's nutrition filters to find recipes high in zinc and fiber.

Magnesium & Vitamin B6

Research shows magnesium plays a role in managing testosterone levels, anxiety, and depression. Vitamin B6 is effective when combined with magnesium in adults with severe stress. You can create a meal plan that provides adequate magnesium and vitamin B6 to support the body during stressful periods. Magnesium is found in seeds, nuts, spinach, and beans. Good sources of vitamin B6 are tuna, salmon, chicken, potatoes, and bananas.

A nutritious diet and healthy lifestyle choices will help keep your client's hormonal health in check. In some cases, you may need to encourage your client to seek assistance from a medical professional if hormone replacement therapy is needed.

Key Takeaways

• Hormone fluctuations can impact appetite, metabolism, sexual drive, risk of chronic disease, and body composition.
• Providing an appropriate amount of calories to keep your client at a healthy body weight is important for male reproductive function and fertility.
• Omega-3 and omega-6 fats influence sperm maturation, motility, and acrosome reaction. Omega-3 fats can also assist with stress reduction by lowering cortisol concentrations.
• Add a protein source to meals and snacks to reduce overeating, balance blood sugars and maintain muscle mass.
• Providing complex carbohydrates and high fiber options can lower blood pressure, improve blood glucose control, and increase satiety
• Add zinc sources from seafood, meat, legumes, dairy, and oatmeal to boost the immune system, male fertility, and body homeostasis.
• Create a meal plan that provides adequate magnesium and vitamin B6 to support the body during stressful periods and manage testosterone levels. Magnesium is found in seeds, nuts, spinach, and beans. Good sources of vitamin B6 are tuna, salmon, chicken, potatoes, and bananas.

Ready to create your hormone support meal plan? Get started with That Clean Life’s ready-to-use Men's Hormone Balancing Diet.

This template includes a 7-day meal plan, an itemized shopping list, appropriate recipes, a prep guide, and supporting evidence. It's fully customizable based on your client’s needs and preferences.

If you are not yet a member of That Clean Life, watch our demo here to see how it works!

Accessing healthy foods and following dietary recommendations on a budget can be challenging for many clients.

Nutrition professionals are well-positioned to teach clients meal planning and grocery shopping skills to find versatile and affordable options that are easy to access, reduce food waste, and avoid the purchasing of expensive, unnecessary ingredients.

The best nutrition plan for your clients is one that they can easily follow and meets their medical and nutritional needs while being affordable, accessible, and enjoyable, allowing them to stick with it for the long term.

Today, we are breaking down how to create affordable and accessible nutrition plans and increase client dietary adherence.

Conduct a thorough nutrition planning assessment.

Creating a nutrition plan based on your client’s unique needs means more than just getting their nutrient goals balanced. Your Nutrition Planning Assessment should explore:

• Your client's geographic location and the ingredients they have access to.
• Their weekly grocery budget and how often they can grocery shop.
• The pantry staples they already have.
• The types of foods they eat.
• How often they prefer to cook
• The types of cooking and food storage equipment they have in their homes.
• Assess for potential household food insecurity, and any other barriers they might face.

Use That Clean Life’s Nutrition Planning Assessment Tool to collect the right information.

Create a realistic plan based on your client’s feedback.

Once you understand your client’s needs and potential barriers to accessing and preparing food, it’s time to create a realistic plan they can actually follow. Here are some tips.

1. Keep the ingredient list minimal and accessible.

An important part of food budgeting and meal planning is having a well-planned grocery list to make more healthful purchases, avoid impulse buys, and reduce food waste.

When choosing meals for your client’s meal plan, recipe book, or meal planning guide, you can choose recipes that:

• Use a few affordable ingredients.
• Use ingredients your client already has or can easily access.
• Use similar ingredients or modify recipes to use the same ingredients.

Before creating a meal plan for a client, ask them what ingredients they currently have in their fridge, freezer, and pantry including condiments, oils, seeds, nuts, etc. Then, include recipes on their plan that use these ingredients.

For example, let's say your client recently purchased Greek yogurt, you can filter through That Clean Life’s recipe database to find breakfast and snack options that use Greek yogurt and then add a couple of recipes that use this ingredient. This way, your client will use up the whole container of yogurt that they already purchased instead of this being leftover at the end of the week and potentially going to waste.

When you create a meal plan using That Clean Life, a grocery list is automatically generated. By keeping the grocery list short with affordable ingredients that you know your client likes and has access to, and choosing recipes that use all of the ingredients purchased, you will reduce the amount of time your client spends shopping, potential food waste, and their grocery bill.

That Clean Life’s 15-Ingredient Program and Plant-Based 15-Ingredient Program demonstrate how easy it is to eat healthy with just 15 nutritious ingredients.

2. Factor in preparation and cooking time.

Healthy eating can often be inaccessible due to time constraints and requiring expensive cooking equipment. During your nutrition planning assessment, you should ask your client how much time they have to cook, what their skill level is in the kitchen, and the equipment they have at home. When you choose recipes that match your client’s lifestyles, they can experience that eating healthy doesn’t need to be time-consuming.

Consider including options like one-pan meals or slow cooker meals on your client’s nutrition plan with specific cooking time limits to make meal prep easy for them.

3. Use leftovers and provide guidance on food storage.

Speaking of time constraints, your clients probably don't want to spend hours in the kitchen cooking every day. Giving clients a new recipe for every meal can be overwhelming which is why we suggest you add meals to their plan that can create leftovers.

Leftovers help with compliance and make the nutrition plan more affordable by allowing clients to buy certain ingredients in bulk or use up any ingredients they purchase for the week.

In your nutrition plan, you can add recipes that create the right number of servings to account for leftovers, and use a prep guide to give instructions on how to store leftovers properly. Educating your clients with this information will help preserve the flavor and nutrients in their meals and will reduce food waste and save them money in the long run.

4. Provide a meal prep guide.

A prep guide lays out the exact steps your client should take to put their nutrition plan to use. It breaks your client's week down day by day so that they know exactly when to cook, what to make, and what to do with leftovers.

Providing a prep guide with your nutrition plans will help your client get the best results by ensuring they never feel overwhelmed when it comes to prepping and packing their meals. It will save your client a ton of time in the kitchen and make meal prep feel much more accessible and doable.

Review your nutrition plan with your client.

Lastly, a realistic meal plan should be reviewed with the client. Use this opportunity to walk through how to use the meal plan, organize the meal preparation and grocery shopping, how you’ve applied their feedback from the assessment tool, and how the plan will help them meet their goals. Going through the plan with your client is an added touch that often goes overlooked, but it will help them succeed.

Personalized nutrition planning should be accessible.

Healthy and delicious eating doesn’t have to be expensive. Bridging the gap between your recommendations and your client taking action requires resources and support. When you provide the right tools like a nutrition plan based on your client’s unique needs and teach them how to eat well with affordable and accessible meals, they will be empowered to reach their goals.

Nutrition education is crucial to the success of your clients. 

Research shows that people with more information about the health effects of the food they eat are more likely to follow the dietary plan and adopt healthier eating behaviors. 

But at the same time, as a practitioner, your days are full of admin work, marketing, and other people’s demands on your time and attention, leaving little time for nutrition research and education.

It’s time to change this. 

You deserve access to easy-to-understand health insights without having to spend hours on research. Your clients deserve to understand the reasoning behind the recipes you add to their nutrition plans. 

We’re making it possible. 

Today we’re thrilled to announce AI Health Insights, now available on That Clean Life for all Plus Plan subscribers. 

Empowering practitioners and clients with accessible nutrition education

AI Health Insights, empowers practitioners with nutrition education associated with each recipe on their clients' nutrition plan to promote better dietary adherence and, ultimately, better health outcomes.

