Ep. 9 Introducing Tash Rae: Accredited Practising Dietitian & Credentialled Diabetes Educator

In this episode, Jaimee is joined by Tash Rae — Accredited Practising Dietitian and Credentialled Diabetes Educator — for a first conversation about her background, her work in women's health, and what brought her to focus on care after a gestational diabetes (GDM) diagnosis.

Tash shares what drew her to this area of practice, what she sees often in her clinical work that she wishes more women understood, and how she and Jaimee work together to support mums after GDM. They also talk about why this partnership matters for the future of the podcast — and what listeners can expect from Tash's voice in upcoming episodes.

This is a relaxed, conversational introduction rather than a deep-dive episode — the first of many with Tash on board.

Whether you're newly postpartum, years past your GDM diagnosis, or supporting someone who's been through this experience, this podcast is for you. Let's create healthy futures together!

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Learn more about Healthy Futures Individual Insight Program here:

https://healthyfuturesaftergdmaustralia.systeme.io/

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Healthy Futures After GDM is for general education only. Please speak with your healthcare provider for personalised advice.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:06

Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Healthy Futures After GDM. Today I have our wonderful dietitian Tash Ray with us. Hi Tash, thanks for joining us. Hi, Jamie. Thank you so much for having me today. Oh, it's been long overdue. I've talked a lot about you in a lot of my social posts and other podcasts. So I just thought we'd do a nice intro for our listeners and for our followers and have a little bit of a chat and see why you joined me, why you agreed to do this, and a bit more about you and your qualifications in that as well.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Very excited to share with you and your followers why I do want to do why I'd like to work with you as well and do what you would love to do in this space to help women. So to start with, I'm an accredited practicing dietitian and a credentialed diabetes educator. So I work with people across all ages and stages of life. A lot of my work is helping people make sense of nutrition. So whether they come to me with chronic disease or whether they come to me with gut issues, or maybe there's malnutrition, or maybe there's some other sort of questions that they have around their nutrition. And that's something that I'm really enjoy supporting people in. And the diabetes educator side of my role adds an extra layer to that knowledge as well. So it means I can support the day-to-day realities of living with diabetes and not just the food side of diabetes. I'm also really excited about my qualifications in as being a certified fertility and prenatal dietitian. So something that I've been working on for the last 12 months and I've completed that certification, and it's really shaped the way that I can help support women in the space that you work in with GDM, but also with other conditions as well. So people living with PMOS, which can has recently been changed from peacoffs, endometriosis, insulin resistance, including diabetes as well. And a lot of in this space is working with people for weight gain as well as weight loss as well. It's just been such a privilege to be able to help women in this space and understand what's going on with their bodies and feel more confident in the choices that they're making around their food as well. And I know we were just talking before we went live, but I also work with people with eating disorders as well. So I really feel like that fits and fits the frame of what we do, whether that's people that have concerns about their food choices, which could lead into something towards an eating disorder, or whether people that just have not confident in food choices and there's something that we can support them with as well. And that's why I'm excited to be here with you and talk to you and work with you in this space. And you bring your own incredible nursing and diabetes expertise and together, hoping that we can provide women with a clearer picture of how we can support them moving through the stages and towards their goals.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

Yeah. And that's one thing that's why I wanted you on board with this whole healthy futures after gestational diabetes, is because you're very understanding, you individualize things, you don't just do your dietitian classic tell everyone the same thing once they've been diagnosed with diabetes. And I know we're both very passionate about trying to prevent type two because in our clinical work day to day we get referrals for people who have had pre-diabetes for like up to five years, and you look back at the pathology and you think, oh, if only you were referred like a couple of years ago, or and women have the knowledge because they've had gestational diabetes that we can draw on, which is what we're both also excited about working in this place.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Absolutely. And working with women that have little babies growing inside them are so motivated. So they're looking for knowledge, they're looking for the support, and that's what they can get from both of us as well.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

Yes. Yeah. And I do want to flag that there's not a lot of support out there for women after gestational diabetes and the health system. There's a sense of abandonment. I've used that word a lot in my socials and on other podcasts. But in my masters of nurse practitioner, that's like a whole subject that I basically did. And it's worldwide that sense of a whole team supporting you during pregnancy, and then pretty much you've had baby, and then it becomes all about baby. Completely understandable. But women will then always take a back step, and their health takes a back step. And that's what's frustrating is when you think I could have helped you so much more a couple of years ago. So just trying to bring it to the forefront of mums' lives before they get to that point where they've got the diagnosis of type 2 diabetes.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Yeah. And you and I, both being mothers, we can say that firsthand. We know that. We put our children first, we put our family life first. It's more important to look at the whole family and not just the needs of the one person or yeah, yeah, really putting mum in front again.

