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Carla Gerryts - Dietitian

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Carla Gerryts - Dietitian

Hi there! Welcome to my official nutrition page. Here you will find some interesting information, support and advice in your journey towards health.

28/10/2026

Don't mind me, just sharing a butterfly found in my garden.

27/10/2026

To the dietitian who is feeling a little tired lately

I have been thinking about the younger me. I was so curious about the world. Found joy in simple things. Dreamt big dreams, without necessarily knowing how difficult pursuing them might become.

Oh, how often we forget about those versions of ourselves.

We spend so much of our time caring for others. We advocate tirelessly. We carry the weight of our patients' struggles. The expectations of our colleagues and the profession. Sometimes, even our own feelings of not being and not doing enough.

There are days when the demands feel endless. When it feels impossible to work to the standard you are used to, because you are tired in a way that a long weekend or a bubble bath can't fix. We question our abilities, compare ourselves to other colleagues and wonder whether we are making any difference at all.

I need you to remember something.
Before you were a dietitian, you were a person.

You are your own person, with dreams, interests, vulnerabilities and a need to feel valued. Long before earning a qualification, building a practice, obtaining another CPD point or achieving another professional milestone, you deserved some care and kindness as well.
Perhaps when things become difficult, we need to go back to that younger version of ourselves.

What does a child have that you might feel you lost? Freedom. It might sound strange. Hear me out: a child has freedom to make mistakes. They ask more freely. They feel free to express themselves authentically until the world shows them the shape of the box you need to fit in.

When we are unhappy, feeling stuck, frustrated, it is often because we don't feel that we can be who we truly are and do what we truly love.

Life is too short to stay in this space. Start making the necessary changes today.

24/10/2026

No water in our taps - and it is affecting how I am eating

In the area I reside, we are currently really struggling with safe and constant water provision. We have been warned that this summer will be a tough one, and nature is buckling under this heatwave that has been continuing relentlessly for a week now. My taps are dry as we speak. I feel desperately sorry for our garden, and it breaks my heart that we may lose some of our plants due to no fault of our own.

Besides the obvious challenges like bathing and washing clothes, I was caught off guard in how this is affecting my eating patterns. Yes, water is an obvious ingredient and part of cooking in many dishes, but there is also the challenge of leaving dishes in this heat, attracting all types of pests etc. So, this evening, for example, even if a cooked meal will be nice, we will most likely go for a snack platter with some crackers, biltong and fruit to keep things to a minimal. Planning anything takes extra effort and everything just feels a little bit harder.

Thankful for the support of family when needed. This might be ongoing for a while, so we best buckle up. And I desperately need to master the slick back bun.

Any tips are welcome. Yes, ordering Burger King is a plan, but not quite the plan I am looking for, haha.

22/10/2026

When are you a true "eating disorder dietitian?" And is there such a thing?

There was a moment in the past 5 years when I started to think that I may be equipping myself to be an "eating disorder dietitian." Frankly, it felt good to play around with that label and thought process. I agreed that:

1. Eating disorders are underdiagnosed and normalised.
2. An eating disorder can present itself in any size.
3. All diagnoses lies on a continuum and don't fit neatly into boxes
4. Plenty of lives have been ruined by dietitians THINKING they have a handle on the treatment of patients with ED.
It felt like I had the stamina, the compassion and the listening skills to make a difference in this regard.

Something shifted.

Maybe it was the language. Maybe it was other expert dietitians in the field gatekeeping expertise, making it sound like they are the only people who can possibly do this right. Maybe it was the we-are-right-and-you-are-wrong that immediately pulled me in an opposite direction.

Because I was seeing different things in my practice as well. I was seeing patients returning to metabolic health with nutrition support and GLP-1 intervention. I was doing a mini nutrition assessment with someone who wanted to learn more about supplements. And somewhere along the line, I got lost in the ED field.

I am going to be honest: if I were only going to see ED patient referrals, the practice will not survive. My feeling (subjective) is that I am supposed to only have an ED friendly practice, rage against the machine and change a whole belief system before I am allowed to engage with someone in this space.

There is something fundamentally wrong if I feel this way. I have skills, knowledge, support and a personality that fits the bill to offer. But I am being told that it is not enough.

Where does this leave me and many others who feels the same way?

20/10/2026

Colourful lunches and curious questions,
Evidence, empathy, gentle suggestions,
Watching food worries take flight on new wings,
These are a few of my favourite things!

