PHOTO PROVIDED
			Dina Boyer assesses diet based on each individual’s needs.

AVON LAKE — An Avon Lake woman has the perfect explanation for all those tried-and-failed diets: Bioindividuality.

Dina Boyer, a holistic health counselor, said the reason so many diets don’t work is that every person has unique needs for nourishment. She said it is her mission to figure out what those are for each person.

Boyer grew up in Greece on the island of Samos. She came to America to attend college when she was 17, and received her bachelor’s degree of chemistry from Kent State University and her master’s degree in biochemical research from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine where she studied cancer for eight years.

After school, she worked for Matrix Essentials in research and development and quality assurance before entering corporate sales. But she said that career never felt right — her heart was in the wrong place. So she decided to focus on another passion: helping people live happy, healthy lives.

While still working full time, she signed on to fly to New York one weekend each month for 10 months to earn certification as a holistic health counselor through the Institute of Integrative Nutrition from Columbia University Teachers College. It was time-consuming and expensive, she said, and she stayed at a YMCA to save money. She began to practice yoga at the same time.

She said she looks back at those days and sums them up with one word: Exhausting. But she said that each time she returned from  New York, she was full of excitement and couldn’t stop talking about what she’d learned from the best teachers in the holistic community — Dr. Walter Willet, chairman of nutrition at Harvard University, Dr. Neal Barnard, founder of Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, and Barry Sears, creator of the Zone diet.

After that, she quit her sales job and opened Anew by Dina Inc.

The decision didn’t come easily — she left behind a six-figure income to strike out on her own. But a year later, she said it’s paying off because she’s doing what she loves and helping others.

Boyer said she doesn’t simply figure out how many calories someone should burn or consume; instead, she deciphers a body’s individual needs based on science and helps clients select foods that work best with their body type.

She works with clients for five months, helping to ensure that they are invested in their health by being aware of what they eat, who they eat with and why they eat. And that means raiding her clients’ refrigerators, grocery shopping with them and providing cooking lessons and education.

“Building awareness is easy, but making changes is hard,” she said. “You do not have to abandon your life to be healthy.”

Contact Amy McLysaght at 329-7155 or metro@chroniclet.com.

In order to comment, you must agree to our user agreement and discussion guidelines.
You must be registered and logged in to post a comment. If you aren't already registered, click here.
If you are registered, click here to log in.
Need help? Email Us.