Nutrition
Personalized nutrition counseling to perform your best.
Personalized nutrition strategies to maximize your training and performance, build healthy lifestyle habits, and improve overall energy and wellbeing.
Whether you’re striving to improve performance in-season, staying fit in the off-season, recovering from an injury, or looking to make healthy lifestyle changes, we can help you with all nutrition needs. In our program, you will work one-on-one with a registered dietitian to learn about the ins and outs of food and nutrition, how it relates to your current circumstances or training program, and how to practically include personalized strategies into your lifestyle, all the while receiving consistent support to give you the edge and get you to your goals.
What to Expect During Nutrition Sessions
Body composition and nutritional assessment
- We will gather baseline body measurements.
- We will learn about your current nutritional patterns, relationship to food, lifestyle, and food preferences.
- Individualized nutrition planning
- Using the information gathered, we will provide evidenced-based nutrition education and recommendations tailored to you.
- We will collaborate to create a personalized meal plan based on specific foods and meal patterns that fit best with your life, training goals, and health needs.
- Goal setting and ongoing support
- We will set incremental goals and work together toward improving your training, energy, performance, and overall health.
- Ongoing support through additional education and feedback, as well as periodic measurement tracking, will help you stay on course with your tailored nutrition plan.
Services We Provide
Body Composition Analysis
We will determine your ratio of body fat percentage to muscle mass using standard, accurate tools of measurement including bioelectric impedance, BodyMetrix ultrasound, and skinfold calipers. Obtaining this information allows us to track the effectiveness of nutrition strategies and help reach your goals for your specific sport.
Nutrient Analysis
We will learn about your current nutritional patterns, taking into account any specific health concerns, allergens, laboratory values, etc. We will interpret this information in order to make evidence-based and personalized nutrition recommendations based on your needs for your current health, sport, and goals.
Strategies for Improved Performance Fueling
We will create personalized plans for hydration, meal timing, and macronutrient goals based on your specific sport, position, and performance goals.
Collaborative Meal Planning
We will provide guidance and work together to create customized meal plans based on your nutrient needs for your sport, as well as your food preferences. This service also includes recommendations on strategies for grocery shopping, meal prep, and cooking methods.
Improved Overall Health
If you’re struggling with abnormal blood sugars, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, vitamin/mineral deficiencies, or any other health concerns, we will help you get on the right track to improvement with evidence-based eating patterns and food choices tailored to your specific needs.
Teaching Kitchen Classes
Using our state-of-the-art demo kitchen, we will facilitate small group classes based on a range of healthy eating topics and various recipe preparations. You will have the opportunity to use visual and hands-on learning to increase your knowledge and confidence when it comes to preparing healthy meals at home.
Group Presentations
We will provide presentations to your team, class, or group, tailored to any nutrition topic most relevant to your goals. Examples of topics may include: Putting Together a Performance Plate; Pre-Season Fueling Strategies; Nutrition Therapy for Blood Sugar Management; Recovering From Injury with Balanced Nutrition, and many more.
Holly Gilligan, MA RD CDN
Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, University of Rochester Medical Center
Holly Gilligan, MA RD CDN is a registered dietitian and former college athlete. She has a master’s degree in nutrition science from Syracuse University, and completed her dietetic internship at Yale-New Haven Hospital, where she was then employed for 8 years. Holly‘s background includes extensive work with individuals as well as groups in many settings such as in-patient/outpatient clinical, 1-on-1 nutrition counseling across the spectrum of age/sport/health condition, group teaching and presentations, and outpatient eating disorder treatment.
“In my personal and professional experience, nutrition is often the “missing link” in both the sports world and in disease prevention/treatment. When clients are given the knowledge and tools for proper fueling, this promotes a significant improvement in training and performance, as well as overall health and wellbeing. My mission as a dietitian with the Fitness Science program is to provide our clients with evidenced based nutrition education, practical and individualized strategies that work with their lives, as well as ongoing support for reaching their health and performance goals and beyond.”
Contact Us
Appointments or questions, please call (585) 341-9200 or email FitnessScience@urmc.rochester.edu.