How it works

AI Health Insights uses AI to enrich every single recipe within That Clean Life (6,100+ recipes and growing!) with insights derived from each recipe’s data, including the ingredients, directions, notes, and nutrition information. 

The Insights are written in a way that helps your clients understand the “why” behind your nutrition recommendations. Insights may include concepts like the importance of protein, the power of various vitamins and minerals, which ingredients support heart health, and much more. 

More accessible nutrition education

For practitioners, more accessible nutrition education means more value for your clients, time saved on research and resources, and more confidence in the care you deliver. 

For your clients, more accessible nutrition education means increased food literacy and better health outcomes. 

Try That Clean Life today

Subscribe to our Plus Plan and see for yourself how AI Health Insights can revolutionize your practice. You’ll save time, and your clients will be more successful than ever. 

Sign up for That Clean Life. 

Practice Better, the leading all-in-one practice management platform for health and wellness professionals, today announced the release of That Clean Life’s AI Health Insights, a new feature that empowers practitioners with nutrition education associated with each recipe on their clients’ nutrition plan to promote better dietary adherence, and ultimately better health outcomes. Leveraging more than 18,000 AI Health Insights, That Clean Life, the nutrition planning software acquired by Practice Better last year is the first and only platform to incorporate AI for integrated practitioner and client education.  

Today in the United States, more than 40% of adult women and 39% of adult men are living with obesity. With almost half of U.S. adults projected to be obese by 2030, acknowledging the direct correlation with an unhealthy diet is crucial as it’s one of the major risk factors for a range of chronic diseases, including cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and diabetes. Research shows that when armed with information about the health effects of the food they eat, people are more likely to adopt healthier, long-term eating habits. 

“Increasing food literacy is critical to health and resilience,” said Abigail Keeso, co-founder of That Clean Life and Vice President of Growth Marketing at Practice Better. “AI Health Insights enriches the more than 6,000 recipes available in That Clean Life, with insights derived from each recipe’s data, including the ingredients, directions, notes, and nutrition information. This helps clients understand the ‘why’ behind a practitioner’s recommendations, encouraging compliance and better health outcomes.”

That Clean Life is a nutrition planning tool designed specifically for health and wellness professionals to ease the delivery process of personalized nutrition guidance to clients in a streamlined and personalized way. Practitioners can create customized meal plans, access a comprehensive recipe library, generate custom grocery lists, and provide tailored support to their clients on their wellness journey. The platform emphasizes the importance of personalized nutrition and meeting the unique needs of each individual.

“Practice Better is dramatically changing what practitioners can expect in a practice management platform,” said Kim Walsh, CEO of Practice Better. “AI Health Insights is another link in the chain that empowers health and wellness professionals across a broad spectrum of specialties to collaborate with their clients and provide more holistic care.” 

Practice Better also launched a new Practice Better Community and Academy, a self-hosted community and learning platform that connects practitioners with a global network of peers and experts. Open to all, the new Community and Academy brings together practitioners and practice administrators across different disciplines, geographic locations, and educational backgrounds, so they can connect with each other, grow their expertise on the platform, and learn new ways of growing a successful practice together. To join the community, visit community.practicebetter.io.

About Practice Better

Practice Better is the leading all-in-one practice management platform, empowering health and wellness professionals to help millions of clients live better lives. The company serves 15,000+ customers in 70+ countries, reaches more than 1 million clients across the globe, and processes hundreds of millions of dollars annually in payments on behalf of its customers. From its earliest days supporting nutrition-focused practitioners, Practice Better has been embraced by a wide range of practitioners, including licensed mental health providers, naturopathic doctors, chiropractors, and more. The platform relieves wellness professionals of the burden of administrative work, helps them engage more with clients, and empowers them to scale their practices beyond the traditional 1:1 model. Customers consistently award Practice Better the highest satisfaction scores in the field and recommend it enthusiastically to their friends. Learn more at practicebetter.io. 

There is nothing more discouraging to a client than feeling like their nutrition plan takes all the fun out of eating. As a nutrition professional, it’s your job to prove to your clients that eating healthy can be simple and fun, regardless of their food sensitivities.

When a client has a long list of foods to avoid, a meal plan can really help them feel confident and excited about what they can still eat. But without the right tools, tracking down recipes for clients with complex needs can be extremely time-consuming. Combing through multiple websites or cookbooks to find recipes that are free from a client's food sensitivities but yet still meet their nutrient needs takes hours, not to mention the time spent to then put together a plan, grocery list, and prep guide.

Today we are going to walk you through how That Clean Life can help you quickly create beautiful, delicious meal plans for complex clients who have multiple food sensitivities. Using this process, you will only spend minutes on meal plan creation instead of hours.

Step 1: Conduct a Meal Planning Assessment

Before you dive into meal planning for a client, you must conduct a proper assessment to ensure you understand your client's likes, dislikes, and the amount of time they can spend in the kitchen. Grab a free copy of our Assessment Tool to help you gather the right information.

Step 2: Find Recipes Based on Diet Type or Ingredients

That Clean Life’s recipe filters are designed for nutrition professionals working with clients who have multiple sensitivities. Instead of searching Google or multiple websites, all recipes are in one place and can easily be filtered based on common sensitivities or specific ingredients that must be excluded.

From the Recipes page, click Filters and apply all tags relevant to your client such as...

• Autoimmune Paleo
• Dairy-Free
• Egg-Free
• Elimination Diet
• Gluten-Free
• Grain-Free
• Ketogenic
• Low FODMAP
• Low Glycemic
• Low Histamine
• Low Lectin
• Low Oxalate
• Nightshade-Free
• Nut-Free
• Oil-Free
• Paleo
• Pescatarian
• Soy-Free
• Sugar-Free
• Vegetarian
• Vegan

For a full list of the tags that you can use to filter recipes, click here.

If your client has a specific food allergy or sensitivity, you can indicate more ingredients to be excluded using the "Exclude ingredients" filter.

All of our recipes can be modified. So if you see a recipe that contains ingredients your client cannot have, modify it to their needs. For example, you could replace peanut butter with sunflower seed butter to make a recipe nut-free. To learn how to modify recipes, click here.

Tip: If you have created a unique set of filters that you may use again, be sure to bookmark it. This will save the filters so you can use them again in the future.

Step 3: Finding Nutritionally Appropriate Recipes

Recipes can also be filtered based on nutrient needs. For example, if you are working with a client who has multiple food sensitivities and also requires a low carbohydrate diet, you can set a maximum carbohydrate content for recipes.

For a full list of nutrients that you can use to filter recipes, see here.

Step 4: Add Meals to the Planner

Once you've found the perfect recipes, you can start adding them to your client's meal plan.

As you add meals to the plan, you can view daily nutrition totals, including both macronutrient and micronutrient content. This way, you can ensure your client is meeting nutrition needs even if they are on a very limited diet. You can also view daily nutrition information as a breakdown of macronutrient percentages.

The grocery list will be automatically generated based on the meals you add to the plan.

Tip: Use Auto Update to update your client's meal plans in seconds. No more spending hours adjusting plans. Instead, update your Smart rules, and Auto Update will automatically update your plan instantly.

Step 5: Share a Beautiful Nutrition Plan with Your Client

Now you have a beautiful nutrition plan ready to share with your client. You can either export it as a PDF document or share it with your client through a link. The plan will always include your own personal branding and business information to make it look nice and professional.

Providing professional, visually appealing resources can make a big difference in terms of how motivated and successful your clients are, which will have a positive impact on the success of your business. With the right tools, you can easily create delicious, enjoyable meal plans and recipe books for any client, no matter how restrictive their diet is.

Personalized nutrition plans are crucial for client success. By removing the guesswork from eating, practitioners who offer personalized nutrition plans can help their clients improve dietary adherence, help manage chronic disease, and enhance nutrient intake. 

