Spring 2026 applications open soon — waitlist members notified first.
CARE Eating Practice™ Certification Program For Registered Dietitians, Nutritionists & Health Professionals
 

You Can See What Your Clients Need.

You Just Don't Have the Tools to Get Them There Yet.

 

You went into this work to create real change, and impact for your clients. And your nutrition training gave you a strong foundation.

But your most challenging clients — the ones cycling through emotional eating, disconnected from hunger and fullness, using food to regulate a nervous system that never settles — they need something your credentials alone weren't designed to address.

That gap is real. And it's exactly what CARE was built to fill.

Developed by McKel Hill Kooienga, MS, RD, Founder of Nutrition Stripped®

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THE GAP

Your Clients Don't Need To Be Told What To Eat.

Your clients already know what to eat—you've taught them balanced nutrition. They know vegetables are healthy. They know following trendy diets isn't ideal. They know they "should" eat more mindfully.

Knowledge isn't the problem.

The problem is they can't feel their hunger cues. They eat from stress, not hunger. They're stuck in all-in and all-out emotional eating cycles. They use food to regulate emotions because nothing else works. They cycle between good and "off track" weeks.

And you're stuck watching it happen—knowing there's a missing piece but lacking the clinical tools to address it.

Your Clients Need More Than Education. Here's What That Actually Looks Like.

You're a trained nutrition professional. But your most challenging clients need:

  • To restore their ability to feel hunger and fullness accurately
  • To regulate their nervous system before eating (not just "be more mindful")
  • To distinguish physical hunger from emotional, environmental, or habitual eating
  • To build self-trust that actually lasts beyond your sessions

And most nutrition training never taught you how to do that — leaving you watching education stick for two weeks, then fall apart.

You have the clinical foundation. CARE gives you the framework to go deeper.

WHAT IS CARE?

The Solution: The CARE Eating Practice™

 

The CARE Eating Practice™ is an evidence-based framework integrating nervous system regulation, interoceptive awareness, mindful eating, and behavioral psychology — grounded in the clinical skills that fall squarely within nutrition and dietetics practice.

Unlike traditional approaches that focus on what to eat, CARE teaches clients how to restore the internal conditions that make healthy eating neurologically possible — so change isn't forced, it's felt.

It helps clients:

  • Reduce emotional and binge eating
  • Rebuild trust with their body's signals
  • Feel calm and grounded around food
  • Make food choices from awareness, not stress or emotional reactivity

And it gives you:

  • A clear, repeatable framework — not starting from scratch every session
  • Clinical confidence with complex eating behaviors — with clear scope-of-practice guidance built in
  • Ready-to-use tools and protocols (handouts, worksheets, session templates)
  • Professional differentiation — the clinical depth that moves your practice beyond nutrition education into genuine behavior change

Grounded in evidence and refined through 13+ years of applied clinical practice with real clients.

CARE is designed to work alongside frameworks you may already use — Intuitive Eating, mindful eating, HAES — providing the nervous system and interoceptive foundation that makes those principles clinically actionable.

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WHO THIS IS FOR

This Certification Program Is For:

Credentialed professionals working directly with clients:

  • Registered Dietitians (RD, RDN)
  • Certified Nutritionists
  • Nutritionists/Nutrition Coaches with formal training
  • Health Coaches (NBC-HWC or equivalent)

You're a good fit if you:

  • Currently work with clients around eating behavior
  • May be trained in Intuitive Eating, mindful eating, HAES, or other frameworks—and want to deepen that work with nervous system and interoceptive tools
  • Value evidence-based practice and clinical depth
  • Are ready to practice CARE yourself before teaching it

This Is NOT For You If:

  • You're looking for meal plans, scripts, or prescriptive protocols to hand clients
  • You want business/marketing training (this is clinical skills only)
  • You're seeking personal healing, not professional development
  • You don't have clients to practice with during training
WHAT'S INCLUDED

CARE Certification Program — Spring 2026 Cohort:

TRAINING:

  • Live group coaching calls + self-paced lessons

  • Ready-to-use client handouts, worksheets, and session templates

  • Case studies and real-world implementation guidance

CERTIFICATION:

  • Upon completion of training requirements, earn your Certified CARE Eating Practice™ Practitioner designation

  • Certification exam and requirements details provided during training

  • Future benefits planned: CEU credits and practitioner directory listing, and community

DETAILS:

  • Designed for working practitioners (4-5 hours/week)

  • Intentionally limited to fewer than 10 practitioners — personalized support and direct access to McKel throughout

  • Founding member pricing exclusively for waitlist members

 What Practitioners Say They Need:

 

"Client tools I can use right away. Real-world application and examples of how it works in practice."

"I already teach similar practices, but I need to really hone in on it and have ready-to-use tools."

"Practical skills and support—not just theory."

That's exactly what CARE delivers.

Join The Waitlist

Now: Join the waitlist
Spring 2026: Applications open — waitlist members notified 48 hours before the general public
Spring 2026: CARE Certification Program begins for accepted practitioners Cohort limited to fewer than 10 practitioners

 
MEET YOUR MENTOR

McKel Hill Kooienga, MS, RDN, LDN

Registered Dietitian | Founder of Nutrition Stripped®

For 13+ years, McKel has worked at the intersection of clinical nutrition, mindful eating, and behavior change — helping clients move out of chronic food struggle and into a sustainable, peaceful relationship with eating.

Her work is built on a foundational truth: eating behavior doesn't change through information alone. It changes when the internal conditions shaping decisions change — when the nervous system feels safe, when hunger and fullness cues can be felt and trusted, and when food stops being the stand-in for stress and emotional regulation.

With 13+ years of applied clinical practice, her work has been featured in Oprah.com, Bon Appétit, Women's Health, MindBodyGreen, and Food Network — and her methodology has reached practitioners and clients across 180+ countries.

McKel brings clinical depth, intellectual rigor, and a genuine commitment to teaching practitioners how to do this work — not just understand it.

THE WORK BEHIND CARE

Why CARE Exists

As McKel's clinical work deepened, dietitians, nutritionists, and health coaches began reaching out: How do you do this? Can you teach us?

They were seeing the same patterns with their own clients — and hitting the same wall. Many began adopting elements of her approach informally, piecing together what they could. But without a clear, structured training pathway, the work stayed fragmented.

CARE is the structured answer to that demand.

The CARE Eating Practice™ distills 13+ years of applied clinical work into a regulation-based framework designed specifically for nutrition professionals. It's grounded in nervous system science, interoceptive awareness, mindful eating, and behavioral research — not vague mindset work, not restrictive protocols, and not another framework asking you to start over from scratch.

This certification program is the first time CARE is being taught in a structured, formal format — and this founding cohort is intentionally small. Fewer than 10 practitioners. Designed for those who want clinical depth, ready-to-use tools, and a framework they can trust and implement immediately.

If you're looking for training shaped by real-world application, clinical integrity, and a methodology that actually moves clients forward — this was built for you.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Ready to Fill the Gap in Your Training?

If your clients know what to eat but can't sustain change...

If education alone stops working after a few weeks...

If you're watching food become the outlet for stress and regulation...

CARE was developed to address exactly that.

This training gives you the clinical framework to create real, durable transformation—for your clients and for your practice.

This founding cohort is limited to fewer than 10 practitioners.

Waitlist members are notified 48 hours before applications open to the public — and founding member pricing is exclusively available to those on the waitlist.

Join the Waitlist →

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