SPEAKER_02 5:16

That's right. Yeah, and that's an important point because we've talked about that extension of the support of partner, getting the children on board with the just moving a bit more and breaking up that sitting time and making sure that you're not having to make yourself a separate meal if you want to be healthy as mum. You can all enjoy healthy meals. And that's what I love about you. You don't just say you've got to eat this, you've got to do that. You look at someone's food choices, what they enjoy, and you just tweak it and you help them understand their protein requirements. And women know about carbohydrates, they've been through gestational diabetes. So just bringing that knowledge out again, as I said.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And there's no way I could ask someone to make a change that they're going to walk out that door and that change isn't going to happen. So it's really working with my clients, working with what they enjoy. And as you say, making those tweaks or those swaps that fit within the family dynamics, the family financial position, the family likes and dislikes. So it's really that process of working together to ensure that when that person walks out the door, they know what they are going to do and they're confident in that the choices that they're going to make as well.

SPEAKER_02 6:29

Yeah. And the evidence says the same. If the family as a whole makes those changes, the woman, the mum, is more likely to succeed. It's not fair that you have to go and make yourself something different or miss out.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

No, absolutely. It's just more time consuming. It just puts more stress and strain on the mum and the family.

SPEAKER_02 6:49

And it's just not sustainable. As you said, we're mums, we know what it's like. And your qualifications, like the dual dietitian diabetes educators, amazing. Then you've gone and done all this extra study in the fertility space and very excited to help women with that PMOS. And I like that the name's changed because it really emphasizes that metabolic part of polycystic ovarian syndrome that's now changed to the metabolic side of it. So it highlights that insulin resistance that you and I know so well and can help so many more women with.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And it gives a more clearer diagnosis, then, doesn't it? So it doesn't take as long for women to get a diagnosis and then to be able to seek help and be given that help.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

Yes. Yes. And in another podcast, because now we'll get you on a bit more regularly that we've broken the ice. We'll talk more about your extra qualifications with eating disorders and that and screening for that. Because I listened to a webinar from an endocrine doctor last night and GPs, and apparently eating disorders are not screened enough for. But the percentage of people that suffer from obesity and overweight, there's a huge percentage of people who do have disordered eating or eating disorders, which we I think we'll do another whole episode on.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Oh, I look forward to that one. Yeah, there's a lot in that space, unfortunately. But there's a lot of dietitians can help the person sitting in the front of them as well. So it might not be something that's mentioned during the consort, but we're always looking for those red flags. And if we do see them, then it's a conversation that we can have then with the person and maybe with the GP so that more help can be provided.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

Yeah, I wasn't aware there was additional Medicare funded sessions and everything. So it's actually really important. And I just feel women might be more comfortable to talk to someone like you as well. I'm so happy to have you on board. This has been years in the making. So it's exciting that yeah, I've nearly finished my NP at the end of the year, and we're literally getting this up and running for women and helping entire families, as you said.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Yeah, and I'm really excited to be working in this space with you, and I'm really excited to see what we can do moving forward with the knowledge that you've got with all the training that you've done, and then showing and supporting our clients with that as well.

SPEAKER_02 9:10

I appreciate that. Yeah, for people that don't know, the nurse practitioner just brings another level. So I can order pathology, I can investigations, I can actually diagnose and then do management plans. So it just gives us so much more scope to help women without having to go back to the GP and feeling really disjointed because that is another part of the evidence, is that just the healthcare can feel really segregated and women have to go to one person and then another, tell their story again. So we can do so much more together between us now. So it's fantastic. Fantastic. All right, thank you so much for joining us. We'll get you one again in the next month or two, and we'll do regular regular topics, specialize in the dietitian side of things and cross over into the diabetes educator because you're both.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

I look forward to it. Thank you so much, Jamie.

SPEAKER_02 10:05

Thank you. Bye, Tanji.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Thank you so much for listening. Do please follow us and give a review if you've got time. Just remember you matter, not just as a mum, but as a person. See you in the next episode.