Spotlight on:
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Meredith Lapp
Clinical Team Lead at Simply for Life
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Meredith is a Registered Dietitian who provides one-on-one nutrition counselling at the Simply For Life Halifax and Dartmouth locations. She is also the Clinical Team Lead for the Simply For Life dietetic team in the Halifax Regional Municipality, covering the Bedford, Halifax, and Dartmouth locations. She was recognized nationally as a Simply For Life Top Consultant in 2019 for excellence in client relationship-building and program management. She currently serves on the Dietitians’ Network of Nova Scotia Core Committee as the “Eat, Read, Learn” feature manager.
Meredith’s work centres around making dietetic best practices realistic and applicable to clients living with a broad range of health conditions. She uses a weekly consult model to provide step-by-step guidance and feedback so clients can experience positive change in real time. Working adjacent to a health-food retail store also allows her to help clients navigate label-reading and product selection while accommodating personal dietary needs and preferences.
Living with a severe peanut allergy herself, Meredith is familiar with the lifelong challenges that go along with food-related limitations, and she enjoys helping clients find sustainable solutions to similar restrictions. As a working parent she appreciates finding easy, economical meal ideas and takes a family-friendly approach when working with clients to adjust household habits over time.
Originally from Toronto, Meredith came to Halifax in 2002 to earn a BA(Hons) from the University of King’s College. After varied early career experience in corporate event planning, acting, children’s programming, and resume review, Meredith found her passion for fitness and nutrition while training for her first Bluenose half-marathon, and returned to school to pursue dietetic training (BSc, RD) at Mount Saint Vincent University. She completed her internship experience at Diabetes Canada, Camp Morton (a summer camp for teens with Type 1 diabetes), and two long-term care centres.
Meredith is now continuing to build her practice in Halifax/Dartmouth while providing mentorship and support to her dietetic colleagues at Simply For Life HRM.
What do you love most about your job?
I love being a little weekly part of so many people’s lives. Some clients have worked with me for years, and it’s an honour to journey with them through new jobs, new diagnoses, pregnancies, retirement, and all kinds of life changes. I also really love seeing the value that providing space to hear someone’s full story can provide -- often new clients arrive frustrated and confused by nutrition information overload, and it’s really fulfilling to help bring calm and clarity by walking them through what interventions might work best for *them*, and breaking their chosen intervention down into manageable but effective steps week-by-week.
What is the biggest challenge you have faced in your career?
Learning how to deliver helpful and relevant messaging during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially during the first few months of lockdown. The immediate shift to working remotely from home while also providing full-time childcare (that I, along with many clients, experienced) was a logistical pressure that actually provided many new opportunities: how to deliver impactful counselling virtually; how to implement work/life boundaries even when your “work” is your kitchen table; how to substitute/adapt during supply chain disruptions; and how to provide ongoing positivity and confidence as a counsellor when the world outside is unpredictable.
What food is always in your pantry/freezer?
Eggs! I could eat them at every meal. Dill pickles are also an absolute staple as an anytime snack, and anything peanut-free salted caramel goes in my basket too!