Katherine Tallmadge

I have seen Katherine on and off for 5 years. She is the best! I’ve tried all sorts of diets and lifestyle changes — low carb, juicing, etc. And nothing worked. But I have been able to lose 10 lbs in the first 2 months of working with Katherine both times and have kept the weight off.
Katherine is so wonderful both because of her lovely, fun personality but also because she really listens to your challenges and tries to understand your lifestyle to develop the best plan to help you lose weight in the easiest way possible.
I have a ton of business lunches, dinners and happy hours and a big sweet tooth. But Katherine has helped me manage all this and make better choices so that I can go out to eat and splurge occasionally and still lose weight.
Her approach is very balanced and is based around small, incremental changes (for me at least). She was also ahead of her time and recommended I wear a pedometer and get 10k steps/​day and this was before Fitbits even existed!
I can’t say enough good things about Katherine. She’s a wonderful motivator to get and stay healthy and does a great job holding you accountable, with a smile. :)

Katherine is great to work with. I have been seeing her for over 5 years during which time she has worked to create new goals for me to reach with her help. She is great at listening and understands the best ways to address my health and nutrition needs based on my lifestyle. During my time seeing her, I have successfully managed my weight loss and gotten my health under control. She is also great at holding me accountable for my actions and positively reinforces to keep trying. I would highly recommend her to anybody looking for a personalized touch to their nutrition and health needs.

Finding her home is not easy and her neighbors aren’t helpful. There is no sign on her door, nor the house number. Finally found the home and range the bell. An intercom voice said, «Come in and take a seat». Not whose is there? Or Welcome. I was buzzed in and faced with a very dark staircase. I walked up the narrow staircase into a very untidy tiny living room, dining room and kitchen, none of which suggested that ‘guests’ were expected. I could hear voices upstairs.
Katherine and her client eventually came down the stairs. No introductions. She said a few words of goodbye to her client and then focused on me. I was standing near her dining room table. She asked for the questionnaire she had given me to fill out. I hesitated and said that I would like to know a little bit more about the way she worked before deciding to establish a working relationship. She asked whether I had read her website. Yes, but as she has about 5 distinct services — professional speaker, journalist, nutritionist, author, cooking class teacher and corporate events arranger — I hadn’t been able to weed through to find any useful information about how she worked as a nutritionist. I asked whether she could give me some success stories. She was stumped. I asked for examples of ideas that were quite successful with her clients. She said she had everyone wear a pedometer in order to measure their activity level. I explained that I was trying to determine whether I wanted to work with her. I tried one more time to probe on her methods and she said, «Well you can’t expect to give me the third degree and have me come up with examples.» She asked if there were sensitive information in the questionnaire I had filled out. Yes, there was, but that’s not the point. The point is I wanted time with her that I wasn’t paying for to determine if I wanted to work with her or not. I gave up, gave her my questionnaire. She disappeared upstairs to read it in private. Then she yelled down for me to come up, asking in the process whether I was allergic to cats. I’m not and answered so.
I sat on her charming couch and she started taking my weight and psychological history. About 4:05 the phone rang and she ignored it. About 3 minutes later she said she had a call from a client calling from London and she suspected that was it. She needed to end the session right then, although she wasn’t done taking my history, nor had I any chance to ask her any questions. She said, «That will be $ 145 and I take cash or credit card.’ She said she would email me my first lesson and that I should buy a pedometer. I said I had one. She asked if it were a cheap one. I said I was pretty sure it was a cheap one. As she was typing an email to me with the first lesson, she included the name of the pedometer she wanted me to buy for $ 150. I asked her what the difference was between the one she recommended and the one I had. She said, «This one’s better.» I asked, «How?» she said, «It just is.» She then rushed into an explanation that she didn’t want to call the client back in London because then she would be paying for the hour-​long call.
She rushed me out of her office and down the stairs in order to be ready for the call. I was in her living room putting my wallet back in my purse, and putting her folder of material in my briefcase. She could hear me downstairs and as the call hadn’t come it, she yelled down to me, «You know a personal trainer isn’t going to help you lose weight.» I had told her about a program I had found at gym that bundled nutrition and exercise and said that I had tried to sign up for that class, but unfortunately they didn’t have enough people join so the class didn’t form. I said yes, I know. She said it is either get active, or have a by-​pass. I really didn’t know what she was talking about. I thought she was suggesting that I was going to have a heart attack and so my choice in weight loss was to wait for that event. It hit me only later that she meant a gastric bypass operation. What a bedside manner!!!

I found Katherine extremely unprofessional. She was not willing to discuss the treatment I was looking for. She was impatient and very defensive. It maybe because she wrote a book or something that she feels entitled to talk and treat people the way she talked to me, which is disappointing of course. If all authors mistreated people then no one would read their books. Anyhow, I would not recommend her if you’re looking for a companionate person to work with; especially if you struggle with weight issues or an eating disorder. Find someone who not only has the experience but is understanding and warm. She’s a marketing mogul.