Introducing Rita Utterback, functional nutritionist

I’m very excited to announce that Rita Utterback has joined my practice as the newest (and first ever!) addition to my clinical team.

Rita is a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner who specializes in gut health, period problems and hormonal issues (including PCOS, PMS, and PMDD), endometriosis, pelvic pain, thyroid conditions, and mineral balancing. Like me, Rita encourages her clients to avoid overly restrictive diets and uses a food-first, nervous system-centered approach, along with functional lab testing.

Rita has dealt with her own chronic health struggles, including endometriosis. What I love most about Rita is the blend of empathy and enthusiasm she brings to all her client care as a direct result of her own experience.

I’m so delighted to have Rita in my practice. She’s a true gem, and I’m grateful to have connected with someone whose values and approach to functional nutrition dovetail with mine. I’ll be collaborating with Rita on her client cases, so even if she’s your primary practitioner and point person, you’ll still get the benefit of my eyes on your case—in fact, collaboration is one of the things Rita and I are most excited about, as we know how much it can elevate the quality of our client care.

Rita was very kind to humor me and record the Q&A video below with me so that I could introduce her to my community. You’ll also find a transcript below. We get into all sorts of stuff in our conversation—Rita's professional background and her own health challenges, her love of mineral balancing and the HTMA test, what she eats for breakfast, and the fact that she makes her own tallow face moisturizer (#goals).

Two things we mentioned during our convo that I know folks are going to ask about are: stewed apples for gut health (Rita incorporates this easy-to-make superfood into her breakfast) and the electrolyte mix I’m enjoying lately. For Rita’s tallow moisturizer recipe…well, you’ll have to ask her about that!

Rita is accepting new clients, so if you’re looking for 1:1 nutrition support, reach out to us or go ahead and fill out a new client application so we can get you on the schedule.

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VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Robin: Okay, hi! Rita, thanks so much for joining me today.

Rita: Hey, Robin, thank you for having me!

Robin: I feel very formal, like we're doing like a podcast interview. But this is really just to introduce you to my community and to people you may end up working with. I'm really excited to introduce you to them, and I thought it'd be fun to do a little Q&A and have you tell us a bit about yourself. I have a little list of Q&A questions.

First and foremost, I want to know—the people want to know, I already kind of know—about your background, and how you got into functional nutrition. How did you end up being a functional nutritionist?

Rita: So, as you guys will see in the newsletter that's coming out [this month], I have endometriosis myself, and I struggled a lot with that and digestive issues for the better part of my twenties. My chronic illnesses really dictated my life. I tried everything that the doctors recommended with endo. I tried all the medications, had the surgeries.

And I was still struggling with my symptoms month after month, and I eventually got to a place where I was like, okay, there has to be more. So I started listening to podcasts and reading books by some more like holistic practitioners and providers who talked about women's health and hormones, like Dr. Jolene Brighton, and I started like learning about how I could manage my hormones naturally without birth control.

And I was like, wow, this is possible. Birth control was—my body did not respond well to it, so [I was] just kind of diving a little bit more into taking a more natural approach to managing hormones. I started actually getting relief of my endo symptoms. And I wasn't really having a lot of those side effects that I was having on the pill.

And I was like, okay, wait, this is possible! Right? The fact that I am having way less pain after being told that I was going to live with this miserable condition for my entire life, and I would always be in pain. And now I'm experiencing tremendous relief, and I really wanted to help other women get their lives back—like I said, it plagued my twenties, and I spent so much time worrying about my health and not living, and now that I'm finally in a good place. I get to like fully live my life, eat the foods, and just, I don't know, focus on making memories versus focusing so much on my health.

So going through my journey kind of led me to become a personal trainer and a nutrition coach, and after working primarily with women who had a lot of chronic health issues like PCOS and endo, I eventually kind of broadened my knowledge to become a holistic nutritionist, and then a Functional Diagnostic Nutritional Practitioner so I could serve the women in these populations even more because, as you know, Robin, a lot of us need more than just like, let's make a couple of diet changes, right? Sometimes these things can help. But sometimes we need more testing and a little bit of a deeper approach.

