In this episode, I talk with Rise Up Nutrition teammate and fellow dietitian Mackenzie Bowman. We discuss how she got her start working with eating disorders and sports nutrition after staring off as an engineering major. Both with experience working in the collegiate setting, we talk about the importance of sports dietetics and nutritional resources for student-athletes. Mackenzie shares her passion for building personal relationships with clients, focusing on the psychology behind nutrition and coaching clients to their own unique goals. Mackenzie and I discuss her role working with clients enrolled in our Group Coaching program, and the nutrition transformations she has witnessed during the first 3-month course. Overcoming disordered eating and REDs takes time, but having the support of our dietitians and other female clients sharing in the process can help speed up the journey. Mackenzie’s food philosophy centers around fun, fuelling adequately for health and performance, and fitting all foods in. She is passionate about cooking and community, using food to bring people together, alongside intuitive eating and gut health. Her Instagram @followyourgutrd feed is full of recipe inspirations together with gentle nutrition tips. Mackenzie gives us all advice on using social media for good rather than triggering negative mindsets: the instant unfollow button is our friend! For a lot of our clients, the pandemic and the birth of TikTok were the catalysts for disordered eating and overtraining, but for Mackenzie this time sparked her own path to intuitive eating. Mackenzie shares her naive history with nutrition despite growing up as a competitive high school athlete. Food was always fun and intuitive, providing her with the energy needed to fuel her activities. However, studying dietetics in college led to Mackenzie developing an unhealthy relationship with food and body image, hindering her performance as a collegiate volleyball player and affecting her social life. Coming out the other side, Mackenzie uses her personal experience to connect with and guide her clients. Working at Rise Up Nutrition, Mackenzie loves the impact she has on the lives of our clients, and seeing them meet their own goals brings her a lot of joy! Mackenzie Bowman’s Official Bio: Mackenzie Bowman is a Registered Dietitian and sports nutritionist and intuitive eater! In addition to Rise Up, Mackenzie currently works at Prosperity Eating Disorder and Wellness, and the last few years was the Assistant Director of Sports Nutrition at Wake Forest University for their collegiate athletes. Prior to Wake Forest she was a Clinical Dietitian which, as we know, is a great foundation of nutrition expertise before going into specialization. Mackenzie is a Certified Nutrition Support Clinician, she has her Master’s degree in Applied Nutrition and Physical Activity from Virginia Tech, she has completed Marci Evans eating disorder training and is a Body Project Facilitator helping people improve their body image. In this episode you’re just going to learn more about Mackenzie, get to know her and her passion for nutrition – and you’ll understand why she is such a great coach for some of the ladies in our programming! Follow Mackenzie on Instagram @followyourgutrd Learn more about Lindsey's Services and the Team at Rise Up Nutrition: www.RiseUpNutritionRUN.com Worried that you have RED-S? Curious to know how we could help or how you can recover fast?! Download the RED-S Recovery Race & see how you place for more support: www.RiseUpNutritionRUN.com/REDS