About Me
My story starts long before I became a dietitian.
I’m Aslı, a sports dietitian, researcher and educator. Sport, science, good food and a full life all matter to me. So does understanding the person behind a training goal, a health concern or a difficult relationship with food.
My own relationship with food and my body hasn’t always been easy. Long before I began supporting others, I was trying to make sense of my own experiences. What began as a search for answers eventually became the profession I love.
That experience still shapes how I work today. I want to understand what matters to you, what feels difficult and what life looks like beyond our appointments. Your weight, measurements and performance goals can tell us something. They can never tell us everything.
If parts of my story feel familiar, I hope you’ll feel a little more understood here. 💜
Where it all began
My interest in nutrition began in high school, during a difficult period when my father became ill. Food became a source of comfort as I tried to cope with the stress. Within a month or two, I had gained more than 16 kilos. A comment from a friend prompted me to step onto the scales, and I still remember the shock of seeing the number.
I was the same lively, smiling person on the outside, but I didn’t really know what to do with everything I was feeling. Eating offered relief when things felt overwhelming. At the time, I couldn’t see the connection between my emotions and my eating habits. I simply thought my weight was the problem.
When trying to be healthier became harmful
That was when I first heard the word “dietitian” and sought professional support. Yet I often trusted the diets printed in newspapers more than the advice I was given. Through restrictive eating and intense exercise, I lost 18 kilos in three months. I felt proud of what I thought I had achieved, without recognising the cost to my health.
Then my menstrual cycle became disrupted. My determination to lose weight had gradually become an unhealthy preoccupation with food and my body. Looking back, I can recognise the disordered eating that I couldn’t understand at the time.
Even before university, friends had started calling me “the Dietitian”. I already knew what I wanted to study. What I hadn’t yet understood was how much more there was to nutrition than changing someone’s weight, or how much I still needed to learn about caring for myself.
Learning to care for myself
I earned a place on Ankara University’s Nutrition and Dietetics programme and graduated second in my department. But some of the most important things I learned were deeply personal. As my understanding of nutrition grew, I began to recognise how my eating habits had affected my health. The menstrual problems initially attributed to PCOS needed to be understood alongside my restrictive eating and exercise.
Recovery took years. Regaining weight and restoring my cycle challenged many of the beliefs I had held about being “healthy”. It also helped me understand just how closely food, physical health, emotions and our sense of self can be connected.
In many ways, I was my own first client. That experience still reminds me to listen carefully, look beyond the obvious and respect how much effort change can take.
From clinical practice to academic life
After graduating, I spent three years working in the Endocrinology Clinic at Ankara Training and Research Hospital, mainly supporting children and adults with Type 1 diabetes. Working with people managing a condition every day taught me how much nutrition advice needs to account for the life around it.
I loved the clinical work, and I was increasingly drawn to research and teaching. During my master’s degree, I joined Hacettepe University as a research assistant. My master’s research explored disordered eating and body image in bodybuilders, bringing together questions that mattered to me both professionally and personally.
This was also where my interest in sports nutrition began to take shape. I wanted to understand how athletes could pursue their ambitions while protecting their health and their relationship with food.
Endurance sport opened up a whole new world
My doctoral research brought me into contact with endurance athletes experiencing gastrointestinal problems during exercise. It was a question with very real consequences: what happens when the gut struggles to tolerate the fuel an athlete needs?
Through resting metabolic rate measurements, lactate threshold testing and gut microbiota analyses, I explored the relationship between nutrition, exercise and gut health. I loved the detail of the research, but working directly with athletes made those questions even more compelling. Behind every result was someone trying to train consistently, feel better or reach a goal that mattered to them.
A two-year Irish government-funded postdoctoral fellowship took me to Dublin City University, where I worked with endurance runners and elite athletes. I had the opportunity to support more than a hundred Irish athletes, helping establish training zones, interpret body composition measurements and use blood test results to inform their nutrition support. Those years deepened both my scientific understanding and my appreciation of everything an athlete brings to the process.
Where you’ll find me today
Today, I’m based in the Netherlands, working with clients in person and online across different countries. Alongside my consultations, I teach ISAK Level 1 courses in Türkiye and across Europe, and deliver courses and seminars on sports nutrition, body composition, gut health and related topics.
I’m also continuing my studies in Sport and Exercise Psychology at the University of Amsterdam. It feels like a natural extension of the questions that have followed me throughout my career. Knowing what might help is one thing. Finding a way to act on that knowledge, especially under pressure or when life gets complicated, is another.
I want to understand both. How we fuel our bodies, and how our thoughts, emotions and habits influence the choices we make. Bringing these perspectives together helps me keep asking better questions and offer support that makes sense in the lives of the people I work with.
And who am I beyond all of that?
There’s quite a lot of life beyond the research papers and consultations. I’m energetic, curious, a little wild at heart and happiest with some sunshine on my face. I love music (big time!), proper belly laughs, early mornings and that first coffee before the world gets noisy.
Give me a mountain trail, a run outdoors, the smell of the sea or a good conversation with a friend, and I’m happy. I have a soft spot for Argentine tango, dark chocolate, ice cream and dogs, especially Golden Retrievers. And I’ll happily listen to the story behind whatever’s in my glass.
Warm friendships, big hugs and plenty of reasons to laugh. That’s my kind of life. 😊
A closer look at my professional background
You’ve read the story. If you’d like to explore my qualifications, academic work and professional experience, you’ll find them here.