Robin: Yeah, I mean, one of the things we really kind of hit it off about was that the foundations are so important. My first certification—which is really geared around getting people on a nutrient-dense, anti-inflammatory diet, and supporting the foundations of blood, sugar, and mineral balance and sleep, very much in that coaching paradigm—was that that's not enough for everyone.

So I quickly started accumulating more tools. And it sounds like you had the same journey of getting a really solid base in the foundations of how to help people there and then being able to dive deeper with things like lab testing. The lab testing is a really useful, important part of our practice. And I know you're really skilled with that which is the one thing I was excited about in terms of bringing you on.

But, yeah, we're in agreement that the foundations matter, and we also want to have more tools up our sleeve as well, for the people who need them. 

So how long have you been in the game? It sounds like you've been doing this in some fashion for quite a while. Tell us about your timeline.

Rita: So I've been health coaching now for about 4 years. Like I said, I started off just before Covid started. So, however long, that's been now, a little bit over four years.

Robin: Five years now, right?

Rita: Oh, yeah. Oh, dang gosh! The years go by so quickly, and I'm not the best at math, but anyway, so I started off coaching, spent a couple of years doing that—about 2 years doing that—and then became a holistic nutritionist. So did that for about a year, and I've been a Functional Diagnostic Nutritional Practitioner for a year now, so actually doing lab testing for about 2 years.

Robin: Awesome. And you're a big fan of the hair tissue mineral analysis, the HTMA test?

Rita: Am I!

Robin: Tell us more about mineral balancing, because that's not something I really offered in my practice until now. So I'm excited that you are bringing this new modality to people. Tell us a little bit about the mineral balancing and how that's useful. The cool thing about that test is, it's super cheap and it's just a hair sample. So it's a non-invasive, pretty accessible test, which is one reason to love it.

Rita: Well, you just mentioned how important the foundations are, and minerals are one of the most important foundations. We need minerals to basically facilitate every physiological process in our body, from blood sugar regulation to digestion to thyroid regulation, to supporting your immune system, detoxification, and so much more. So if you're lacking in a lot of these foundational minerals, your body is going to have a hard time doing the basic things that it needs right.

A lot of people want to reach for the detox kit, but you know, maybe you're just lacking in the minerals that are needed to help you detox. So the hair tissue test can help us look and see, do you have specific mineral imbalances that are maybe explaining why you're struggling with chronic bloat, why, your periods are super painful.

So it's really helpful in helping us identify specific imbalances that can correlate with specific symptoms or health issues. And it also gives us insight into your toxic burden because it also helps us look at heavy metals, and how well you are able to detox, based on whatever specific mineral imbalances or your specific energy levels. So it’s just a really great way [to assess all that]. And like you said, it's very cost efficient and non-invasive, so very, very easy for people to complete.

Robin: And I know you work with a lot of people with hormonal complaints, PMS, PMDD, painful periods (even aside from diagnosed endometriosis), and things like PCOS. My impression is, from us starting to collaborate together, that you find it really helpful for those things. Is that accurate to say?

Rita: Oh, for sure, definitely. Very helpful, especially for ladies and people in these populations—realistically a lot of times when I'm working with people who have endometriosis, they have specific mineral imbalance patterns that I'll see. I literally see the same patterns across the board with a lot of people that have endometriosis because of how it impacts the body.

So if we're not addressing these specific mineral imbalances, that can be why a lot of people with endo are going through all these gut protocols and they're still struggling with symptoms, right? Or why you feel like you're making a lot of these changes and running all these tests but we’re still not really seeing a lot of improvement.

So I definitely do specifically love to run the HTMA in these populations. In fact, it's where I like to start for a lot of them.

Robin: Yeah. It’s lightyears beyond just, oh, you need magnesium if you have painful periods, right? Yes, but are you absorbing the magnesium? What about the other cofactors for magnesium and your other mineral ratios?

