For the love of food

I’ve straightened the cushions and picked up the stray toys. Now I’m wandering the house aimlessly, so I go to the kitchen and open the fridge—oops, I better not. I’m waiting for a visit from dietitian Andrea Hofmann of Food Habits. I expect she’ll inspect my diet and see what I’m doing wrong, and then instruct me to eat fewer carbs.

When Andrea arrives, she is the very picture of a dietitian, perfectly dressed and a perfect size eight. But I wanted to speak to her after stumbling on her intriguing website, in which she describes herself as ‘a dietitian who doesn’t like diets’. Instead, her passion is for ‘eating with pleasure’.

Confessions of a yo-yo dieter

We sit down and my personal story spills out. I was put on my first diet when I was 10. My teenage years were defined as either ‘on a diet’ and depriving myself, or ‘off a diet’ and eating every forbidden food available. Food became my battlefield. And behind every diet was a growing sense of self-loathing.

Then, in my early twenties, I got on my knees and asked God to change me. During this time, God revealed to me the goodness of his creation, including food. And including me.

I eventually learnt that there is no such thing as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ food—it’s just food. And assigning food powers that it doesn’t possess is idolatry. Then a small personal miracle occurred: I began to see myself as part of God’s beloved creation. And as my self-esteem improved, so did my food choices. I was sworn off diets for life.

Staring at the walls

But today I’ve been nervously tidying and pacing the floor. I had a baby a year and a half ago, and it turned my world upside down in all the expected ways—but in lots of unexpected ways too. I put on the inevitable baby weight and couldn’t maintain my pre-baby exercise routine. Meal times became haphazard. And during those precious moments of downtime, I just wanted to curl up with a cuppa, a treat, and stare at the walls.

So now I’m confused. I ramble on to Andrea about wanting to be true to my beliefs and not diet, but just not feeling ‘myself’. Andrea listens to my long and winding road of a story, asking me about my family diet role models (yes, all the women dieted), health issues, and what I eat on a typical day. I wait for her verdict. I’m fairly confident I’ve been eating too much chocolate, but other than that I feel clueless.

To my surprise, she sits back and gives me her first instruction: eat whatever you want, whenever you want. ‘There are no such things as treats. If your body is telling you, “I really feel like a bowl of ice cream”, then have it,’ Andrea says.

She explains, ‘The more you build up “treat foods” and think you shouldn’t be eating them, the more high value they become. But if you allow yourself to eat them, they become [emotionally] like any other food.’

Andrea suggests that when I want to eat something, I ask myself this question: ‘I know I can have it. But do I really want it now?’ If the answer is yes, then go ahead and eat. But if the answer is no, think about what else it might be that I am craving—it may not be food at all.

I try this over the next week, and at first my answer is almost always yes. I do want that chocolate biscuit, so I eat it. There are some surprising results: I don’t feel guilty and I am satisfied more easily.

By the second week, the answer is more often becoming no. I realise that what I am really craving is rest, so I start enjoying a good book or even an old-fashioned kip when I get ‘me’ time.

For the love of food

Andrea trained as a chef, and it was through her passion for food and cooking that she became interested in nutrition. ‘A prescribed diet where you say, “this is what you eat, when you eat” never sat well with me,’ she says. ‘I wouldn’t want to do that in my own life.

I want to help other people to enjoy food as much as I do, and have the freedom of knowing that food is not the enemy.’

Typically, her clients have tried all the diets and found that nothing worked—most people already know the basics of nutrition, so they don’t need to be told, says Andrea. Instead, she works with clients to re-capture their enjoyment of food.

Her philosophy is simple: if we’re always told what we should eat, we don’t get the opportunity to find out for ourselves what we really like. Instead, we focus on the things we think we like—usually the foods we’re not allowed.

‘I had a client, and in her mind her perfect breakfast was a muffin and a cup of coffee, but she’d never allowed herself to have that. When I told her that she could have that for breakfast, she went crazy and baked dozens of muffins. For the first couple of days she enjoyed it, but after that she realised that she didn’t really want it.’

Freeing yourself from food restrictions may mean that at first you put on a bit of weight, explains Andrea, ‘which can be really scary for dieters’. ‘Because these foods have been so restricted and put on a pedestal, you might make up for lost time at first. But as you start to feel better about yourself, you naturally start making healthier choices.’

An important aspect of this approach is that weight loss stops being the goal, and instead, the focus is on becoming healthy. ‘The media portrays that you need to be thinner, but that is not necessarily the healthiest. Being fit and not having high blood pressure or cholesterol is more important. Weight is just a number, health is what’s important.’

But that doesn’t mean you won’t lose weight with this approach. In fact, Andrea says that over time you almost certainly will. The science is simple: energy in has to equal energy out. But the difference between her philosophy and a diet is that the motivation comes from enjoying food, understanding your hunger, and feeling good about yourself the way you are.

