Laurie Rinaldi

About Laurie

Hi! My name is Laurie Rinaldi. I decided to become a dietitian after watching close friends struggle with eating disorders and uncontrolled diabetes, as well as struggling with my own weight. I struggled with being overweight as a child, and disordered eating as a young adult. I watched my father pass away from heart disease and have watched both my siblings struggle with obesity and sleep apnea. I have been a dietitian for over 16 years and am a Board Certified Specialist in Obesity and Weight Management. I have specialized in both surgical and non surgical weight loss for over ten years and also work with diabetes, heart disease, and disordered eating. I also help people on weight loss medicine prescriptions learn how to maintain a healthy diet while on the medications. I have also been a vegetarian for over 25 years if you would like education about a plant based diet. I want to help you have a healthy relationship with food and with your body.

Approach to care

I have learned over the years that the number on the scale and BMI are not the most important indicators of health. If you would like to focus on body composition, health, mobility, longevity, and quality of life through both nutrition education and counseling then I am the right Dietitian for you! I am also not going to be the “food police!” We are all human and we all go through life’s ebbs and flows. In our sessions I am here to listen to you and provide feedback. Did you have a good week? That’s great! Let’s talk about what worked and how we can keep it up! Did you have a bad week? That’s ok! We all do! Let’s use this as a learning experience to discuss why and what we can do to better prepare for the future. I tend to think of myself more like a food therapist…

Your first session with Laurie

During our first session we will get to know each other. I will ask you a bunch of questions to get a baseline picture of your normal diet, activity, medication, and supplement habits so we have our starting point. We will start out by setting small, incremental, achievable goals to help you build a healthy relationship with food and with your body. We have some great tools on Nourish to help me analyze your diet and create personalized meal plans. However, there is no one size fits all diet. Everybody is different. Different things work for different people. There is not one diet that works the best. The diet that works the best is the diet that works for you.

Location

📍 Allentown , Pennsylvania

Education

Masters of Science in Nutrition from College of Saint Elizabeth

Hobbies

Running half marathons, fixing up my historic farmhouse, reading, watching documentaries, taking care of my husband and his service dog.

Licenses and Certifications