About

Tara (Gidus) Collingwood started Tara Gidus Nutrition Consulting in 2004.

After working as the Director of Nutrition and Metabolism at Florida Hospital Celebration Health for 5 years, Tara felt like it was time to spread her wings and do her own thing.

Tara started out as a company of one, seeing individual clients and acting as a consultant to various companies. Some of the early consulting consisted of assisting Disney with creating “well balanced” children’s meals for the restaurants on property, working with designers at Tupperware to create a container for kid’s lunches that would encourage healthy eating, and working with the medical staff to improve the nutrition of the employees at Rosen Hotels.

At the time of starting her own company, Tara was a national spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly known as the American Dietetic Association). As a spokesperson for the Academy, she conducted 15-20 media interviews with reporters from television, radio, websites, magazines, and newspapers each month. Tara pitched herself as the “Diet Diva” to the national television show, The Daily Buzz, to become a regular expert in nutrition on the show. They agreed and the name stuck. Tara has used the name Diet Diva in her business since her first appearance on the Daily Buzz in January of 2005. Since that time, Tara has appeared on The Daily Buzz once or twice a month.  Tara was the co-host of a TV show called Emotional Mojo, a daily motivational show that aired nationally from August 2013 to April of 2015.

As the years went on, Tara began to expand her business adding big names like the Orlando Magic, University of Central Florida Athletics, United States Tennis Association, and runDisney to her list of clients. She wrote Pregnancy Cooking & Nutrition for Dummies (Wiley, 2012) and co-authored Flat Belly Cookbook for Dummies (Wiley, 2014).

Tara’s time is now devoted to speaking, consulting, and offering spokesperson services to various organizations.