But let’s be real. Creating meal plans for clients and updating them based on client feedback can be time-consuming, which makes it difficult to offer personalized nutrition guidance at scale. 

Perhaps your client forgot to mention they don’t like broccoli. 

Or maybe they want to try a plant-based diet.  

Or let’s say a new food intolerance, sensitivity, or allergy has emerged. 

Nutrition plan changes like this can throw even the most seasoned practitioners into a tailspin. 

But what if updating your client’s meal plans was easy?

What if you could update your client’s meal plans in seconds?

Now you can with Auto Update, now available to That Clean Life Plus Plan subscribers.

Introducing Auto Update 

Auto Update allows you to update your client's meal plans in seconds. No more spending hours adjusting plans. Instead, update your Smart rules, and Auto Update will automatically update your plan instantly to saving you time and empowering you to offer personalized nutrition guidance at scale for better client outcomes. 

Here’s how it works: 

Easier Personalized Nutrition

At That Clean Life, our mission has always been to empower health professionals with tools to provide nutrition guidance in the most beautiful, simplest way. With the launch of Auto Update, we’re making it even easier for practitioners to offer personalized nutrition without having to spend hours on it. 

Get Started

Log in or sign up for That Clean Life today and start saving time with Auto Update, now available on our Plus Plan. 

Depression affects countless individuals. According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, 9.5% of American adults will experience a depressive illness every year. Depression is more than just feeling sad occasionally — it’s a mental health disorder that can be so severe that it impacts one’s ability to enjoy everyday activities or function as they normally would. It can take a significant toll on overall well-being.

Many factors are involved in depression and there’s a significant link between nutrition and mental health. What your clients are putting in their bodies every day may be helping or harming their mental health. 

No individual nutrient can cause or reverse depression. Helping your clients examine and optimize their overall diet is one of the best tools you can provide. Our brains thrive on foods that provide vitamins, minerals, fiber, protein, and healthy fats, which help support our mood. 

Good nutrition is crucial to mental health. In fact, one 2017 study called the SMILES Trial found that when people with moderate-to-severe depression received nutrition counseling and ate a healthier diet for 12 weeks, their symptoms improved. As a practitioner, you can build client meal plans using The Clean Life that include foods that help with depression. 

Key Nutrients & Foods in Meal Planning for Depression

Let’s unpack the nutrients and foods that help with depression that you can incorporate into your clients' plans.

Protein

Protein and amino acids are essential for muscle and tissue growth and repair, but they also appear to be especially important for people with depression. For example, our bodies use an amino acid called tryptophan to produce serotonin, an important brain chemical often called the “feel-good” hormone. 

Serotonin is heavily involved in mood regulation and sleep, and there’s some evidence that it plays a role in depression as well. While the mechanism isn’t well understood, eating foods that help support serotonin production may benefit your clients. 

Some of the best protein sources to incorporate into your clients’ meal plans include lean poultry, fish, legumes (beans, peas, and lentils), soy foods (tofu, tempeh, and edamame), nuts, and seeds.

Selenium

Selenium is a mineral that might help improve mood and reduce feelings of anxiousness. As many people who experience depression also struggle with anxiety, having adequate selenium in the diet may help make symptoms more manageable. 

Selenium-rich foods include Brazil nuts, salmon, sardines, poultry, egg yolks, pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, garlic, onions, spinach, and dairy products.

Tip: Use That Clean Life’s free Nutrition Assessment Tool to collect the right information like your client's favorite foods, the amount of time they have to meal prep, and their cooking appliances so you can build great nutrition plans.

Zinc

Some studies have suggested that zinc levels may be lower among people with depression. While zinc supplementation is most often associated with helping you fight off cold symptoms, getting more zinc may also help antidepressants work more effectively. 

Encourage your clients with depression to consume more food sources of zinc like beans, quinoa, zinc-fortified breakfast cereals, egg yolks, chicken, turkey, beef, pumpkin seeds, and garlic.

Tip: Use That Clean Life's filters to easily find recipes with zinc-rich foods like this Sauteed Chickpea & Edamame Bowl recipe.

B Vitamins

There are eight total B vitamins, but B12 and B9 (folate) may be particularly helpful in mental health. 

These two vitamins may help protect and maintain the health of your nervous system. Some evidence suggests that having enough B12 and B9 available may help improve symptoms of mood disorders like depression. 

Incorporate plenty of foods that provide B vitamins in your clients’ meal plans, such as salmon, beef, pork, dairy products, dark leafy greens (spinach, kale, lettuce, Swiss chard), Brussels sprouts, oranges, broccoli, and cauliflower.

Tip: Using That Clean Life, you can filter for nutrients like protein, selenium, zinc, vitamin B12, and folate.

That Clean Life offers a range of ready-to-use templates to help you create a comprehensive, evidence-based meal plan for your clients. Check out our Depression Support Diet and Plant-Based Depression Support Diet. 

Omega-3 fatty acids

The omega-3 fatty acids include EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid), DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), and their precursor ALA (alpha-linolenic acid). It’s important to get direct sources of all three because the conversion rate of ALA to the other two is very low. 

Omega-3 fatty acids play an important role in brain health and function, including neurotransmitter regulation and managing inflammation, which are linked to depression. 

Dietary sources of omega-3s include fatty fish (salmon, halibut, mackerel, tuna), walnuts, eggs, chia seeds, and flax seeds.

Antioxidants

Antioxidants help protect your cellular health from damage that can promote disease. 

A 2012 study suggested that including vitamins that act as antioxidants in your diet might help reduce anxiety symptoms among people with generalized anxiety disorder. This may also benefit individuals struggling with depression. 

The best places to find antioxidants are colorful fruits and vegetables, like apples, citrus fruits, berries, cruciferous vegetables, dark leafy greens, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, avocados, carrots, and bell peppers.

Probiotics

Maintaining a healthy gut microbiome refers to the trillions of microbes (bacteria, yeast, and fungi) living throughout your digestive tract. Research continues to show that having a healthy gut microbiome is essential for supporting the health of the rest of your body. For instance, a healthy gut microbiome may help reduce the symptoms and risk of depression. 

Fermented foods are natural sources of probiotics, which can help promote a healthy balance of gut bacteria in your microbiome. 

Include fermented foods like these in your clients’ meal plans for depression, like tempeh, miso, sauerkraut, kimchi, and kefir.

Tip: You can use the ingredients filter to find foods rich in omega-3s, antioxidants, and probiotics like this Cherry Kefir Smoothie.

Foods to Avoid 

While you’re helping your clients eat more foods that help with depression, it’s equally important to help them ditch some that have the opposite effect.

For instance, many refined and ultra-processed foods that make up much of the Western diet pattern lack brain-healthy nutrients. These foods contribute calories without many vitamins, minerals, fiber, or antioxidants. Instead, they’re often high in saturated fat, added sugar, and sodium.

These types of foods are often enjoyed because they provide comfort in the moment and satisfy cravings. However, eating them in excess can increase the risk of many health problems, including depression.

Tip: You can use That Clean Life's "unprocessed" filter to find suitable recipes.

Key Lifestyle Considerations for Depression

Caring for our mental health requires a comprehensive lifestyle approach, including nutrition and other habits. When discussing nutrition and mental health with your clients, bring their attention to additional habits that can support their mood. 