Mindful eating

When Andrea first meets clients, she often walks them through an exercise that she calls ‘mindful eating’. It involves chocolate. She gives clients a mini-sized chocolate bar (and has one herself). ‘Together we experience the wrapper,’ Andrea says. ‘How does the wrapper make you feel, are you already imagining what this chocolate is going to taste like? Then smell it, does it provoke any memories or associations? Take a first bite, but don’t chew, let it sit in the mouth and feel the texture, taste that first flavour and allow it to melt in your mouth. Then swallow: what is the after-taste? It is bitter or pleasant? Take another bite: is it as intense as the first bite?’

This exercise shows how pleasurable eating can be, but also encourages another way of thinking about food: that the quality is far more enjoyable than the quantity.

Instead of sitting in front of the telly numbly eating a packet of chips, Andrea encourages clients to really think about the food they are eating, and enjoy the experience. She says that every food experience should be an event. To get into the practice, she encourages clients to sit at the table for all meals, including snacks, away from other distractions. ‘Spend a bit of time on the food you’re eating, sit down and enjoy every mouthful. It takes a bit of effort, but it’s about making yourself important enough.’

Hunger is an important part of mindful eating—something that many yo-yo dieters lose touch with. This means understanding the sensations of hunger and asking yourself, ‘What do I feel hungry for?’ The more you do this, the less likely you are to eat when you’re not hungry. And eating when you’re hungry makes food much more pleasurable.

In addition, Andrea advocates regular exercise that you enjoy. Yes it burns calories, but more importantly, being active releases hormones that make us feel better about ourselves. ‘As we feel better about ourselves we naturally tend towards healthier activities and healthier food,’ adds Andrea.

The anti-diet dietitians

Andrea is part of a small but significant number of dietitians who are beginning to question the diet industry they are part of. ‘Some diet groups have lifetime memberships—[but] why on earth would you need a lifetime membership if the diet worked?’ asks Andrea. ‘The diet industry is there to make money.’

One of the founders of the anti-diet movement is Australian medical doctor Rick Kausman, author of If Not Dieting, Then What? The assumption that all you need to lose weight is a dose of good old-fashioned willpower is deeply flawed, argues Rick. ‘Willpower is a terrific skill, but it’s a short-term skill. You use willpower for things like studying for exams. But you wouldn’t have enough willpower to force yourself to study for exams every day for the rest of your life.’

In Australia, Rick has been publically critical of reality show The Biggest Loser Australia, which he says humiliates people in the name of ‘tough love’. ‘A much better skill to use to be the healthiest we can be is self-compassion,’ says Rick. ‘The research shows that if we can be kinder to ourselves then we tend to look after ourselves better.’

Instead of prescribing eating plans, the non-diet movement looks more deeply at the reasons for why we eat and what we eat. ‘Food is not just fuel for the body; everyone eats for a whole variety of reasons —it could be that we’re socialising, or we might be bored, or lonely, or just like the taste,’ says Andrea. She tells clients to always ask themselves, ‘What do I really feel like?’ That might be food, or it might be company. Or, if they’re bored, it might be an activity they enjoy.

A couple of days after seeing Andrea, I catch one of my son’s colds from day care and spend the day eating jam on toast. I let myself because it’s what I feel like. And to my surprise, the next day I feel like eating a nice, substantial salad with lashings of dressing.

One month after making the changes that Andrea has suggested for me, I am re-capturing the enjoyment of food. I allow myself to be hungry more, and satisfy that hunger with a wider range of food. I eat chocolate, but less snack food ‘just cos it’s there’. Sometimes I have that second bikkie, even when I know that it’s just because I’m bored, but more and more often I won’t. And the best part is that I am feeling much better about myself, just the way I am.

It’s hard to let go of wanting to lose weight, but not as hard as hating your body. And it’s hard to change habits—but it’s really not as hard as dieting. ‘You have to be ready and willing to give up dieting, but this approach should not be a hardship, it is an enjoyable journey,’ sums up Andrea.

By Ingrid Barratt

The non-dieting approach

There’s no such thing as treats

Allow yourself to eat all foods. Whenever you go to the cupboard, ask yourself: ‘I know I’m allowed it if I want it, but do I really want it now?

Eat mindfully

Choose food that you really enjoy, savouring the flavour, smell and texture of each mouthful. Allow for the possibility that the foods you really want, are not the foods you think you want. In other words, does the takeaway you crave really have the same depth of flavour as something you’ve prepared yourself?

Ask yourself, ‘am I hungry?’

Be aware of what it feels like to be hungry. If you are hungry, ask yourself what food will best satisfy that hunger.

Think about emotional reasons for eating

If you want to eat for reasons other than hunger, ask yourself why? Are you angry, tired, lonely, bored? Is food the solution, or will something else nurture me better?

Treat yourself with love and respect

Beating yourself up when you look in the mirror won’t help you become healthier. But saying kind things to yourself will make you want to be kinder to your body.

To find out more about the non-dieting approach go to www.foodhabits.co.nz