Anti Diet Revolution: Non Diet Weight Loss, Food Freedom, Never Diet Again
Real Talk: Non-Diet Dietitians Share Ideas on Why Changing Behavior Is So Hard
Apr 14, 2021
Season 2
Episode 40
Andrea Heyman, Registered Dietitian
Point 1: Emotional/Cognitive Background of Changing Health Behaviours
- Recognizing lots of emotional challenges when changing eating/lifestyle habits
- It's not about giving information to someone one time and that's enough to change their life and for behavior change to occur, it has to be over a time period
- Majority of folks know what they want to do, but hard to put into practice
- There is a cognitive and emotional element that may hinder behaviour change/ putting it into practice
- Most people know that exercise is good, eating right is good
- It's trying to tap into emotions or feelings hindering you from making it happen over the long term
- Refocus on how you can maintain maximum health and knowing that it will take a long time
- Trying to make it more of a lifestyle so in the long term have the health goals you desire
- Few and far between the number of people that can get information and incorporate that into their life permanently
Point 2: Physicians Need to Changing the Message
- Most people coming to dietitians so they can lose weight due to doctors telling them this
- Doctors tend to wait to give advice until there is a problem
- What if doctors changed the messaging for people to change healthy lifestyle habits from a reactionary standpoint to a preventative standpoint
- For most people, weight loss tends to be the goal
- The doctor might give an intervention diet tip sheet without taking into account anything about the patient
- Focus should be more based on behavior as opposed to weight
- Doctor won't have all of the information the person needs
- Either the person does nothing at all, or person offered medicine, people offered a diet sheet, or they go to a dietitian
- Lots of nutrition information out there, some true and some isn't
- We live in a diet culture world where weight loss is the messaging and many people don’t have expertise
- Very conflicting information when it comes to healthy living
- Many don't know where to find reputable health information
- Confusing to find information if you have multiple comorbidities
Point 3: How Professional Training has Affects Personal Approach
- Philosophy is trying to simplify a healthy eating lifestyle
- Trying to have more balance with eating and being more in tune with it
- Many women may feed kids great and feed themselves poorly or many are overly restrictive
- Knows when to meal prep and when grocery shopping is done but also know when it might be more difficult to do these things
- The mistake is giving so much information and not knowing how it fits into people’s lives
- Instead of making huge drastic changes in one time, trying to include it so it becomes more of a lifestyle
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