“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well”

~ Virginia Woolf

Hey, Michelle Cederberg here with your weekly work life recharge. Today, I’m having a conversation with my good friend, registered dietician, Andrea Holwegner, about how to break through nutrition confusion and have healthy fun with food.

Welcome Andrea!

Andrea: We have a lot of fun with food. In fact we’ve known each other for about a decade

Michelle: Over a decade, and over those years we’ve had conversations and adventures that definitely involved food and wine and chocolate…

Andrea: All sorts of good stuff.

Michelle: And the reason why I wanted to have a conversation with Andrea is because she does dub herself the “chocoholic nutritionist.”

Andrea: And I’m also married to a wine importer. Life is supposed to be fun when it comes to food.

Michelle: Right, and you also love bread and pasta.

Andrea:  Carbs are it.

Michelle: I’m taking advice from this girl. Now you’ve been helping people with nutrition for over 17 years with your business Health Stand Nutrition and over those years you’ve coached literally hundreds of people on how to break through food confusion. So here’s my question. What is your philosophy around food?

Andrea: This is a big one. But if I was to distill down the essence of what I really try to teach people, it’s about eating fully. And how I define eating “fully” is about eating healthfully and soulfully. One without the other tends to get people into trouble.

Michelle: So what does that mean, healthfully vs. soulfully?

Andrea: So healthfully is really about that nutrition geek stuff that people expect a dietician should be teaching – getting enough fruits and vegetables, protein, hydration, all that stuff.

Michelle: balanced diets… What about the soulfully part? That sounds fun.

Andrea: Well, I’m a foodie first, and a dietician second. And so the soulful aspect of eating is really about what makes your soul sing?  It’s about the foods that we choose for non-nutrition reasons. These are the fun things, the social things, these are where chips and chocolate, and beer and wine come in…

Michelle: And it’s not just about “bird seed and kale”.

Andrea: No, because that’s the healthful part. You’re going to deal with that first and then you’re going to go in to make sure there’s enough fun and flexibility to live a good life.

Michelle: See why I wanted to talk to her. Now here’s a question I think a lot of people want to know the answer to: What is the best diet to follow?

Andrea: Well, first of all, there is no “one best diet.”

Michelle: No quick fix people.

Andrea: It has a lot to do with your food personality. And how I define your food personality, is really at the end of the day, what is going to make the most sense for you? And so this may sound very basic, but I see people do crazy things all the time. I see people do vegetarian diets, that don’t like lentils, and chick peas, and even vegetables! I also see people follow the Paleo diet that are carb junkies, and then wonder why they can’t stick to that plan.

Michelle: I heard you say earlier you want to take the “die” out of diet.

Andrea: You bet! And I even want to take the “diet” and the “die” out of “dietician.” It’s a terrible word to describe yourself. That’s why the “chocoholic nutritionist” tends to resonate with me.

Michelle: Now if you haven’t already watched my wellness wakeup call video make sure you check the link and do that because you’re going to be able to look through all of the crazy trends and get a little more focused on what’s important.

Michelle: So how do you know if you’re on the right diet?

Andrea: Well, first of all, the question I would ask you is what can you actually sustain vs. just tolerate?

Michelle: I need to have pasta in my life Andrea.

Andrea: There you go. At the end of the day, the biggest sustainer is going to trump the biggest changer. And so I see people do all sorts of food trends, and change gears a lot, follow the latest and “greatest”…

Instead, come back to the basics of your food personality and really think about “what can I actually live with for life.”

Michelle: So for instance, if I like to have wine with dinner, and I want to lose weight, it’s not going to do me any good to cut alcohol out of my life completely. I’m not going to be happy.

Andrea: No, and the way I’d work with that, the way that I work with everyone, is really I want you to build in the non-negotiable guilty pleasures that you love first. These are the soulful foods. Figure out what those are, and get really clear on what those are. A lot of times, people just eat for the sake of eating without really focusing in on what really counts, what they really love.

Michelle: What really brings you joy

Andrea: Put those ones in first and wrap healthy eating around it. This is the best way to go when we look at sustainability.

Michelle: So you had said something about “when you’re on your own” that’s when you want to be healthy.

Andrea: One of the things that has worked well for me always is, when we look at that eating fully, the healthful, soulful bit, I try to eat the healthful part when I’m on my own, doing my regular breakfast in the morning with my family, when I’m packing a lunch for work, if I’m on the road traveling… if it’s just me, I try to make the geeky nutritious healthy stuff.

Michelle: It’s a lot easier to do when it’s just you.

Andrea: You bet! Where I like to have a little more of the fun soulful food come in to play is when it’s Friday night pizza night with my family, when it’s Saturday night and I might be out with friends, when I’m at a restaurant (I’m a foodie first, dietician second,) I just want to eat the meal as the chef has prepared it!

Michelle: And just enjoy every single moment of it.

Andrea: You bet, and so you can do that if you’re really intentional about your choices, and really acknowledging that you can eat anything, you just can’t eat everything!

Michelle: Did you hear that? You can eat anything. So I can have chocolate, I can have meaty ribs, I can have wine, but I just can’t do it all, all the time.

Andrea: You bet. So you can eat anything, just not everything. It’s all about being intentional about your choices.

Michelle: And being mindful I’m thinking.

Andrea: You bet. Somewhere between mindless complete chaos and never thinking about what you’re eating, and just going through your day grabbing whatever, and then on the other end of it, being so meticulously obsessive and restrictive in your intake. Somewhere between those two worlds is that mindful place of really intuitive eating, and really finding that balance between health and soulfulness.

Michelle: Oh and it sounds so good. And you can watch my mindfulness video, it’s video number 31, mindfulness around wine and chocolate, as an add on to that, because really, good food is part of a good life.

Andrea: If you’re not enjoying your food, you’re on the wrong diet. It’s got to be enjoyment first.

Michelle: So what I’m hearing, is that if you could give one piece of advice for people who want to eat healthier, then it’s around that.

Andrea: You bet. You can achieve health without guilt or complexity. It doesn’t have to be fancy, you don’t need to be a crazy awesome food network chef, you don’t even need to know a lot about healthy eating. You just need to be really intentional about the healthful part and the soulful part, and how to fit that together.

Michelle: Oh, now it sounds so good. Now if you want more information on how to eat more healthfully and soulfully, you can check out Andrea’s website at healthstandnutrition.com, and the most exciting thing about what’s new in her world is an on-line nutrition program available to anybody no matter where you are, called the “Pursuit of Healthiness.”  Now you’ve heard what she has to say about nutrition. She’s going to give you healthful, soulful, fun filled opportunities to eat healthy and more joyfully.

So don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel via the link, check out the videos that I’ve shared. And until next time, I’m Michelle Cederberg, helping you transform your work and your life, one soulful, healthful bite of food, and one recharge at a time.