• Exercise: Regular movement boosts the production of endorphins, which are natural mood lifters. It also reduces levels of stress hormones like cortisol, which helps improve mood. Plus, exercising in ways we enjoy can increase self-esteem, social interaction, and feelings of accomplishment, all of which are good for mental health.
• Hydration: The brain works best when it’s adequately hydrated. Hydration also helps support neurotransmitter production and regulation, which can benefit mood. Encourage your clients to always keep a reusable water bottle with them to sip throughout the day. 
• Sleep: Experts recommend adults get seven to nine hours of high-quality sleep each night. Being well-rested is essential for mood regulation and emotional well-being. It can also help manage symptoms of depression by promoting neuroplasticity, or the ability of our brains to rewire and grow.
• Therapy: Therapy provides a safe and supportive environment for clients to explore their thoughts, emotions, and experiences. Evidence-based therapeutic techniques can help people learn healthier coping strategies and skills to manage depressive symptoms.
• Medications: Antidepressants work by restoring the balance of brain chemicals. When used in conjunction with therapy and other lifestyle habits, medications can be effective for improving depressive symptoms.

Tip: Use the "drink" or "smoothie" filter on That Clean Life to find fun and hydrating recipes to help your clients reach their daily fluid needs.

Nourishing the Body and Mind

Nutrition is becoming more integrated into mental health counseling and we’re here for it. Equipping your clients with a nutrition plan to accompany their therapy and medications can make a huge difference in managing depressive symptoms. Helping them make daily choices that optimize their nutrition can benefit their physical and mental health.

Ready to create your depression support meal plan? Get started with That Clean Life’s ready-to-use Depression Support Diet and Plant-Based Depression Support Diet.

Each plan includes a 7-day meal plan, an itemized shopping list, appropriate recipes, a prep guide, and supporting evidence. The programs are fully customizable based on your client’s needs and preferences.

If you are not yet a member of That Clean Life, watch our demo here to see how it works!

Anxiety is one of the most prevalent mental health conditions. Symptoms can vary depending on the type of anxiety disorder. Stress and anxiety often occur together and when left untreated, chronic stress can increase your client’s risk for conditions such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, depression, and Alzheimer’s disease.

If your client struggles with stress and anxiety, you can help them make dietary changes to improve their mental health. Stress and anxiety treatment can involve therapy, medications, and lifestyle changes with nutrition playing an important role in managing the condition by regulating neurotransmitters and blood sugar levels.

In this article we will cover:

• Key nutrients to include in your client's meal plan.
• Meal ideas to manage stress and anxiety.
• Lifestyle interventions to provide symptom relief.

Key Nutrients in Meal Planning for Stress & Anxiety

Magnesium

Research shows that magnesium plays a role in migraines and depression. It can help with chronic pain and anxiety. Many people do not reach their daily recommended intake of magnesium through diet, which contributes to hypomagnesemia and increases anxiety-related behaviors.

Foods naturally rich in magnesium may help a person to feel calmer such as spinach, pumpkin seeds, legumes, bananas, and oats. These foods are also good sources of the amino acid tryptophan, which is converted to serotonin in the body and may promote relaxation and anxiety relief.

Tip: Use That Clean Life's nutrition filters to easily find recipes high in magnesium like this Coconut Hemp Seed Breakfast Pudding.

Vitamin B6

Getting enough vitamin B6 through diet is an important way to support the body during stress and reduce anxiety. Women who consume more vitamin B6 are less likely to experience anxiety, depression, and panic attacks. Vitamin B6 is also more effective when combined with magnesium in adults with severe stress.

Tip: Log into That Clean Life and add this Pea & Basil Buckwheat Risotto to your client’s meal plan. This dish is high in vitamin B6, magnesium, and iron.

Iron & Vitamin C

Low iron is a known contributor to anxiety and depression. Women who are more likely to experience anxiety are also more likely to have low iron status.

There are two types of iron found in foods: heme iron (from red meat and other animal products) and non-heme iron (from spinach, legumes, and dried fruit). High-quality protein sources typically contain more iron and produce the neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin, which have the potential to improve mental health.

For better absorption of non-heme iron, encourage clients to pair it with vitamin C-rich foods like citrus, tomatoes, or peppers at mealtime. These foods also have antioxidant properties that may help reduce inflammation and prevent damage to cells.

Tip: Click here for more meal ideas with these key nutrients to help reduce stress and anxiety.

Fiber

Fiber is an important nutrient to reduce anxiety. It helps to balance blood sugars and feeds gut bacteria to produce short-chain fatty acids, which can decrease anxiety. Help your clients increase their fiber intake by including whole grains, legumes, seeds, and cruciferous vegetables on their meal plan.

Check out our ready-to-use Stress & Anxiety Support Program and Plant-Based Stress & Anxiety Support Program. These programs have been carefully designed to include key nutrients to help support clients with stress and anxiety including magnesium, vitamin B6, iron, vitamin C, and fiber. Both programs include a 7-day meal plan, itemized grocery list, recipes, a prep guide, and supporting evidence. The programs are fully customizable based on your client’s energy needs and preferences.

Key Lifestyle Considerations for Stress & Anxiety

Exercise

Physical activity lowers the stress hormone cortisol and increases endorphins which improve mood. It activates parts of the brain which control our stress response and increases the availability of important anti-anxiety neurochemicals.

Exercise has also been shown to reduce inflammation and improve sleep quality which can improve physical and mental stress. Encourage your clients to participate in joyful movement to decrease muscle tension, lowering the body’s contribution to feeling anxious.

Hydration

Even mild dehydration can affect your client's mood. However, helping them find the right types of fluid is important. Consuming large amounts of caffeine, either from coffee, caffeinated tea, or energy drinks can increase levels of anxiety and symptoms such as heart palpitations and jitteriness.

Beverage options that include chamomile and turmeric may help reduce anxiety. Chamomile and curcumin in turmeric, both contain antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, which may help lower inflammation associated with anxiety.

Tip: Include this Calming Chamomile Lavender Mint Tea and Golden Turmeric Latte on your client's meal plans.

Therapy

Stress and anxiety may require a multitude of approaches to be managed effectively. Along with a balanced diet, exercise, and adequate sleep, your client will benefit from seeing a doctor or psychologist for talk therapy or cognitive behavioral therapy. They may also be prescribed medications in some cases.

Intuitive Eating is a weight-inclusive, evidenced-based, mind-body health approach that honors both physical and mental health.

Meal planning is the action of deciding meals in advance based on the person’s schedule, food preferences, etc.

At first glance, it appears that intuitive eating and meal planning are at odds. How can you plan your meals while eating intuitively?

However, a deeper look will reveal that meal planning can actually be a powerful tool in food relationship recovery.

Alyson Roux is a Certified Nutrition Specialist®, Licensed Nutritionist, and Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor. She specializes in working with clients to support healing their relationship with food by combining Intuitive Eating, a Health at Every Size® approach, and an integrative nutrition therapy toolbox.

Today we are breaking down Alyson’s approach, and exploring how she uses both intuitive eating and meal planning in her practice to help clients in eating disorder recovery.

Do meal plans have a place in intuitive eating?

Let’s start with the most obvious question that many nutritionists ponder: do meal plans have a place in intuitive eating?

Alyson believes they do.

“When a client is building their bodily autonomy and shifting away from the rigidity of their eating disorder, a meal plan can be a safety net to make recovery possible, and then they can progress to intuitive eating where they build a gentle plan according to their schedule.”

Alyson says that when a client has never prepared food for themselves, having a meal plan can be extremely therapeutic. It helps build self-efficacy and trust.

“It can encourage curiosity to try new foods, encourage confidence where we build skills like stress tolerance, and ensure food is available in a form that can be consumed.”

Start with a conversational assessment.

Through her practice, Nutrition Hive, Alyson and her team offer nutrition therapy for chronic dieting and eating disorder recovery, digestive issues, as well as fertility support for those in recovery from an eating disorder.

Depending on the client’s stage of recovery, Alyson provides different nutrition planning resources (a meal plan, recipe book, or a meal planning guide) and uses a collaborative effort with her clients.

Alyson creates custom plans and recipe books for each client based on their safe and fear foods lists, sensory needs, nutrient requirements, food skills, kitchen appliances, time, schedule, and recovery stage.

