Today we’d like to introduce you to Ańna Roby.
Hi Ańna , so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I was initially drawn to sports nutrition by an interest in physiology and human performance, understanding how nutrition affects the way the body functions, adapts and performs. Over the past 10 years as a sports dietitian, I have worked with athletes and active individuals across a variety of settings and stages of life.
Throughout that work, I began to recognize a recurring pattern: many active women were unintentionally underfueling for the demands they placed on their bodies. They were experiencing persistent fatigue, difficulty recovering, injuries, changes in their menstrual cycles and declining performance, often without realizing that these concerns could be connected through Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport, or REDs.
Seeing how frequently REDs was overlooked, and how significantly it could affect both health and performance, led me to deepen my expertise in low energy availability and REDs recovery. Today, through my practice Salt & Pearl, I specialize in helping active women restore their energy, support their health and learn how to fuel in a way that allows them to continue doing the activities they love.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It has not been an entirely smooth road. One of the biggest challenges was realizing that understanding the physiology of REDs was only part of what women needed from me. I knew how underfueling affected the body and what nutritional changes could support recovery, but eating more can bring up fear, uncertainty and significant ambivalence, especially for women whose identities are closely connected to exercise, performancem, or body image.
To support clients more effectively, I invested in additional coursework, trainings and independent study in counseling psychology, motivational interviewing and behavior change. Developing those skills allowed me to move beyond simply telling women what their bodies needed and instead help them work through the mental and emotional barriers that can make change difficult. That process has shaped the way I practice today and reinforced that effective nutrition care requires both a strong understanding of physiology and the ability to meet each person with curiosity, compassion and respect for their readiness to change.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Salt & Pearl is a private nutrition practice specializing in Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport, or REDs, and recovery from chronic underfueling. I work primarily with active women who may be exercising regularly and eating what they believe is a healthy diet, yet still experience fatigue, persistent hunger, poor recovery, recurrent injuries, menstrual changes or declining performance. My goal is to help them understand what is happening physiologically, restore adequate energy intake and return to feeling strong, capable and like themselves again.
What sets my approach apart is the combination of sports nutrition, physiology and behavior-change support. I have spent 10 years working as a sports dietitian and have a research background in human physiology, so my recommendations are grounded in both evidence and a deep understanding of how low energy availability affects the body. At the same time, I recognize that knowing what to eat is often not the hardest part. Eating more, reducing exercise or allowing the body to change can bring up fear and ambivalence, so I use counseling and psychology skills to help clients work through those barriers rather than simply giving them a meal plan and expecting change to be easy.
Through individualized nutrition counseling, I help women rebuild trust in their bodies, fuel appropriately for their activity and protect both their long-term health and their ability to participate in the sports and activities they love. I am especially proud that Salt & Pearl offers a thoughtful, compassionate and highly specialized space for women whose symptoms may have been dismissed, normalized or treated as unrelated concerns. I want readers to know that feeling exhausted, constantly hungry or unable to recover is not simply the price of being active, and that recovery is possible with the right support.
So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
What matters most to me is that women feel well and have the energy to pursue what is meaningful to them. Every woman has her own unique strengths, talents and contributions to make, but it is difficult to operate at your full capacity when your body is chronically underfueled.
I want women to have the physical and mental energy to fully participate in their lives, whether that means pursuing a sport, building a career, caring for their families, creating something meaningful or simply feeling more present in their everyday lives. Helping women restore their energy allows them to shine in the ways that are uniquely theirs, and that is what makes this work so meaningful to me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://drannaroby.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.annaroby/
