Julia Zumpano has been happily supporting patients one-on-one for 19 years. But the nutrition professional recently got the chance to expand her reach – and she grabbed it with both hands.
Zumpano is a registered dietitian at the Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Human Nutrition, and her expert insight helped inform the guidelines for two programs in the hospital’s new wellness and diet coaching app, the Cleveland Clinic Diet app. Both programs are designed to educate and empower users to make healthier food and lifestyle choices.
The app was developed in collaboration with FitNow, part of the Everyday Health Group.
“A lot of times we give our health away to the provider we seek,” says Zumpano, who is also the Nutrition Media Liaison for the Cleveland Clinic. “The goal of this [app] is to take responsibility for that and understand what is happening in our bodies – to be involved in the decisions that are made [in order to] being able to make lifestyle changes that support your health and your overall health outcomes.
We spoke to Zumpano about what the app has to offer and how it can help people achieve their health and wellness goals.
Everyday Health: How does the app work and what can users expect after downloading it?
Julia Zumpano: You start with a questionnaire, which places you on your appropriate plan. There are two: the Heart Smart plan and the BodyGuard plan. The BodyGuard plan is designed from a weight management perspective, but even more so from a health perspective. It is designed to reduce inflammation and minimize things that can trigger your appetite or cause you to overeat. It also encourages eating foods that provide you with solid nutrition: nutrients, fiber, healthy fats.
The Heart Smart plan is for people who have heart problems or a family history of heart disease. This plan is more focused on protecting your heart. It’s similar to the Body Guard plan in that it focuses on reducing inflammation and sugar, but it looks extra at sodium, saturated fat, trans fats and fiber.
Once in your plan, you will be placed in a course that is specifically designed for the program you are following. The course is designed to be easy to complete during the first week of the program and will help you understand where to focus your efforts.
EH: How does the app hope to achieve its goal of empowering people?
JZ: The main goal was to have an app that would provide the services of a dietitian and eventually evolve into the services of a doctor or psychologist. While it can in no way take the place of a real health professional, it provides information that allows the client to take ownership of their own health.
EH: As a dietitian, you know from your own experience how much difficulty people often have in losing weight. How did this previous experience influence your recommendations for this app?
JZ: There are culprits in the Standard American Diet that are holding us all back. These hyper-processed, hyper-palatable foods that are so easily overconsumed are easily available everywhere. It’s so in your face. Our society pushes so many processed foods that it has become normal to eat chips, a candy bar, or even a protein bar that is marketed as healthy but is by no means (it is still an ultra-processed food). These all wreak havoc on our systems, causing inflammation and dysregulation of our taste and satiety. It all affects our weight – and no one really looks at it that way. The food available to us every day is a whole issue of healthcare, society and the food supply.
If you have ownership and can look at what you eat and how it affects your body, that will lead to change. The more people who want change and buy products that are healthier for us, the more we will shift that as a whole. That’s the goal.
EH: Are there any specific characteristics that I have encountered during my experience as a dietitian?
JZ: The app combines the basics of food tracking with advice and guidance from my experience as a dietitian. It is similar to the Lose It! app (also developed by FitNow) where you can write down all your food, record your food and take a photo of what you eat, and the app calculates what you consume. You can track your entire day and it will give you nutritional guidelines for all macronutrients and minerals based on your goal. These plans are designed to support health and not just weight loss. The guidelines focus on managing and controlling heart health and managing weight, but from a disease prevention perspective.
EH: We understand that the Cleveland Clinic partnered with FitNow to build this app. What did each side bring to the development? How did this partnership impact the final product?
JZ: Both parties offered their expertise. As Cleveland Clinic, our expertise is patient care, and that is what we delivered. With nearly two decades of experience in patient care, I saw trends, including the causes of people’s lack of success or limitations. I really tried to use this experience to decide what would be included in the app and how I determined the criteria.
Apart from nutrition, the content we offer in this app is what we tell patients every day. We simply put it in a message, blog article or course. In all of these topics that we talk about with our patients, we have now created content that you can read and that is presented to you on a very strategic basis.
FitNow launched one of the first ever food tracking systems, and I’ve been suggesting Lose It! to my patients for years, long before this relationship began. I’ve always suggested food tracking because I think it’s a great way to take ownership of your nutrition and eating plan. They have a lot of great, cutting-edge features, they’ve been in this industry for a long time and have a lot of experience, and they have a great team that can build a phenomenal app. That’s definitely not our expertise. So we paired two great companies together to create something phenomenal.
EH: Who are the best candidates to use this app?
JZ: Besides people undergoing cancer treatment, children, the elderly, and anyone with a history of eating disorders, any adult can benefit from using this app. Of course, always check with your healthcare provider before starting any new eating plan.
— Julia Zumpano, RD
EH: How do you think this app will work for people taking semaglutide and other GLP-1 weight loss medications? Are there special factors they need to take into account?
JZ: With some of these medications there is a high risk of sarcopenia and not getting enough nutrients and calories – even to the point of malnutrition. This is a great way to keep track of whether you’re getting enough protein, fiber, and water each day. It can also benefit the outcome of these medications, ensuring adequate fiber intake and helping prevent possible side effects such as loss of muscle mass, nausea and constipation. And if you’re not getting enough protein or skipping meals, the app can identify these trends for you. It provides data and feedback on how the nutritional part of your weight loss journey is going.
EH: When it comes to weight loss, people often struggle with making lasting changes to their lifestyle. How does the app help users with this challenge?
JZ: Many of the enduring lifestyle problems stem from the fact that most dietary trends are restrictive. They limit or eliminate food or cause anxiety about something. Overly processed foods can be eaten occasionally, but it is the overconsumption that causes the problem.
This app really focuses on getting what you need instead of not eating something. If someone is focused on getting all of their nutritional needs, they’re not even going to worry about what they can’t eat because they’re so focused on things like, “Am I getting enough protein?” “Am I getting my fiber needs?” “Am I getting enough omega-3s?”
I like to see it be more of a mindset of supporting your body and health rather than restricting it. Is your goal to improve your health or lose weight? They can go hand in hand but in my opinion it should really be about supporting your health and taking ownership of the foods that can support your body to work at its best and then the weight loss will happen naturally. It has to come with a mindset and understanding. This is a health app, not a weight loss app.
EH: As a dietitian, what part of the app makes you most excited or proud?
JZ: The teaching aspect is what I like most about the app. It’s not just following, it’s teaching. It offers a lot of great content and a lot of great options. The whole point of the app is to teach as it goes along. This is what I could give someone if I could see it every day, but now the app can empower users and give them good, accurate content.