With each client, there are many things to consider, so gathering the right data is incredibly important. Alyson’s process is to first conduct an assessment by having an in-depth conversation and using an intake form to understand each client’s preferences and their relationship with food.

Identifying ‘safe foods’ and ‘fear foods’.

During the initial assessment, Alyson begins to work with her clients to create a ‘safe foods’ list. Safe foods are foods that the client knows and likes and the list is developed over time at the client's pace.

Next, Alyson and her client will create a ‘fear foods’ list. Fear foods are divided into foods that are feared either due to the eating disorder and body image or related to a co-occurring condition the client may have like an allergy, medical condition, or gastrointestinal issue.

Throughout the nutrition care process, Alyson will do sensory work with the client where she asks about textures, temperatures, and colors of foods the client prefers.

Creating the meal plan using a collaborative approach.

Once Alyson has conducted her assessment, it is time to meal plan.

She starts with a blank template and works through the week together with the client to create a plan that works for them. She screen shares the recipes and recipe book builder with her clients and they love being part of this process. Often the plan can look like preparing two to three meals a week and then using meal delivery for the rest of the week as they build their food skills. The plan can identify opportunities to shop and cook that fit into a busy schedule.

Finding the right recipes.

Putting together a great meal plan for clients involves locating the right recipes.

Searching for recipes based on ingredients to include.

Food exposure therapy is used to help clients overcome anxiety and fear that they associate with certain foods. During this work, Alyson uses the “include ingredient” filter within That Clean Life so she can easily locate recipes that use a specific ingredient and add them to the plan.

When a client is ready to welcome a new fear food into their diet in different ways, Alyson will build a “Fear Food Recipe Book” collaboratively with the client. She may choose recipes that use a cooking method her client is comfortable and familiar with to make it approachable and prevent activating the eating disorder.

Alyson usually shows her client the different recipe options which include the ingredient and asks them which recipes they would like to try, and then adds this to the recipe collection.

Incorporating easy one pan meals.

Alyson often uses the “onepan” tag within That Clean Life, which makes it easy to find simple, one pan recipes:

“This filter is the recovery friend. Cooking can feel intimidating and like so much work for someone in recovery, or when I’m working with people who are caregivers or partners, but when we use an ease-forward approach where the client can throw everything on one pan, they feel relieved.”

Finding meals based on food temperature.

Cold or hot foods can sometimes feel safe to a client. Alyson uses filters like “salad” or “soup” to find options that her client will prefer during a certain week in recovery and then create a recipe book like “Fridge-Friendly Salads”.

Searching for meals based on nutrients.

Some of Alyson’s clients have comorbidities or are taking medications that she needs to consider when meal planning. For example, a client taking Warfarin might need to limit foods high in vitamin K.

Alyson can easily use That Clean Life’s nutrient filters for macro and micronutrients to find recipes that meet a certain requirement.

Formatting the plan.

Removing nutrition facts.

A meal plan being used with intuitive eating is never based on calories but instead focuses on variety and choice. So while Alyson uses nutrition analysis to help create plans and recipe books, she turns the nutrition facts off before sharing the plan with her client.

Providing guidance on food safety.

Alyson explains that it is important for recipes to include clear directions and notes that offer clients comfort for food safety.

Food trauma can often happen in childhood when a child isn’t taught how to prepare food safely or if the parent is overly focused on food safety. Into adulthood, the client develops a fear of how long food takes to cook and how to store leftovers safely. Alyson says her clients are appreciative of That Clean Life’s recipes which clearly outline the directions of how to cook the recipe, the notes for how long leftovers can be stored safely, and ingredient swaps if they don’t have a certain item.

“Having the steps be really simple and clear, and the notes about replacing ingredients is so helpful. The ability to edit a recipe or add more notes if I know a client doesn’t like a certain ingredient helps make the food feel safer.”

More than just a meal plan.

While meal planning is often viewed as rigid, Alyson takes a gentle approach to meal planning. This means she offers additional recipes along with the plan so the client can have the flexibility to swap meals as needed. She sometimes calls this approach a "Cooking Plan", as that can feel less rooted in diets for clients.

Using meal plans with intuitive eating.

Alyson’s approach shows that gentle meal planning paired with intuitive eating can help clients recovering from eating disorders. By using a collaborative approach, client-centered care, evidence-based counselling techniques, and personalized plans, Alyson and her team at Nutrition Hive are doing incredibly impactful work.

For practitioners looking to learn more from Alyson, be sure to check out Clinician’s Incubator, a program that helps nutrition graduate students translate what they have learned in school into clinical practice through clinical supervision. Check out their website or follow them on Instagram.

Heart disease is caused by the buildup of fatty deposits, or plaques, in the walls of the coronary arteries over many years. It is the leading cause of death globally, and the most important behavioral risk factors include diet together with physical activity and other lifestyle factors.

Through targeted and personalized meal planning, health and nutrition professionals can positively impact heart health outcomes and improve the quality of life for our clients.

Heart Health Meal Planning

Effective heart health meal planning involves an understanding of macronutrients, micronutrients, and dietary patterns. That Clean Life offers a Heart Health Program and Plant-Based Heart Health Program which focus on dietary measures to help lower blood cholesterol, improve blood pressure, decrease inflammation, and reduce the risk of heart disease. These programs feature heart-healthy foods and take inspiration from recommended cardiovascular eating patterns such as the Mediterranean Diet, Portfolio Diet, and Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) Diet.

Our Heart Health Programs include a 7-day meal plan, itemized grocery list, recipes, prep guide, and supporting evidence. They can be customized based on your client’s energy needs and preferences.

Key Nutrients in Heart Health Meal Planning

Based on scientific evidence, we included the following foods and key nutrients in our heart health nutrition plans.

Less Saturated Fat & More Healthy Fats

Our programs aim for a healthy balance of fats by replacing saturated fat in the diet with plant-based fats, which is shown to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. Our programs limit saturated fat, and the sources of saturated fat we do include come from healthier foods like coconut yogurt, nuts, seeds, and lean protein options.

In a Mediterranean Diet, olive oil is the primary source of added fat, and fish is an important protein. Our programs contain omega-3 fats from salmon and walnuts and monounsaturated fatty acids from olive oil, almonds, and avocado. Almonds and almond butter are included daily in this plan as following the Portfolio Diet shows that eating five servings of nuts a week is associated with decreased cholesterol levels and coronary heart disease events. You can swap these for seeds if your client is allergic to peanuts or tree nuts.

High Fiber

Getting enough daily fiber is associated with lower blood pressure and reduced inflammation. This program is rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes to help your clients meet their fiber needs. These foods also contain naturally occurring plant sterols which can help lower cholesterol. Soluble fiber found in foods like oats, chickpeas, bananas, and berries is incorporated into the programs and has been shown to improve glycemic control and lower cholesterol levels.

Tip: Use That Clean Life's filters to easily find recipes that meet your client's macronutrient and micronutrient requirements. For example, you can filter for recipes that are low in saturated fat, high in fiber, and low in sodium.

Low Sodium

Guidelines recommend restricting sodium to less than 2,000 milligrams per day to prevent or treat hypertension and reduce the risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease. We've carefully designed these programs to meet the sodium limit, as seen from the daily nutrition totals.

Tip: If cutting back on salt is a tricky change for your clients, using salt-free seasoning blends or herbs and spices can help boost flavor and ease the transition. It can take several weeks for your client's taste buds to get used to less salty foods.

Soy Protein

The Portfolio Diet has shown that including soy protein daily reduces bad cholesterol levels and improves good cholesterol levels. Our Plant-Based Heart Health Program incorporates soy protein from foods like tofu and edamame for at least one meal daily. The other meals and snacks contain high-fiber protein sources like black beans, chickpeas, and hummus.

