What Does a Nutritionist Do Exactly? How Many Visits Does It Take?

I am not a nutritionist but an RN and a wellness educator. I would say that it depends on what you are wanting/needing? What are the issues? Are you having medical issues? Symptoms?
It would also depend on the nutritionist (which is different than a dietician by the way) on whether or not their services included menus.

They evaluate you based on many things (if they are good at their job.) they should find a family history of diseases and try to discover your weaknesses, the holes in your routine so to speak. They might try to enlist fads such as "the blood type diet", or the alkaline connection, low carb, etc... They might give you lists of dos and donts, or a menu. its basically up to the type of person you pick. Their roots might be in vitamins, or in whole food ideas also.

When my husband was in the ER and was diagnosed with Diverticulitis he was told to follow up with the hospital nutritionist and it was part of the ER bill. We went one time and she basically went over a list of foods that irritate the area and what he shouldn't eat anymore.

I took a class through OSU county extension here in my town and she came several weeks in a row and gave me classes on menu planning and how to read labels better, how to cook some foods to retain their nutrition more. It was free based on income.

Call some of the hospitals in the Tulsa area and see if you can find one that has some sort of nutrition classes on the topic you are working on. There are Diabetic classes, food allergy classes, all sorts! Finding out if they have the ones you are interested in may be the start to a very fun adventure.

I would urge you to see a registered dietitian or at least pick a nutritionist who has at least an undergraduate degree in nutrition sciences and perhaps an advanced degree. Unfortunately, a lot of the term 'nutritionist' is thrown around by a lot of people who may not actually have a degree in nutrition or food science, but rather are just 'interested' in nutrition or are trained by a food or diet product to sell items and now call themselves nutritionists.

For more information:
http://www.dietitian.com/rds.html

We went to one when we found out our son had food allergies-we only went once and she basically told us what foods contained egg/peanut and how to ready labels-he was only a year old, but it was helpful for us-I guess it depends on the severity of the allergy-his egg wasnt life threatening.