A truly savvy approach to nutrition.
Whether you have no clue where to start and feel totally overwhelmed, or feel confident but would like to check with a professional, Savvy Dietetics can help with your nutrition needs.
What can we help with?
As Accredited Practicing Dietitians, we have a broad range of training and can help with many acute and chronic health conditions, across various stages of life. To view each Dietitian’s special interests, see Our Team page.
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We can help to assess and manage areas within our scope including:
Gastrointestinal symptoms (bloating, nausea, reflux, dysphagia, discomfort)
Motility disorders and issues (gastroparesis, fecal loading, constipation, diarrhoea).
Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Functional GI Disorders / DGBIs
Coeliac disease
Food intolerances - including gluten, dairy, histamine, FODMAP, salicylate and more.
Elimination diet - assessment to see if any are suitable, and guidance with implementation and transitioning off. We cannot offer support for trialing RPAH chemical elimination diets.
Microbiome health - whole-picture approaches to managing dysbiosis, SIBO, post-antibiotic care and microbiome disorders. We can offer microbiome testing where appropriate, however this is always optional and never a first step.
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Hypermobility conditions and connective tissue disorders: HSD/hEDS, suspected symptomatic hypermobility, vascular compression syndromes (MALS, SMAS, etc), lipoedema.
Mast cell disorders: MCAS, HaT.
Dysautonomias: POTS, OH, VVS.
Neuroimmune: ME/CFS + PEM, chronic pain, long COVID, fibromyalgia.
Other: endometriosis, adenomyosis, PCOS, autoimmune conditions.
We can also provide advocacy for diagnosis and building your healthcare team.
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Menopause and peri-menopause, PCOS, endometriosis, adenomyosis, hypothalamic amenorrhoea, irregular or painful periods, PMS & PMDD, bladder pain disorders, pre-conception nutrition, pregnancy care in invisible illness.
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Assessing malnutrition and providing an plan focussing on oral nutrition, especially when other factors such as gastroparesis or abdominal vascular compressions are involved.
Note, we cannot assist with Enteral Nutrition (tube feeding)as this is outside of our team's scope.
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Chronic stress and burnout, anxiety, depression, food fears related to MCAS reactions.
Our team all take a weight-neutral approach.
Autism, ADHD, OCD, neurodivergent burnout.
Aleisha can assist with relationship with food, eating disorders, ARFID,
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Coeliac disease, T1DM (Romy only), connective tissue disorders (inc. Lupus, Sjogrens), Rheumatoid Arthritis, Multiple Sclerosis, Hashimoto’s and more.
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Blood sugar management
Reactive hypoglycaemia and insulin resistance (especially in the context of PCOS, altered stomach emptying, POTS and malnutrition)
Guided CGM trials and tailored dietary advice
Advocacy for further medical investigation or management where indicated
Type 1 Diabetes dietary management (Romy only)
Gestational Diabetes, pre-T2DM and T2DM support
Other metabolic health
Including high cholesterol, metabolic syndrome, metabolic liver disease, early chronic kidney disease care.
Conditions we work with include:
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Especially for our invisible illness and EDS/POTS/MCAS clients, tailored symptom management support can make a significant difference without having to restrict or alter diet significantly.
We work on areas including: POTS/MCAS management, microbiome health, motility optimisation, micronutrient optimisation and much more.
We provide clear and detailed instructions, offer multiple pathways, and involve your wider care team (e.g. GP, allied health) where needed.
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As health professionals - first and foremost, we are here to listen.
Our aim is to help you unpack and make sense of your case, through an evidence-based practice and dietetic lens. We have a thorough intake process and longer-than-standard review consults to help facilitate this.
We’re happy to take the time to chat through your questions and concerns, and help you work through how to implement different options in practice, with follow-up information where needed.
For those seeking support with their relationship with food, Aleisha (ANZAED Credentialed) on the team is best to see.
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Meal planning for complex dietary needs is a large focus of our work.
Within this, we often provide suggestions for meal ideas, products and kitchen equipment. Where possible, we try and build your capacity to work towards reducing the long-term mental load of meal planning.
We do not generally offer prescriptive meal plans, as these do not are often not easy to implement or sustainable long term, and they can take us 5-20+ hours to create.
We use elimination diets and significant dietary change very sparingly, as we understand these are often not accessible, and/or are not best practice.
For some clients, dietary change is not an area that we discuss at all! And this is completely okay. We understand that everyone is at a different stage in their journey, and if you’d rather not focus on the food side of things yet, we’re still more than happy to assist with other areas within our scope such as symptom management tips, micronutrient optimisation and health team communication.