If you are already a member of That Clean Life, you can start creating your Heart Health Nutrition Program immediately! If you are not yet a member of That Clean Life, you can learn more and sign up here.

While you don’t have to be a social media personality to have a successful nutrition business, having a website is critical. Many dietitians have found that — when used strategically — their website can be an effective nutrition marketing tool for their brand. This online presence can help establish you as a reliable leader in your niche and help deliver tangible results. So, how do you create a nutrition website that works for you?

We spoke with Accredited Practising Dietitian, That Clean Life Ambassador, and business and website expert Brianna Fear-Keen about her essential steps to establishing a successful nutrition website. She explains the importance of creating a professional and engaging aesthetic, telling your story, and demonstrating what it’s like to work with you. In this article, we’re diving into what Brianna had to say, so you can structure your website effectively and convert your website audience into paying clientele. 

Pages Your Nutrition Business Website Must Have

Whether you’re ready to create a business website or have one that needs to be refreshed, Brianna recommends several key pages to include to help establish and elevate your brand. 

About Me Page 

When people visit your website, they need a good understanding of who you are, without having to dig too much. Brianna says that while a Home page summarizes your website and serves as a navigation tool, an About Me page helps people find out what makes you qualified to help them. 

Here, you can also detail your brand story, highlighting how your personal experiences brought you to where you are today and how that relates to the work you do with your happy clients. It’s an opportunity to showcase your qualifications, niche, and credentials. 

Sales Page 

You’re going to formulate a Sales page, but call it your Services page. After all, the place where you’re highlighting the services or programs you offer is where you’re going to persuade visitors to become paying customers. 

Brianna says one of the key features of a Sales page is honing in on client pain points. These are specific challenges, problems, or issues that clients commonly experience. Identifying and understanding these pain points is crucial for your business, as it helps you tailor your products or services to better meet their needs. For instance, your clients may be coming to your website because they’re struggling with PCOS but are unable to find someone relatable who can guide them through effective lifestyle adjustments. 

Once you cover the pain point(s) of your potential clients, you can detail the problem you solve, how you solve it, and your offer.

"This might include pricing, payment, and guarantee information. You can list features of your offer, such as curriculum, time-limited bonuses, testimonials or case studies from people who have worked with you previously, and repeated calls to action about booking a discovery call or applying for your program. Depending on your call to action and enrollment and booking process, it can be useful to integrate your online appointment schedule into the Sales page on your website."

Brianna also recommends selling digital products on your website if you’re able.

“Digital products like meal plans, recipe books, and templates or planners can be beneficial for a number of reasons.”

They can provide passive income, meaning that people can purchase them any time they visit your website, without you having to actively sell them. They can also require email opt-ins to help you build your email list. 

“People who have purchased from you once before, even if they only spent $1, are 10 times more likely to purchase from you again. We can therefore use those low-cost, digital products, to build a like, know, trust relationship with those clients and funnel them into higher ticket offers."

If you want to offer meal planning services, check out how That Clean Life can help you get the most out of these for your clients. Plus, use That Clean Life to help you create attractive lead magnets and add a 'Shop' section of your Sales page to highlight things like digital downloads. 

Free Value or Call-to-Action (CTA)

Many website visitors are looking for freebies before they purchase from you. That’s why it’s important to include something of value for free with a call to action.

“It is very hard to grow your email list without an exchange of value. Often this is in the form of a lead magnet, so we need to have our website set up so that people can add in their first name, surname, and email address as a minimum, which will automatically trigger a sequence in your email marketing provider.” 

Brianna says you could put this on your website in several different places, noting, “I have found that pop-ups on websites get far fewer subscribers compared to stand-alone opt-in pages.” Wherever you put your opt-in, Brianna also recommends adding it to your Home page. This is because your Home page is usually one of the highest-traffic pages and the first point of contact for most visitors.

Alternatively, you could use your opt-in as a banner across all site pages.

“I also like to include [an opt-in] as part of blog posts, because readers who have consumed your content may be more inclined to subscribe if they have found your content valuable.”

Finally, consider how you can use public forms to streamline your process. From that, you include purposeful questions that provide just enough information to help you determine whether a Discovery Call is needed with an applicant. 

Testimonials Page 

Testimonials serve as social proof for others that you’ve helped people before and have a portfolio of happy clients. Think about how you might read the online reviews on a pair of jeans before you purchase them to make sure they’re a good choice. 

Brianna believes testimonials are very important for your website, and some key factors should be included to make them effective.

“In terms of hierarchy, a written testimonial with just a written name has the lowest amount of authority. A testimonial with a photo and name beside is slightly more, but the gold is in a video testimony if you can get one.”

Additionally, while testimonials about you as a person are nice, she encourages getting some that solidify your ability to help people achieve transformations. 

As for placement, Brianna recommends including testimonials in your copy as evidence for what you have said you can do rather than having a designated testimonial page.

“If you say you can help patients improve their gut health symptoms… and then you have a past client who has provided a testimonial that says working with you helped them… it kind of solidifies what you have said.”

She recommends sprinkling testimonials like these throughout your Home page and Services page where it matters most. 

Contact Page 

Contact information should be easy to find on every website. Brianna notes that you should include different options for contacting you. 

For example, you might have your social media handles, an email address, and a contact form. You can even include a Practice Better widget on your site that people can click to easily book a discovery call with you. Getting in touch with you should be easy and convenient, and your clients should have a few options to choose from when deciding which they’re most comfortable with using.

How to Convert Website Visitors into Paying Clients

Now for the biggest question: how do you convert the eyes visiting your website into paying clients for your business? Brianna had a few suggestions for us:

• Make your website user-friendly: Nobody wants to stick around on a website that’s clunky or difficult to see or navigate. Make sure your nutrition website is organized and optimized for mobile usage. 
• Have a clear CTA: Know exactly what you want your client to do from visiting your website and carry that through the whole thing. Keep it simple and not confusing or contradictory.
• Know your mission: Communicate what you do and who you do it for on your website. This includes the results clients can expect to achieve when working with you.
• Invest in professional photos: We, as dietitians, usually come from a compassionate background. When you have a website full of stock photos, it’s really hard for visitors to connect with you.
• Optimize it: If you can, get some SEO (search engine optimization) done on your website. This helps improve visibility and traffic. 

Create a Business Website that Works for You

Your website will be the first interaction many of your future clients have with you and your business. That’s why it’s so important to build it in a way that showcases your reliability, speaks to your audience’s pain points, and converts them from visitors to paying clients. Using the tips Brianna provided above, consider how to build or refresh your nutrition website to serve your people best. 

Ready to add more delicious value to your website? Take a demo to see how That Clean Life can help you create beautiful nutrition plans for your clients.

Brianna Fear-Keen is the proud founder of The Ambitious Dietitian, where she equips dietitians with the right support, resources, and mentoring to thrive. Brianna wants dietitians to embrace challenges, make something of their own, succeed, and enjoy the process of being in business.

The truth is, when it comes to determining the best diet for SIBO, the answer depends on who you ask. From healthcare professionals to nutrition experts, advice on managing the condition can vary and at times, can be contradictory.

SIBO, or Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth, is a condition in which there’s an abnormal increase in the number of bacteria in the small intestine, disrupting the normal balance and potentially leading to digestive symptoms. Current studies estimate that SIBO can be found in up to 20% of the US population.

The main goal of SIBO diets is to manage and alleviate symptoms by reducing the overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine. While their specifics may differ, the best diets for SIBO help to create an environment that prevents bacterial overgrowth, thereby improving digestive health and overall well-being.

In this article, we will attempt to answer the age-old question, “What is the best diet for SIBO?” We will explore the various diets used to manage SIBO and examine what the research has to say.

