How "Emily the Period RD" Came to Be

Like many of your favourite businesses and influencers, I too have a story of how my work came to be! Who is “Emily the Period RD”, and what brought her to life on the Internet?

Interestingly enough, I didn’t start my social presence under an alias – similar to most of my peers, my first Instagram account was just me and my personal life, connecting with my friends and family. I actually went through my whole first year of my nutrition degree before the idea of blogging ever crossed my mind.

And the desire to start writing was… interesting for me. During the summer between my first and second years of my degree, my long-term high school boyfriend broke up with me and I decided that I needed a distraction. I named my Tumblr blog Say Yes to Nourish because I liked the somewhat rhyme-y sound but also the very loving message of choosing nourishment for ourselves. I made weekday themes and was trying to post and share three times a week (I look back at this and am astonished at my work ethic then).

This carried through the remainder of my degree, although I started posting less often with my busier and busier school schedule. At some point along the way, I changed my Instagram handle to match my blog and started sharing nutrition, exercise and self-care content to connect with other students and a greater audience.

When I was accepted to an intership program after graduation, I started sharing more social media content about my journey and peers and blogging on a less frequent but more in-depth basis – I shifted to once a week so I could stay on top of my homework and training but still enjoy the therapeutic process of writing, especially about things I was learning. I continued this same pattern as I started my first full-time clinic job after graduating from practical training – once a week with monthly planning and writing so all I had to do was schedule posts ahead of time. I was spending one to two nights every month writing the next month’s posts, and because I didn’t have a word count, they could be as long or as short as I desired.

After a few years in my job, the big event of 2020 started (the COVID-19 pandemic) and my work life significantly changed. I moved to virtual care briefly, and was then changed to a part-time position. I had been toying with the idea of starting a private practice as I had found some areas I was really passionate about but wasn’t getting the opportunity to explore them in my role. And I was ready to grow – I had hit what felt like the peak in my position and didn’t see any other opportunities from it.

Taking advantage of a more open schedule, I pitched my skills to a local women’s health clinic and landed an incredible partnership that I still have to this day. I did try to start my own business but in working to find clients, I actually picked up a maternity leave contract and was set to fill my schedule with another dietitian. Throughout all of this process, I was still writing a few times a month and building a social media pattern that was more specific to my niche.

Eventually I moved into private practice full-time, working both virtually and in-person when our clinic was able to open up. Throughout this journey, I grew my knowledge and skills in eating disorders, sports nutrition and reproductive health and took on some additional training and education so I could fill my knowledge gaps and be as experienced of a provider as possible.

While my private practice work had shifted over time to be part of multiple teams and multiple projects, Say Yes to Nourish eventually became something I wrote on less often (at least on Tumblr). I stumbled across Vocal and found it was a bigger writing challenge to have a minimum word count, and I wanted to truly focus on the areas I knew most about instead of feeling that I had to cover everything all at once. Starting as a clinic dietitian meant that I had gained experience in lots of little areas, but I wanted expertise in just a few!

Say Yes to Nourish shifted to Vocal and Tumblr became less and less frequent, until I posted only updates of what I was doing on Vocal and then not at all. You can actually still find and read my Tumblr blog – it’s a bittersweet reminder of how far I’m come and I plan to leave it as is to preserve the great information I’ve shared over the years.

More recently, I realized that Say Yes to Nourish felt over-encompassing when it came to nutrition and self-care, and while I still love and hold on to it, I wanted to lean into my dietitian identity in reproductive health. “Emily the Period RD” was born, and while you can’t find it as it’s own practice, I proudly wear my title in my team environments and on social media.

It’s been quite a journey, and I can’t wait to see what’s next!