It’s the new year. You’ve made the resolution to join a gym and go regularly — and you’re doing it. But even as you get you body in shape, don’t neglect geting your diet in shape as well. Good nutrition is as much a part of true fitness as excercise.

With all the information available and dozens of fad diets each promising to be the best, it’s tempting to stay on the eat-whatever-you-can-and-run bandwagon. But if you know — or at least suspect — that your eating habits could use a makeover, you don’t have to do it alone. A professional nutritionist can help get you on the right track — whatever it may be.

A good nutritionist will tell you that there are no cookie-cutter approaches to good eating habits, and will tailor the advice based on your situation. You may not be ready to give up red meat or make tofu your main ingredient, and nutritionists respect that.

“We give people choices and we try to find out what they’re willing to do,” said Grace Greenside, assistant dietary director at Harrison Medical Center, which offers outpatient dietary counseling for needs ranging from diabetes and pregnancy to weight control and sports nutrition. “We create individualized meal plans and offer supportive information, then check to make sure they can apply the concepts to make wise choices while shopping, eating out or going on vacation.”

The first encounter may involve an initial assessment of your habits or medical needs, a meal recall, and extensive questionnaires. “One of the things we do is honor and respect the individual and not peg everybody the same way,” said Hallette Salazar, a certified nutritional therapist with Kitsap-based Quantum Health Quest. “They can’t change overnight but I can give them the tools they need.”

Even if you’re not ready for diet changes but are looking to supplement with vitamins and minerals, you could benefit from the knowledge of a professional. “People could be so much healthier if they got what they needed. We are only beginning to know what we need but if you only used the knowledge we have, you can reduce the need for prescription drugs,” said Marie Erdmann of Port Orchard-based BioScience. The simplest thing you can do, she said, is to supplement your vitamins C and D as well as take selenium.

“We live in a part of the world with the lowest selenium in the soil and Washington State has the highest M.S. per capita,” she said, adding that studies have shown links between low selenium and high cancer and muscular sclerosis rates.

When you look for a dietitian or nutritionist keep in mind that not everyone uses the same ideas and research. While some use traditional wisdom and adhere to the USDS food pyramid, others use alternative approaches. Quantum Health Quest, for example, uses The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating (“Eat, Drink and be Healthy”) as the foundation for its principles, and Salazar says the Harvard “food pyramid” is quite different from the USDA. But she tries to educate consumers that they need to learn how to read the food labels and consider what kind of nourishment they get from every single thing they eat or drink.

“A lot of people equate nourishment with tastelessness but it doesn’t have to be, it’s a matter of reprogramming,” she said, citing the example of fast food: It only tastes good when it’s warm but tasting it in its cold state is the true measure of how appetizing it is. And if you’ve tasted a cold fast-food burger, you know it wouldn’t pass the test.

Whatever path you take to your nutritional makeover, think of your long-term goals and try to find a professional whose philosophy matches your needs, and check their credentials and licenses.