Nourish Your Brain

Emily Sanchez is a dietetic intern in the nutrition program at the Houston campus. She will be hosting a podcast called Nourish Your Brain. Emily has always been interested in nutrition and was influenced by a dietician when she was 9 years old. She had to lose weight due to being pre-diabetic and was able to do so successfully. However, at age 13, she developed unhealthy eating behaviors and struggled with an eating disorder. Eventually, she realized the misinformation she had and started gaining weight again, feeling better physically. This experience inspired Emily to become a dietitian and help others overcome similar issues. She is considering specializing in working with patients with eating disorders and is currently taking a class on the subject. Emily is open to exploring different areas of nutrition during her internship rotations to determine her specific focus. Hi, my name is Emily Sanchez. I go by she or her. I will be naming my podcast Nourish Your Brain. I literally thought about this name last night and I thought it was perfect for what we're going to be talking about throughout this semester. I am a dietetic intern. I am in the nutrition program at the Houston campus. I chose to do the coursework. Whoever chose the thesis, honestly, my respects to them because I already think the coursework is a lot. I can't even imagine what it's like doing the thesis. So I'm just taking it day by day. I keep reminding myself it's just a year. It's going to go by fast. It's hard. It's hard because you have to learn how to do time management and really be on top of things. There's no such thing as procrastinating when doing your master's and I'm just now really, really confirming that. But anyway, just to tell you a little bit about myself. I was interested in nutrition when I was like 14 years old. Ever since, it has just stuck with me. I remember I was influenced by a dietician when I was like 9 years old because I was pre-diabetic at the time. I had to lose weight and so it was hard because I've always been overweight my whole life and as a 9-year-old pre-diabetic, that shouldn't be happening at all. I was not the one admitting to myself but I was big and it was sad because I would get bullied all the time. I was bigger than the other kids in my age. So my mom obviously noticed that and she took me to the doctor. They confirmed it. So I talked to the dietician. I was able to lose weight by the end of my 4th grade year. I looked totally different and the thing about me is that I have always been tall. So that had to do a lot with it. But then after a couple follow-ups, I got to my goal and just never really went back to a dietician. When I was 13 years old, I had gained some weight and I didn't feel good about myself. So I wanted to do something about it and in my head, I thought that the diet I followed when I was 9 years old was a diet that I needed to follow for the rest of my life if I wanted to. Now looking back, it was so silly. It's funny now but at the same time, there are still people out there that think they need to starve themselves to lose weight and then pick up eating behaviors like I did. It was really sad. It was really bad. I was hurting myself to the point where I think I honestly had an eating disorder. I never confirmed it with a doctor or any specialist but I know I had something going on. Eventually, I was tired of starving myself. I was hungry. I did not have energy at all. Physically, I looked bad. I was losing my voice. My skin was starting to look very pale. You could tell that I was malnourished at that point. I got tired. I was hungry. So I started eating again. I started gaining weight little by little but I felt better. It wasn't too long after when I realized how much of misinformation I had that it made me realize a lot of people probably go through this every day and I want to be one of the dietitians that can help people overcome this. Ever since I was 14, that part of me learning more about nutrition really stuck with me and has never left. I've always known this is what I want to do. I am not sure if I want to work with eating behavior or eating disorders patients for the rest of my life. I am taking that class this semester so hopefully I like it and I am still thinking about choosing that as an elective by the end of next year. In my internship, I'm not sure. It all depends if I'm liking the class. But I'm still open to working with these patients later on in life. I am very open about the areas where I will be doing my rotations at. Hopefully, I get to know where I really want to focus. But so far, this is a really big interest of mine because I went through it so I know how it feels like and I really hope this gets you a little bit of information of who I am. Thank you for listening.