Alina Olczak

My name is Alina Olczak. I am a psychologist and a nutrition specialist. I work with adults and adolescents (from 12 years of age).

I provide counselling for people seeking reliable support in their plan to become fit again. By “being fit” I understand mental and physical wellbeing, vitality and energy, optimal weight. I help patients whose goal is to lose excess pounds and introduce healthy eating habits.

In my work, I combine my psychological experience with nutrition knowledge, providing individualised nutrition programs complemented with elements of therapy and coaching. The programs I propose are based on the current state of science and guidelines of medical and psychological associations. The meals included in the programs are easy to prepare and contain widely available ingredients.

The combination of psychology and nutrition is at the center of my interests, but I do not limit my work only to this area. I provide support in treating eating disorders and also to clients seeking help in dealing with anxiety, sadness and all kinds of relationship difficulties. I help my clients find their lost mental balance, look at their lives in a new way and overcome the feeling of helplessness and loss.

I have gained my professional experience, among others, at internships at pedagogical counselling centre in Poznań, Province Specialist Psychiatric Hospital in Gniezno, at emergency hotline for victims of domestic violence and in pharmaceutical and technological corporations.

I have expanded my professional knowledge with my experience as a mum preparing meals for two kids with various health issues as well as with many years of my personal dietary experiments aimed at curing my own autoimmunological disease – the Hashimoto syndrome. I share my professional knowledge, my experience and the knowledge I have learned from experts during my education at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, at Warsaw University of Life Sciences – SGGW and at various Dale Carnegie trainings and courses and courses at Dublin Institute of Technology during several years I spent abroad. As a nutrition specialist, I participate on a regular basis in specialist conferences organised, among others, by the Polish Association of Dieticians.

A nutrition program is more than just a list of meals. It includes information on what and how to eat, how to manage “temptations”, what to eat during holiday and celebration feasts or dinner parties. During sessions devoted to cooking or food shopping, I advise and show what to buy and how to cook. Food should provide us with energy for studying, work and play rather than become a method of reacting to stress. Food keeps us alive, so it is beneficial to ensure that food quality and our eating patterns support our health and wellbeing.