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For people living with complex conditions, we understand that our work in isolation will often have a limited impact. For true cohesive care, a multi-disciplinary approach is required.
We are set up to facilitate this. After each session, you will receive a Nutrition Care Plan which you are welcome to share with any other members of your team.
Where needed and with consent, we will communicate with other medical and allied health members on your team - in writing, or via phone/video call.
We are happy to write NDIS reports (including EOP, COC, ART) and letters that are within our scope to do so.
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As Dietitians, we can assess the need for evidence-based supplements and recommend options within our scope - for areas including micronutrient deficiencies, gut/microbiome health and motility, food intolerances and more.
Where possible, we recommend products from reputable practitioner-only brands via Vital.ly (we always set costs below RRP). For clients with MCAS or allergies, we are able to review product excipients and recommend workarounds to best meet your needs.
We stand by the ethos that less is more, and aim to not overprescribe. When recommending nutraceuticals, we discuss factors including financial cost, pill fatigue and practicality.
Note that non-food based herbal supplements are outside of our dietetic scope of practice.
How we support clients:
Our Ethos
Dietetic Consult FAQs
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Duration: Initial consults at Savvy Dietetics can take up to 60 minutes.
What do I need to prepare for an initial consult?
Please complete your intake forms (emailed with your booking confirmation, and in a reminder email four days prior to your consult) at least 48hr prior to your consult, to allow your Dietitian enough time to prepare.
If you have any recent (last 1 year) test results, such as blood/stool tests, endoscopy and colonoscopy results, abdominal x-rays, CGM trial or similar, or relevant specialist post-consult reports - please email these through prior to your session to assist us in providing accurate and safe information during your consult.
We don't require you to complete a food diary prior to your consult.
What will be discussed during an initial?
Your Dietitian will take a thorough history, which involves asking a lot of questions about your medical conditions, medications/supplements, symptoms (especially gastrointestinal symptoms), previous test results, diet, priorities and more. If there are any areas you'd rather not discuss just yet, there are spaces to indicate this in the intake form.
After this, your Dietitian will run you through their initial thoughts on your case - explaining what they think is happening, and why this could be. We truly believe that when you understand how your body works, finding solutions that fit becomes much easier!
Your Dietitian will run you through 2-5 key areas to focus on over the next 1-2 months. This can look different for everyone, but we often start with symptoms management strategies, condition screener tools and tests to discuss with your GP. If your medical history is highly complex, we may not be able to gather enough information during our first consult to provide a full Nutrition Care Plan. In this case we will usually offer you to book in a follow up consult sooner.
What happens after an initial consult?
Your Dietitian will send you a full emailed 'Nutrition Care Plan' via email, within 7 business days of your consult. This will detail their overall thoughts on your case so far (it can take a few sessions to unpack complex symptoms and conditions!), as well as specific instructions on strategies to implements, often accompanied by our clinic resources which provide further background (if you're interested in this).
If you have minor questions about your plan, feel free to email these to your Dietitian. We do not usually answer complex questions via email - so if you have major questions or would like a more guided approach, consider checking in after 2-3 weeks with a 15min or 30min review consult.
What do initial consults not usually cover?
Custom meal plans - in general, our clinic is not a huge fan of providing custom meal plans, as we often find these can be too prescriptive and difficult to implement safely - and often take our Dietitians 2-7+ hours to create. We are certainly open to creating custom meal planning resources for you, however this make take 2-5 sessions for us to start to create these, as it does take a while to unpack your symptoms, dietary preferences, intolerances, capacity and more.
Elimination diet guidance - we understand that elimination diets are a common topic in the invisible illness space, however in the context of complex chronic disability they can hold significant risks - including malnutrition, disordered eating, burnout and more. To provide guidance around these safely, we first prefer to take 2-3 sessions to get to know you and your symptoms, to assess whether an elimination diet is necessary, and to provide tailored guidance around this. In extenuating circumstances, we may provide elimination diet guidance in an initial consult, however we will usually book you in for a review consult 1-3 weeks later to check in and troubleshoot proactively.
A complete roadmap for the path ahead - complex chronic disability is complex for a reason! Dietetic consults in this space are a dynamic process, and we often adapt our strategies along the way depending on your response and fluctuating capacity.
If you have any other questions about Initial Consults at Savvy Dietetics, feel free to email us.
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Home enteral nutrition (e.g. feeding via nasal or surgical tube). If this is a factor you will need another dietitian helping in this area.
Specific nutritional protocols for mould illness (we can assist with MCAS management in the context of mould illness).
Paediatric Dietetics for children under 12 years old. We can assist with fecal loading management for children 6-12 years old.