Rita: Oh, yeah.

Robin: I’m very excited to be able to offer that to people now, and I feel like it dovetails really nicely with the drainage approach that I'm starting to integrate more in my practice in the last two years using complex homeopathy. So I'm very excited for us be able to support people together in this way.

Okay, now for a few fun questions as we wrap it up. I want to hear what you like to eat for breakfast.

Rita: Oh, I'm kind of a basic breakfast person. I eat the same thing every day.

Robin: Basic breakfast bitch?

Rita: Seriously. I eat three whole eggs, two pieces of turkey bacon, because I know that gives me 30 grams of protein right there.

Robin: Love it, love to hear it.

Rita: And cause that's my goal every morning, 30 grams of protein at breakfast, and then usually some stewed apples, because they're really great for the gut and easily digestible. Sometimes I'll throw a little kimchi in there and then maybe a piece of sourdough, or just some like extra fruit for some fiber. But, like I said, pretty basic. Sometimes I'll throw a little sweet potato in there, whatever else. But it's usually that. Like I said, not exciting.

Robin: But easy, quick, filling, nutritious. Sounds delicious. Okay, what about your hobbies? What do you do when you're not doing nutrition and coaching and chatting with me on zoom?

Rita: I love the outdoors. I love hiking, and I love making stuff. Like I love like being in the kitchen. I was just telling Robin this at the beginning of our call [before we pressed the record button] how I love to make my own bone broth, and I love to just like make my own stuff. I mean, I am a little crunchy, y'all. While I'm not a raw milk person, I do like to make my own tallow facial moisturizer.

Robin: That's so cool!

Rita: I just love doing stuff like that. And I love being able to gift other people with these things that I make as well. So those are just some of the things that I like to do.

Robin: Awesome. Okay, anything that you're loving right now that you want to spread the word about? It can be anything like a show, a food—I don't know, like anything in particular that you're vibing with.

Rita: I’m just loving the fact that I've been just like really chasing peace. Like, if anything is kind of like making me feel more anxious, or whatever—I was also telling Robin I’ve deleted TikTok off my phone—sometimes it's nice to be able to scroll, I'm not gonna lie, I'm a human too and like to scroll after hours and watch funny cat videos and whatever else, but there’s just a lot online. And sometimes it does affect how you feel, and I'm in a place right now where I'm chasing what makes me feel good, and tapping into that, and trying to let go of things that don't make me feel good.

Robin: Oh, wow! So nice! That's deep. Mine was electrolytes, and Rita’s is chasing peace. Love it. We want more of that for you.

Rita: You were just giving me an example, it's fine!

Robin: I was gonna put it in my newsletter [this month] as something I'm into, so we'll see if it makes the cut, the electrolytes.  

You have three cats, right? Tell us a little about your personal life. You live in South Carolina, which is where I'm from, too. I don't live there anymore, but you're still in South Carolina.

Rita: I am. I have three cats, and I live with my husband, and we live in a little small town which I adore. It's cute. Eventually I'll probably move, but for now it's home. It’s so crazy, when I met Robin and I found out that you lived in South Carolina for all I was like, okay, I'm so glad our paths cross even more because you literally lived where I want to move and like settle down, it’s so cool.

Robin: It's fun! Yeah, I don't meet many South Carolinians, just in general up in upstate New York, so it was really exciting to connect with Rita.

Well, thanks so much, Rita. I'm so glad people get to have this fun introduction to you. And you're accepting new clients right now under our collaborative banner. So people who sign up as a client with Rita will get both of our sets of eyes on their case, which is really exciting. We're really excited to offer that to people.

Anything else you want to let the people know an introduction to you, or about the way you work? Anything else like that?

Rita: I am really excited to be a part of Robin's team, and to not only like work with you all, but also collaborate with Robin, together while working on your cases, because as a team we're gonna be able to better serve y'all. I'm just super excited for this little collaboration.

Robin: Thank you so much, Rita. I'm so happy too. Welcome, and I’m very excited you're here.