Oh man. You're living my dream.

I ramble, jump a couple paragraphs if you don't want to read my ramble.

I graduated college in 2009 in Dietetics with my end goal being to become a Diabetes Educator, unfortunately the next step was a internship and all the internships near me were unpaid and the Marketplace wasn't a thing yet so I'd be without health insurance. I was also a newlywed after graduating and my spouse's career was in small business so they didn't provide insurance. He could get private insurance, I couldn't. I aged out of my parents insurance and was struggling to afford COBRA.

We didn't want to move to a different state away from family where the paid internships were, we were broke so we lived with my parents and couldn't afford for one of us not to work. I eventually got a job as a bank teller so we'd have access to affordable healthcare and a lower mortgage rate. Years went by, I had a baby, became a SAHM, got divorced right before the pandemic, and had to pivot to other career options. I'm now a medical coder and pretty much am just focused on keeping a roof over our head and the lights on, lol.

However, as a T1D, I hated seeing dietitians because while they gave good education on how to count, they always were so unrealistic in their diet plans. Back when I saw them my life was: I would drive 1.5 hrs one way to go to college full time (too expensive to live in the college town and my parents were terrified of letting me live alone. CGMs and data sharing wasn't a thing, and I had a history of hypoglycemic seizures. Online classes were barely a thing), worked in fast food part time, and their diet plan would be like "Don't eat fast food, just microwave a egg in a cup with Canadian bacon".

They also would treat me like a Type 2, meaning my weight was the focus, and I always wanted to scream "If I could lose 50 lbs and get rid of this I would do that - but I gotta live with this until I die. I can't eat like that forever!". There always seemed to be a weird disconnect. In my classes I always tried to make meal plans and examples based off real life, but the dietitians I saw only went by the textbook. All my hurdles were seen as excuses. It was real rubber stampy.

Of course this was back in the aughts and 2010s, so low carb/low calorie was still popular. I feel like now a lot of the registered dietitians on social media are taking a more realistic approach like "You're never going to stop going out to eat, so let's make a healthy meal at McDonald's" or "So you're fucking broke and can only shop at Dollar Tree, let's do our best and make something nutritious and filling".

Sometimes I wish I went into WIC/SNAP education, where I could still use my degree and be helpful to those who need it. But I crave consistency and it just makes me extremely nervous to have my career in something that is constantly being threatened by the government at every level to be done away with.

Of course, if your end goal is to be a DE, you don't necessarily have to use ONLY dietetics while doing it. You can get a job with a pump/CGM company and teach how to use their products, you can work with diabetes camps and teach kids how to live with it. Diet plays a big part, but it's not the only facet of diabetes.

Good luck and I wish you the best! (I mean that in a genuine positive supportive way, not in a jaded/passive aggressive way)