Emergency consultation related to acute presentations (e.g. acute symptoms related to significant malnutrition, acute gastrointestinal pain, bleeding or similar) - this is outside of our scope and capacity as private practice dietitians. Please visit your local emergency department, call 000 for emergency services or dial 13 HEALTH for a free phone triage from a registered nurse.
Herbal medicine - this falls outside of our Dietetic scope. We are able to assist with evidence-based nutraceuticals (which have some overlap with specific, food-based herbal products). Aleisha and Savvy are confident in this space, and Romy and Katherine are currently up-skilling.
Considerations for neurodivergent clients with high supports needs - we are more than happy to discuss accessibility and communication needs, and adapt our approach where possible while providing a safe Dietetic service within our scope and capacity, however we may not be able to meet all needs. If there are any considerations you'd like to discuss before booking in, feel free to send us an email, and we can discuss this via email or phone call.
Meal planning for long term restrictive diets (e.g. ketogenic diet, carnivore diet), and general prescriptive meal plans, as these fall outside of our clinic's ethos.
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View our fee schedule and accepted funding sources here.
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You are welcome to send questions to your Dietitian between session. Reply times can depend on their clinic days, pacing, and the urgency of your question.
We aim to answer simple questions (clarifying minor details of plan, Vital.ly supplement re-prescriptions) and urgent requests (malnutrition & vascular compression, hospital/medical questions where dietetic input is required, etc) within 7 working days. Documentation and other matters may take up to 14 days.
If you have a more detailed, non-urgent clinical question (e.g. asking about modifications to your nutrition plan, symptom management, starting a new supplement etc), we will often ask for this to be saved for our next consult. If you would like to check in sooner, you are more than welcome to either book a 15min Phone Consult on our calendar or ask to be put on the cancellation list for an earlier consult.
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Unfortunately, dietitians cannot order Medicare-rebatable pathology tests (including blood, stool and functional testing). While we can organise pathology test referrals through third-party providers, we often opt not to do this as the cost is significant, and we prefer to have a medical professional co-interpreting results in case there is something significant and outside of our scope that presents.
As part of our service, we can recommend nutrition-related blood tests to ask your GP for. Via this pathway, most testing can be bulk billed, with no out-of-pocket cost to you.
Remember to ask your GP for a PDF copy of your results, and please aim to email these to us ahead of your next session!
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As ethical allied health professionals, we value and comply with APHRA guidelines, including those around marketing.
Posting testimonials can lead to false expectations, and may be misleading to you as a consumer.
If you are currently deciding if our team would be a good fit for you, please feel free to email us at admin@savvydietetics.com.au.
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Initial Consults
These are 60min and delivered via video call.
All new clients to Savvy Dietetics must start with an initial consult. This is because we collect a significant amount of information which allows us to make informed decisions and provide safe dietetic care ongoing. It may take 2-3 sessions to start to build a comprehensive plan.
Long Review Consult
These are 60min consults held via video call.
We recommend most clients book in for 1-2 long reviews after their initial consult. This allows enough time for you to keep unpacking your case, and to chat through available next steps, and practical, thorough implementation advice which is tailored to you.
Recommended for:
Discussing multiple larger areas with detailed support on strategy implementation (e.g. 2 or more of: test result interpretation, meal planning and symptom management, care team updates, supplement review)
Wanting to discuss in-depth meal planning as a single area
Interpretation of complex test results and strategy discussion, e.g. CGM data, microbiome testing.
If you have declined nutritionally and are seeking a malnutrition assessment with a triage letter for your GP/hospital
If you have not had a review with your dietitian in ~6-9 months or longer
Relationship with food counselling
Standard Review Consult
These are 30min consults held via video call.
Recommended for:
Discussing one area in depth (e.g. meal planning, supplement review, symptom management) or 2-3 areas in a more brief/targeted way
Clients who have already had an initial consult and 1-2 long reviews
Mini Review
This is a 15min consult held via video call.
They are only for single, targeted issues and do not always involve a Nutrition Care Plan post-consult.
Recommended for:
Troubleshooting strategy implementation (e.g. laxative dosing for fecal loading, sodium titration for POTS).
Review and interpretation of simple pathology test results (e.g. nutrition-related blood tests and simple supplement review)
Due to the short duration of these, we may not be able to provide assessment of complex issues and detailed recommendation. To ensure safe dietetic practice, we have to gather sufficient evidence and discuss options with you to make sure they fit your needs. In these situations, we may ask that you book a standard or long review as a follow up.
Have a question that isn’t answered here? Email us at admin@savvydietetics.com.au!