Low FODMAP Diet

The Low FODMAP Diet is a dietary approach designed to alleviate symptoms associated with digestive disorders, particularly for people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

The diet involves temporarily eliminating foods high in FODMAPs. FODMAPs stands for fermentable oligo-, di- and monosaccharides, and polyols, which are certain types of carbohydrates that are poorly absorbed by the small intestine in some people.

These carbohydrates can end up in the colon, where they can ferment, leading to symptoms such as bloating, gas, and abdominal discomfort. After the initial elimination phase of the Low FODMAP Diet, groups of carbohydrates are systematically reintroduced to test a person’s tolerance level.

That Clean Life provides evidence-based templates for the Low FODMAP Diet and Plant-Based Low FODMAP Diet that can help your clients with IBS and possibly those with SIBO, too.

Research suggests an overlap between IBS and SIBO, with studies showing as many as 78% of people with IBS also have SIBO. Considering that the Low FODMAP Diet has been shown to improve digestive symptoms in up to 80% of people with IBS, many people think it can help manage the symptoms of SIBO as well.

Researchers theorize that by reducing the consumption of fermentable carbohydrates, a Low FODMAP Diet might also help reduce excessive bacteria in the small intestine for individuals with SIBO.

While the Low FODMAP Diet has shown effectiveness in managing symptoms of IBS, its application to SIBO is still under consideration. One case study from 2017 found that following a Low FODMAP Diet helped resolve abdominal pain and bloating associated with SIBO, but didn’t help ease constipation.

A 2022 review examined whether the Low FODMAP Diet may be suitable for patients with SIBO. Researchers found that the benefits of the Low FODMAP Diet for people with SIBO are inconclusive, and future research is needed.

While the research continues, you may find that some clients would benefit from eliminating foods that ferment (FODMAPs), to help identify which foods are responsible for their symptoms.

That Clean Life allows you to easily filter recipes with dietary tags for low FODMAP ingredients. This way, when creating an SIBO meal plan for a client, you can filter recipes to eliminate FODMAPs to see if this eases digestive symptoms.

Specific Carbohydrate Diet

The Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) is an eating plan designed to manage various digestive issues. It was first developed to help manage Celiac disease but is now being considered for use in other conditions like Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, IBS, and SIBO.

The core principle of the diet is that certain complex carbohydrates can become food for potentially harmful bacteria in the gut. Therefore, eliminating specific carbohydrates may help starve the harmful bacteria while allowing the beneficial bacteria to grow.

In theory, the diet may help reduce SIBO by limiting carbohydrates that can serve as fuel for the excess bacteria in the small intestine. The hope is that the SCD diet can set the stage for balanced gut bacteria, restoring gut health and reducing GI symptoms.

The SCD eliminates all grains, sugars, all milk products except for hard cheeses and fermented yogurt, along with most processed foods. There is limited research examining the diet’s effectiveness for SIBO, however, reducing specific complex carbohydrates temporarily may benefit some clients in managing symptoms.

That Clean Life provides user-friendly templates for the Specific Carbohydrate Diet and Plant-Based Specific Carbohydrate Diet to help your clients avoid any nutrient deficiencies when following the diet. Additionally, That Clean Life enables you to filter recipes for the specific carbohydrate diet.  

SIBO Specific Diet

The SIBO Specific Diet combines the Low FODMAP and the SCD diets. By combining the two diets, the idea is to quickly and efficiently reduce bacterial overgrowth through the lack of fermentable carbohydrates in the intestines. Creating an environment in the gut that discourages the growth of harmful bacteria may provide relief for people dealing with SIBO-related gut issues.

This diet is divided into 10 categories: vegetables, fruits, legumes and beans, nuts and seeds, dairy, protein and meats, sweeteners, beverages and alcohol, fats and oils, and seasonings and condiments. In each food category, you'll find color-coded columns that distinguish between less fermentable and more fermentable foods. The less fermentable foods will typically cause fewer symptoms for people with SIBO.

There’s very little research to verify the use of the SIBO Specific Diet, however, some anecdotal evidence suggests that it may help manage symptoms of SIBO.

While the SIBO-specific diet may seem complex, using That Clean Life’s Low FODMAP and Specific Carbohydrate tags together can help simplify the process when creating a SIBO meal plan for your clients.

SIBO Bi-Phasic Diet

The SIBO Bi-Phasic diet is another form of the SIBO diet that helps to repair and restore balance by trying to eliminate bacterial overgrowth in the small intestine. The diet involves two phases.

• The first phase focuses on eliminating fermentable carbohydrates to help minimize bacterial overgrowth within the small intestine. This phase typically lasts 4 to 6 weeks.
• The second phase gradually reintroduces specific carbohydrates to support a more balanced gut environment. These carbohydrates may include specific fruits, vegetables, and complex carbohydrates. The goal is to observe how the body responds to these reintroduced foods and identify any triggers for SIBO symptoms.

By initially limiting certain carbohydrates and then strategically reintroducing them, the SIBO Bi-Phasic Diet aims to disrupt the cycle of bacterial overgrowth while promoting long-term digestive health.

Is the SIBO Bi-Phasic Diet the best diet for SIBO? Like with most SIBO diets, the research here is lacking, however, some clients may benefit from this phased approach. 

Using recipe tags, That Clean Life enables dietitians to create personalized nutrition plans according to the specific carbohydrate requirements of their clients during different phases of the SIBO Bi-Phasic Diet.

Low Fermentation Diet

The Low Fermentation Diet, also known as The Cedars-Sinai Diet, is an eating plan designed to minimize the fermentation of certain carbohydrates in the gut to help reduce SIBO symptoms. The diet also includes a modification in the timing of meals and snacks.

Many of the highly fermentable foods eliminated on the Low FODMAP Diet are also eliminated on the Low Fermentation Diet. This is because highly fermentable foods can wind up in the colon, where they can ferment and produce uncomfortable symptoms like bloating and gas.

Additionally, the diet involves ensuring a 4-hour gap between each time you eat. The idea behind this type of meal spacing is to allow your digestive system to rest, which can help prepare the body for healthy digestion the next time you eat.

That Clean Life provides a recipe tag feature, allowing you to easily filter recipes by carbohydrate type. This ensures that you can tailor personalized nutrition plans to align with the specific carbohydrate restrictions of your clients who may be following the Low Fermentation Diet.

Elemental Diet

The Elemental Diet for SIBO involves consuming a liquid formula containing predigested nutrients in their simplest form. The goal of the diet is to provide essential nutrients while reducing the amount of food passing through the small intestine.

The theory behind the diet is to starve out bacterial overgrowth to help alleviate symptoms associated with SIBO, like bloating and abdominal discomfort. Elemental diets are available in various forms, from ready-to-drink beverages to powdered formulas that you can mix with water.

Following a completely liquid diet for 2 to 3 weeks can be challenging, but there is some evidence to show that the diet may benefit some people with SIBO. One 2016 study found that following an elemental diet helped improve SIBO symptoms, but the restrictive nature of the diet made it unlikely to be a solution for many people.

The Takeaway 

While various diets have shown promise in alleviating SIBO symptoms, it's important to recognize that there's no one-size-fits-all solution.

SIBO manifests differently in individuals, and what works for one person may not work for another. When developing a SIBO meal plan, it’s important to consider your client’s specific dietary triggers, food preferences, and unique nutritional requirements.

That Clean Life can help you create personalized nutrition plans for clients with SIBO. Watch a demo here to see how we can streamline the meal planning process for you.

Given potential obstacles and competition, attracting more clients to your nutrition business can feel like a tricky game. One of the best ways to garner more eyes on your content and services is to include bonus offers. The promise of something valuable included at no extra cost sparks a sense of urgency and can convert leads and lurkers into paying clients. 

