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Meet Diana Richards of Namaste Nutrition in Watertown

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Diana Richards.

Diana, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Namaste Nutrition was formed when I left an academic medical institution in Boston after 8 ½ years as manager of the Nutrition and Weight Management outpatient center. There I saw patients, supervised five dietitians, coordinated up to 3 research trials at any given time. I was also a yoga teacher and taught 3-4 classes every week. This followed my years as a group exercise teacher and personal trainer.

I graduated with a nutrition science degree and internship from University of Central Arkansas in 1998 and worked as a corporate wellness manager for a large non-profit Catholic-based hospital in Little Rock. I loved that job and left after one year when my partner was accepted to divinity school in Cambridge, MA.

I didn’t recognize it but I was feeling very burned out at Boston Medical Center. Initially, I worked 60 hours a week. Eventually, I worked less because I had a larger staff to do research and no longer took that home for data entry. At a yoga retreat in NYC with John Friend and Ross Rayburn, I had an overwhelming sense of urgency to leave there and start my own private practice based in yoga, yoga philosophy and nutrition. I’d always enjoyed integrative and complementary medicine approaches and felt stymied within the confines of allopathic medicine.

As growing yoga was priority #1, I began taking on more classes while still at BMC, built a small but convenient website outlining my services, created nutrition forms and eventually began my business in Sept 2007. A logo was designed, a tagline developed, and my website was updated to be more polished and professional. Eventually at 10-13 yoga events a week, with 3-5 nutrition clients, and an aging body, I felt the fulfillment of deepening my yoga practice and yearned to be ‘chair side’ again. I saw clients out of my home. An eventful subbing opportunity led me to renting office space and now I’m a managing partner of the Center for Integrative Healing.

I lay a solid foundation of safety and a sacred space for people to consider making changes in their lives – changes that feel appropriate at the time, through the vehicles of motivational interviewing in nutrition counseling (I started out fee-for-service and now am on six insurance panels), yoga classes and privates, yoga therapy, and a 7-week Yoga for Mindful Eating series I led for many years. A few years ago, I developed and taught a 5-week nutrition series based on Ayurveda recommendations offering tools to help make changes more manageable and efficacious is keeping the changes for the long term. This was successful enough to teach it yearly.

My practice continues to evolve. I now add nutrition therapist to my title as I have engaged in comprehensive training in a model of communication called Internal Family Systems (IFS) and am a certified IFS practitioner. IFS and the Tantra philosophy of my extensive yoga training share the tenet of ‘looking for the good in all’ as we are all inherently good and innately beautiful. Through life, especially as children, we experience wounding and create stories and erroneous beliefs that fuel our behaviors even later in life. IFS is the most gracious and non-pathologizing vehicle in which to release these beliefs to allow clients to return to their fullness.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Interesting as yes, it’s been smooth, yet no as there has been immense amounts of work in developing the brand. I was in the habit of taking interns into the practice. Because of the nature of my work, most clients didn’t agree to have the intern sit in on sessions, so interns would do administrative work.

Ingeniously, I create one-time clients. In the beginning, to get my business going, I agreed to work with a colleague of mine in a business she had created with a colleague/friend of hers. There was a website advertising our services, and one of those was ‘in-home’ visits. They charged $150 per visit. As I didn’t take insurance, I relied on those self-payments and a part of me felt it was a really large amount of money. I would meet with clients in their home or mine, and because I felt they paid a lot for the service, I would send a recap email to them, sometimes 2 pages long, with attachments like recipes, educational handouts, etc, some they asked for, often they didn’t. In other words, they got their money’s worth. What I was giving away were follow-up visits.

One of my dietetic intern went through my charts and alerted me to this. I also began changing my wording in follow-up emails as a result of her input.