Teaching and teamwork and people connecting,
Learning from clients and always reflecting,
Helping bring joy back to food on a plate,
Those are the moments that make this job great!

When the doubts come
When the misinformation stings
When I am feeling sad
I usually just remember my favourite things about being a dietitian - and then I don't feel so bad!

Added: a compilation of all my favourite things: Hoep die Hoep, Lawrence die Geelvink and Siena the I-don't-know-which-kind-of-bird that always comes to visit, tea with friends and flowers.

18/10/2026

Some Grandpa against the Sunday scaries

If the Carte Blanche theme song lets your serotonin level drop to a dangerous level or you are an anxious nelly in general: welcome to the club, we meet on Tuesdays.

From a young age, melancholy was my friend, and with age, anxiety came to greet me. On occasion, it cripples me to inaction. So I wrote the following for myself to keep me grounded. I hope it has some meaning for you too.

1. My parents sacrificied and invested so much in me, it will be a dark day if I allow others to dim a light that took so much effort to keep burning. In Afrikaans: my pa het nie 'n bang kind grootgemaak nie.

2. There is nothing new under the sun. Watching the scenes from France yesterday, one can just imagine yourself in 1789: "can you hear the people sing, singing the songs of angry men..." Your problems are not new, and others survived them.

3. Anxiety loves when you focus on yourself. As soon as you turn your lense outward, you gain perspective.

4. We don't stress before we assess. We don't stress before we have all the facts, in context, and then we deal with them.

5. Life is hard. It will demand you at your most resillient at times. Sometimes problems are our fault, sometimes not. But we all have them. We can find some comfort in that.

Do you have a sentence or a way of thinking that lifts the fog when life gets blurry?

14/10/2026

How do I leave a legacy?

I have been reflecting on legacy lately. It is something people chase, even the reason some people have children - there must be something that reminds others of you long after you are gone.

It can sound like quite a big venture. You might visualize "legacy" as looking at yourself at 65 years old, reflecting on your contributions to the profession after an illustrious career. Maybe, today, I want to propose a bit of a lower bar: can creating a legacy be as simple as making a difference?

The kind words to a patient they did not expect. That colleague you took under your wing and mentored. That email you responded to comprehensively and helped someone to decide on a new path. As the colleagues from ANLP would say, you can lead from where you are.

Even if it doesn't feel impressive at the moment.
Besides, every remarkable 40-year career trajectory was built on simple Tuesday afternoons, doing the right thing.
And if you do the right thing enough times, you can be surprised where you end up.

09/10/2026

Nutrition Congress 2026 - Done.

As we celebrate the start of National Nutrition Week, I return home to a garden in full bloom and a full heart.

Some of my highlights:

1. Our international speakers, who I had the privilige to get to know a little. How I enjoyed them on a personal and professional level!

2. Spending time with the ADSA team and the LOC. This is a last hurrah, but they still made me feel at home.

3. A presentation on drug-nutrient interactions that blew my socks off

4. The PPD workshop. I am in immense debt towards all participants and I think it made an excellent impact. Should we do something like this again?

5. ANLP morning sessions. Always.

6. Seeing students excitedly presenting their poster. It never gets old.

7. The gala dinner, where I busted a few moves

8. A workshop on NCP's that got me thinking all the way through traffic home.

We rest tomorrow, then we move again.

Thank you.
Dankie.
Enkosi.
Kea leboha.

07/10/2026

Day 1 of Nutrition Congress - in the bag.

When I volunteered myself for the opportunity to be part of the LOC for congress, I did not imagine the ways that it would stretch me.

I learned so much, and am still learning. But today, I got a feeling that I haven't had in a long time: the chills.

Watching delegates mingle, attending insightful sessions and seeing it all come together in such a beautiful fashion was immensely gratifying.

Qhamuka - the call to serve, lead and innovate has been answered. I took this selfie to remind me of this feeling.

Hard work is never waisted.
Effort matters.
Its only possible when you are part of a team.

04/02/2026

A nutrition support group - is it for you?

Let's talk about it!

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1015 St Bernard Drive
Pretoria
0042

Opening Hours

Monday	07:00 - 17:00
Tuesday	07:00 - 17:00
Wednesday	07:00 - 17:00
Thursday	07:00 - 17:00
Friday	07:00 - 17:00

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