Michelle Hurn, RD, LD, Ultra Runner, Author of The Dietitian’s Dilemma
Michelle is a registered and licensed dietitian with eleven years of experience as a clinical, acute care dietitian, lead dietitian in psychiatric care, and outpatient dietitian. While practicing inpatient and outpatient care in the hospital setting, Michelle discovered a disheartening connecting between the high carbohydrate, low fat, “sugar in moderation,” nutrition guidelines she was required to teach, and the rapidly declining health of her patients. She believes in Food Addiction which makes her an outlier in her field.
Michelle was diagnosed with anorexia at a young age and was treated with what she shares was an IV medical re-feeding, basically straight liquid sugar via a tube through her nose down into her stomach. She was told and believed that she would have to live the rest of her life suffering with this complicated relationship with food. Later in her life she became a an endurance. In 2019, Michelle decided to follow a LCHF, high animal protein diet to see if it would alleviate severe muscle pain she was experiencing. Not only was her muscle pain gone in a matter of weeks, her decades of anxiety began to fade.
After struggling for years with anorexia, she discovered that eating this way also helped alleviate some of her eating disorder symptoms as well. As a dietitian, she found herself in the ‘dietitian’s dilemma’: what to do with her new knowledge of recovery in the face of information she was still expected to teach her clients – i.e. to eat addictive refined carbs in moderation?
So Michelle wrote the book: “The Dietitian’s Dilemma,” detailing how the current nutrition guidelines came into existence and advocating a low carbohydrate, animal-based way of eating as an option for individuals struggling with diabetes, mental disorders, eating disorders, sarcopenia, and heart disease. Today she shares her experience working in the field and trying to shake things up at low-carb events.