Today, I have a pad and pen in my office and offer it at the beginning of sessions should clients want to take notes. While I continue to offer email and brief phone support, my practice today continues with online forms and scheduling system. All visits are for an hour. If I send an email at all, it is point specific for a particular handout that would help them, or that they asked for.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Namaste Nutrition – what should we know?
It’s been a strong practice to continue learning, developing outside my comfort zone, working in ways which are unique to my profession. To that end, and to satisfy that part of me that really desires to know more, I find educational opportunities that fulfill me and enhance my skills and nutrition counseling presence. I learn by teaching others so have chosen strong learning programs as a student and teacher.

The niche I’ve created is one that combines the values of living a yogic life, those that accompany me in courageous communication with people in general, and how to bring in and focus on the humanity and realness of what my clients experience. I believe them. I listen to them. I carve a space for them to be real. I value their authenticity and vulnerabilities when they feel safe enough to expose those to me.

What sets me apart is the trainings I’ve moved through have been the most extensive and thorough trainings one could find. A nutrition science degree, especially one that leads toward a dietetic internship, is competitive and challenging. Moving through that experience validated that “I’ve got this,” Anusara Yoga teacher training and immersions initiate yearnings that allowed me to fully devote myself to the most complete and highly skilled learning in the U.S. IFS training is intense, immense, and yielded a complete shift in how I experience the world.

What sets me apart is taking from each of these and molding them into a unique offering. Whether it’s one-on-one sessions, mindful eating groups, nutrition education, yoga, or presentations at conferences, the opportunities afforded me allow creation and complexity of giving myself to others, fielding their pain and sorrows, and staying steady within.

I also chose a practice space that is convenient, easy to get to, comfortable, that allows me to be exactly who I am. So far, all clients have enjoyed the space. My practice is full. It feels complete. Yet there is always room for another client. Insurance reimbursement allows clients to see me without financial constraints which has been positive.

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
In undergrad, my first nutrition professor was the smartest biologist I’d ever met. When frustrated by processes or fear of not being seen, he reassured me that I would always need to extend beyond the bounds of academia to find what I was searching for. That those academic institutions were relegated to stay within curriculum and what I sought was outside that boundary. That’s been the most valuable advice I received – ever.

When I went into private practice, I had 2,000 email contacts. I developed business cards, a 5×7-inch card advertising Yoga for Mindful Eating, flyers for that series, and took them to my yoga classes and gave them to other professionals. I took sign-up sheets for my newsletter to yoga classes and at one point, I taught 13 yoga events. One class was filled with 45-60 women depending on time of year. I paid to be a vendor at the MA Dietetic Association meeting to advertise my yoga for mindful eating series and raffled off a couple of exercise equipment pieces, like a foam roller, etc. as a way to capture emails of other RDs who would receive my newsletter – I learned from them what their client needs were.

I met and established a relationship with 2 internship directors at Simmons in Boston and became a preceptor for interns interested in entrepreneurship. These interns wrote 4 newsletters in the month they were with me for those quarterly newsletters. They created new flyers. One finished a design of a tri-fold brochure I use and display at therapist’s offices, the center where I practice nutrition counseling, and the center where I teach YFME. I gave presentations to the classes at Simmons throughout the year.

I became a professional member of MEDA – Multi-Service Eating Disorder Association to have a presence in the eating disorder realm, receive referrals, obtain recommendations for other health care providers for my clients.

I belong to Dietetic Practice Groups: Veg Nutrition, Nutrition Entrepreneurs, Dietitians in Functional Medicine. I find a lot of support for clinical issues where I am not strong, such as when a friend asked for help for Stage 3 Kidney Failure. I have a professional biller.

I serve as a paid consultant for a local online nutrition education program and obtain valuable knowledge from the process that only enhances my work as my clients are encouraged to use the site. The RDs there are open and available to teach me and to receive recommendations for the platform.

I have developed a strong and supportive monthly peer group for IFS as well as receive consultation 1-2 times a month for my own process and clients I need help with. Developing these relationships with others is key in not getting bogged down.

Pricing:

  • Initial and follow-up consultations (self-pay): $140

Contact Info:

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