I'm Vanessa Ribeiro, a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist.
I work with women who have dieted for years and are done being told what they can't have. My whole method is one question, asked every single week: what are we adding?
My mother has worked at Whole Foods since I was small. I grew up watching her care about what went on our table — not cutting things out, just making sure we ate well. That's where this started.
I studied Nutrition and Dietetics at the University of North Florida and completed my dietetic internship at AdventHealth Orlando. In a hospital you meet people in cancer treatment, people recovering from heart disease, and people who can't eat by mouth at all and are fed through a tube. You learn very quickly what food is actually for.
When you've done that, you stop having patience for diets that ban an entire food group. Whole categories of food do real work in a body. Removing one because it trended badly on the internet is not caution — it's guesswork with a cost.
Now I work with women who have been on every one of those diets. Most of them can tell me exactly what they should be eating. What they don't have is a version of it that survives a full week of work, children, traffic and being tired. So that is what we build — and every single plan starts the same way: what are we adding?
What I believe
- Addition over subtraction. Every plan begins with what goes on the plate. There is no cut list, in the first appointment or the tenth.
- Evidence over trend. If the reason for a recommendation is that it's popular right now, it isn't a reason.
- Honesty over hype. I will not promise you a number or a timeframe. Anyone who does is selling something.
- The person over the protocol. A plan that fits somebody else's life is not a plan; it's homework.
What I'm not
Being clear about this early saves us both time.
- I'm not a coach. I'm a licensed clinician with a degree, a supervised hospital internship and a national registration.
- I'm not anti-weight-loss. If that's your goal, it's a legitimate goal and I'll help you work on it — carefully, and without pretending I can promise you an outcome.
- I'm not a meal-plan vending machine. You can download a meal plan tonight for free. It won't change anything, and we both know it.
- I don't sell supplements, powders, teas, detoxes or cleanses, and I have no affiliation with anyone who does.
If that sounds like the way you'd want to work, here's what a first appointment and ongoing follow-up involve — or read the questions I'm asked every week before you decide.
I've yet to meet the woman whose life got better because she gave up bread.
Renew the way you eat. Renew the way you feel.
Bring the way you already eat. We'll build the first Add List together, and you'll leave the appointment with three things to put on the plate this week — not a list of what to give up.