About Kamara

In all cultures across the globe, food is a common thread that brings people together. Food unites us at grand life events as well as casual backyard barbeques. Meals show people how much we care about them and want them to thrive. Giving someone a steaming hot cup of coffee or tea can change their day for the better. Food has the power to spark joy, but it also has the power to bring about dread and fear. These negative feelings surrounding food may be related to medical issues, childhood trauma, weight concerns, food sensitivities, stress, inflammation, or a combination of several influences. I want to inspire our clients through my own story and passion for feeding mind, body and soul through healthy, joyful living.

My love of food and cooking began in a small town in Michigan. It was my Grandma Nichols, who later became known as GG, that supported my love of eating with lessons on how to create the foods I craved: homemade buttermilk pancakes, strawberry rhubarb pies, creamy mashed potatoes, and fall-off-the-bone spareribs to name a few of my favorites. She also had a backyard garden that I would help her tend. We would eat gorgeous red tomatoes freshly plucked from the vine and later that evening corn on the cob. I carried her lessons of cooking with me throughout my childhood as I honed my own style of creating culinary delights.

During my first year at Central Michigan University, I struggled choosing a major. Many of my friends knew they wanted to major in education or business when they arrived. I decided to take a nutrition course during my second year of college and it changed my life. I had no idea that I could pursue a career that combined my passion for health and wellness with my love of food and science.

Once I graduated with a degree in nutrition, I wasn’t ready to jump into the year-long internship that is required before sitting for board exams to become a Registered Dietitian. I began working for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), a non-profit supplemental food program that supports low-income families. Through WIC, I was able to gain valuable work experience and sponsorship to complete my internship. Once I became a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (RDN), I was able to work with high-risk families to improve nutrition during pregnancy and postpartum for moms and their children.

Before changing my career focus, I had one of the best experiences of my life on a seven-week cross-country trip across the US. A college roommate and I packed up her Jeep Cherokee for a tour of America’s national parks. Our journey took us through the mountains of Wyoming, cities in Washington, oceanside in Oregon, and the desert landscape of Utah. Along the way, I experienced foods I had never eaten before and ways of cooking that were new and unique. Our ‘Tour de USA' helped to remind me that I love the art of food just as much as I love the science that goes into cooking it. I returned to Michigan with renewed energy, a travel-filled soul, and a hunger for nutrition knowledge.

Seeking something to challenge me, I jumped at the opportunity to work at a well-known local hospital, now named Spectrum Health. My experience as an acute care RDN in the hospital helped build my knowledge of how improving nutrition supports all medical issues in some way. I counseled bariatric, post-surgical, cardiac, critical care ICU, cancer, and post-traumatic injury patients to name a few. I learned how to choose and calculate tube feedings and parenteral nutrition for people who can not be nourished by eating. The most valuable lesson I gained from working in the hospital was how to talk with people and their families; how to explain what was happening to them or to their family members in terms they could understand at a time when they were deeply distressed.

My Michigan roots run deep, but so does my need to explore and experience new adventures. Love brought me to Southern California but my new career as a Renal Dietitian with DaVita Dialysis kept me there. Los Angeles is not only a melting pot of people from different backgrounds and cultures, it’s also the perfect place to experience culinary bliss. Kidney Failure and Dialysis nutrition counseling is a complex field that provided the challenge I was seeking. If I ever needed proof that we are what we eat, reviewing monthly bloodwork from patients receiving dialysis was it. The human body constantly fascinates me with its awe-inspiring resilience.

After getting married and having children, I got to experience a whole new side of the challenges that maintaining a healthy lifestyle can bring: Motherhood. Making healthy choices for yourself and your family alongside sleep deprivation and a career… now there’s a true challenge. I can’t count the number of times I have laughed at myself for what I thought I knew in my 20s (cue the eye roll from all the moms I counseled at WIC in my early days as a RDN). In the medical world, we talk about clients and patients who are non-compliant. I am not a fan of how the term is used, but it’s a common observation among professionals. Children are the epitome of non-compliance with food after the age they learn to talk; for some it’s before that. My children are pre-teen/teenage now and it’s still a struggle every day to find balance where health and wellness are concerned.

Recently, I have been a Nutrition Consultant in medical rehab and long-term care facilities. Working with the older generation, the people who forged the path we now walk on, has been a rewarding and humbling experience. When our body does not work like it used to, we are forced to change our focus on what is most important. A shift in perspective is often what helps us move forward with an increased awareness around a topic we thought we knew. Many key people and valuable experiences have contributed to my current understanding of how our body responds to the foods we eat. No two bodies respond the same and even the same body will respond differently at different ages throughout life.

I have become more open to alternative ways of eating, such as fasting and macro nutrient shifting, that other RDNs dismiss. Reducing symptoms related to GERD (a common form of reflux) or the dreaded gas with a side of bloating, can be life altering. I talk with people about food as much as possible to get a sense of how food is affecting their health. The more I heard about real life experiences and how changing food habits improved quality of life, the more I knew it was time for me to strike out on my own and create Kamara Nutrition. Here, my clients can find a non-judgemental, safe space to move forward on their journey of health and wellbeing.

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