Meet Amy Spindel | Functional Holistic Nutritionist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Amy Spindel and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Amy, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
When my son was born, he had a significant number of health issues – food allergies and sensitivities, poor sleeping and poor feeding, failure to thrive. We struggled to find providers that could help us to fully navigate his issues, and it was a long journey that ultimately lead to my return to school to study holistic and functional nutrition. I not only gained the skillset to help my son, but also found that I really enjoyed doing this type of work, guiding others in regaining the potential of their health as well. I ultimately decided to leave my prior career paths and started my current business, helping others with their health journeys.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I I take a unique multi-disciplinary approach to nutrition and wellness, which allows me to best help clients make deep, sustainable changes to meet their health goals. I started my career as a licensed clinical social worker practicing family therapy with traumatized youth and adults, and this trained me to have compassion and empathy and a listening ear with my clients. I then changed careers to culinary arts, which taught me how to cook, develop, and modify recipes. This skillset allows me to discuss diet changes and cooking techniques in a sustainable way to deeply tackle the nutritional needs a client might have, especially when they are needing to change big pieces of their diet. I changed careers yet again when my then-infant son was having significant health issues, sending me back to school for a masters degree in holistic nutrition. At the same time, I undertook further exploration and training in applied functional medicine, airway/breathing health, hormone balance, understanding lab work, gluten free certification, and many other health topics. From this multidisciplinary lens I am now able to create unique recommendations for each client tailored to their situation, needs, desires, and abilities, and I really enjoy doing so! But as I was initially undergoing all of the various pieces of training to reach this point, I struggled to figure out how I was going to pull my various disciplines together and use them with nutrition clients. It took a lot of humility and trial and error to discover what skills I could competently share with clients and what clients actually wanted from the work we were doing together, and a lot of self-reflection about who I wanted to be when I grew up, recognition of my strengths and weaknesses, and what I wanted my brand to ultimately represent.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Some must-do’s on our list would include spending time at the DMA, Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas Farmer’s Market, and riding the M-Line Trolley; visiting the Dallas Zoo, the Heard Natural Science Museum, and Arbor Hills; playing a round of mini-golf at the Highlands Center; and grabbing food at Snooze, Flower Child, Davio’s, and Terry Black’s Barbecue.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
First, I owe where I am today to my son, Jacob, whose great need opened my eyes to other possibilities and led me down my current path. Thank you to Hawthorn, Columbia, and Tufts Universities for giving me a great foundation in my learning and worldview, and for instilling in me the skills to be thorough, well-researched, and well-spoken. I’d also love to make a shoutout to Tracy Harrison, the Founder and Lead Instructor of the School of Applied Functional Medicine, for being a pioneer in the field and creating a supportive community, encouraging students to get in the trenches with those that we serve and do the work with integrity. And of course, a shoutout to my husband, Josh, without whose support I would never have been able to make the leap into a new field and grow my business.

Website: foodwiththoughtnutrition.com

Instagram: instagram.com/foodwiththoughtnutrition

Facebook: facebook.com/foodwiththoughtnutrition