As a nutrition practitioner, you may have high-value nutrition services and programs set up but struggle with converting leads into paying clients. Perhaps you also host plenty of free challenges, cooking classes, and seminars, and run a regular newsletter, but haven’t yet offered an incentive for leads to purchase your products and services. It’s time to change that!

That Clean Life Ambassador, business, and health coach Kathleen LeGrys of Health Coach Solutions is an expert on the topic of offering bonuses as part of your nutrition business. We spoke with her about why bonus offers are so integral to a successful business plan and how to make them as effective as possible to attract more clients.  

How Bonus Offers Can Help You Attract More Clients 

Offering bonus incentives can be a powerful strategy for attracting more nutrition clients to your services. In a competitive market where individuals are increasingly conscious of their health and well-being, providing added value through bonus offers can set your services apart. 

Kathleen notes that incentive bonuses help get people off the fence. She also emphasizes that bonus offers can work for any type of program or service. No matter what you’re selling, there’s also an opportunity to add valuable bonus offers and boost sales. 

As long as they are tailored to your audience and their perceived needs, bonus offers could be anything from exclusive access to something, 1:1 support, free assessments, or personalized plans.

These incentives entice potential clients and showcase your commitment to their health journey. By emphasizing the extras they'll receive, you create a sense of value and differentiation, making your nutrition services more appealing. 

Furthermore, positive client experiences resulting from these bonuses can lead to word-of-mouth referrals, expanding your client base and solidifying your reputation. In this sense, bonus offers are an investment in the long game of your nutrition business. 

Choosing a Bonus Offer 

When choosing a bonus to attract more clients, first consider what incentives would resonate with your audience. Then, determine the best way to structure them to optimize the perceived value and the amount of sign-ups. 

Consider client pain points

A bonus offer should address your client’s roadblocks. Whether it's offering personalized consultations for dietary concerns, providing educational resources, or creating exclusive content focused on overcoming common hurdles, a targeted bonus demonstrates a genuine commitment to improving your client's well-being. 

Kathleen says you should be asking questions about your clients like: 

• What is most challenging for them? 
• When you're working with them, what's the biggest roadblock? 
• Where are they feeling stuck? 

This personalized approach not only sets you apart in a crowded market but also fosters a deeper connection with your clients, showing them you’re attuned to their struggles and dedicated to guiding them toward solutions. This also helps build a foundation for long-term client satisfaction.

Complement your niche

Every nutrition business has a unique niche, so craft a bonus that aligns with yours. Tailoring your bonus to cater specifically to the needs and preferences of your target audience not only enhances its attractiveness but also demonstrates a deep understanding of their unique challenges and goals. 

When the bonus is closely aligned with your niche, it becomes a powerful tool to attract more clients who are genuinely interested. This fosters a stronger connection with your audience and boosts loyalty.

Reflect on your service

Your bonus offering should always be based on the program or service being sold. This helps create a cohesiveness that ensures your client is likely to be interested and able to utilize it. 

For instance, if you’re selling a course on "How to Make 30 Paleo Meals in 30 Days", it wouldn’t make sense to include a free 7-day vegan meal plan. Perhaps a paleo grocery list or a paleo dessert guide would be a better fit. 

Price it right

Make sure your audience knows the value of what they’re getting for free. Kathleen recommends including the monetary value of each bonus on your sales page and newsletters. People don’t know the value of your offers unless you tell them, and this isn’t something you want to leave ambiguous. 

A good rule of thumb is to make your bonus worth approximately 20% of the price of the program you’re selling. For example, if your offering is priced at $1000, then the value of your bonus could be around $200. 

This is enough to hold significant value without feeling like it’s “too good [low] to be true” when selling — and without requiring a ton of extra effort or lost value on your end.

Boost urgency

We’re all incentivized to some degree by the fear of missing out — especially when we might lose an opportunity we really want.

One of the best ways to boost urgency when including bonus offers is to structure it as a limited-time offer versus something clients can receive anytime. Kathleen says your bonus offer should also be something new to your clients, not something they could purchase from your site another time. 

You can also highlight your bonus using strategic timing to attract more clients. A fast-action bonus encourages clients to buy “before it’s too late” (such as, during a live webinar). 

Timed bonuses can be offered during certain periods of your sales schedule.

• You could start with 2-3 bonuses that all clients will receive.
• An additional bonus could go to the first 25 people who enroll or who purchase within the first 24 hours.
• In the middle of your launch, when sales tend to slow, you could add a brand-new bonus to incentivize more people. 
• Finally, you can include a great bonus on the last day of your launch, when a large number of sales tend to come in anyway. This targets those who have been procrastinating. 

Kathleen also recommends offering your best, highest-value bonus on the first day that your program is for sale. Your bonus should be very specific and something your clients can’t get anywhere else.

Bonus Offer Ideas 

Now that you better understand the value bonuses have to bring to your nutrition business and how to structure them for the most positive response, you’re probably ready to brainstorm. We’ve detailed some ideas to consider below. 

Meal plans and recipes

Kathleen says one of the best bonuses you can offer is a collection of recipes or meal plans. This is because it's so hard for people to make changes to the way they eat, shop, cook, and prepare food. Meal plans and recipe collections are a great way to offer something that’s going to make feeding themselves well quicker, easier, and less stressful. 

When you use That Clean Life, creating and sharing recipe compilations and meal plans becomes easier and faster. It also makes it simple to search for delicious recipes your client will love and curate them into a full meal plan with your custom branding. 

Cooking classes

When selling a nutrition service or course, the odds are good that your clients are interested in getting their hands on anything that will make it easier to feed themselves well. 

Kathleen notes that virtual classes are just as valuable to teach clients how to make healthy, quick meals. Cooking skills are something your client can benefit from in both the short and long term and can make sense for a wide variety of offers. 

Learn more about how to take your cooking classes online.

Workout plans

Nutrition and fitness go hand-in-hand. Many clients who are interested in your program or service offering may also be looking for more personalized support in their fitness routine as well. If you’re offering a course on Nutrition for Weight Loss, for instance, you could include a 14-day workout plan to support weight management goals.

Bonus coaching 

If you’re selling a coaching program, those who invest in it are likely to find value in additional opportunities for guidance. A bonus coaching offer could allow for more individualized advice they may not otherwise want to pay for. Plus, it doesn’t cost you anything extra besides some of your time. 

Grocery store tours

Grocery store tours can be helpful, particularly if your clients are new to a certain way of eating or leading a healthier lifestyle. The grocery store can be overwhelming if you’ve never shopped intentionally for your health. 

Offering a grocery store tour as your bonus is a great way to add value without requiring a lot of extra effort on your part. This could look like an in-person group tour for local clients or a virtual tour for a broader audience. Either way, you can point out strategies for healthier shopping, provide actionable tips, and foster lasting connections. 

Learn more about how to design a grocery store tour session.

Attract More Clients With Bonus Offers 

Bonus offers are an essential component of any nutrition service or program launch. They are a proven way to incentivize more sign-ups and convert more leads to clients. Start by considering your niche and client pain points, followed by structuring the timing, price, and details of your offers to optimize interest. Ideas could include things like extra coaching sessions, meal plans, recipe compilations, grocery store tours, or workout guidance. 

Using bonus offers strategically not only helps boost sales now but also sets you up for repeat clients and higher sales numbers later. If you’re ready to take the next step in creating your unique nutrition bonus offers, take a demo to see all the ways That Clean Life can help you create beautiful nutrition plans for your clients.

Kathleen LeGrys is the creator of Health Coach Solutions, a way to help health coaches find top-quality programs and resources in one location. As a longtime health coach herself, she quickly realized how helpful it was to have a comprehensive and organized approach to help her clients truly succeed. That’s why she offers everything from done-for-you health coaching programs and business-building resources to mentoring and ongoing support through her business. Learn more about Kathleen here.