From the episode: Acceptance is Not Approval and Powerlessness is Not Helplessness
Host Susan Branscome:
Talk about the good work you do around developing a food plan for someone. Say you've got a client coming to you. They're addicted to sugar, flour, volume eating, and they weigh 250 pounds. I'm sure this is maybe a typical client for you.
What kind of food plan do you develop? Do you say, here's how much you should weigh, I'm going to design this food plan. What does it look like?
Guest, H. Theresa Wright:
The very first therapist I ever worked with was very wise, and he said it was easy to be a therapist. Shut up and listen to the client. And when the client knows the right answer, say, yes, that. And I've adopted that in my counseling.
I listen to the client. I let her tell me all about her addiction, and I let her tell me all about her life.
And then I get out my calculator, and I calculate things. I calculate the number of calories she needs to maintain her current body weight, and we discuss what she wants to get to, what weight she wants to get to. And I calculate that number of calories so I know where I'm going. I know where she is, and I know where I'm going. And I calculate the number of grams of fat that she needs because I want her to be able to think clearly.
And if you don't eat enough fat, your skin gets dry, your hair falls out, your nails get brittle, and you don't have any energy. I want you to have enough fat. And I've discovered, I believe, there's not a hell of a lot of proof to this, but my clients get extra protein. I think you need extra protein.
I don't want you to eat any sugar food, any carbohydrate food - fruit, for instance. Don't eat fruit all by itself. Put some protein with it. It slows down the absorption of the sugar in the fruit. And so you don't feel that in the food, it's like a rollercoaster. The sugar is absorbed quickly, the body makes insulin, the sugar comes down.
When the sugar comes down, you feel hungry, you eat something else, the blood sugar goes up, the body makes insulin, the sugar comes down. Eat the fruit with a couple of ounces of protein, and it's absorbed more slowly, and your blood sugar stays the same.
When I figured out all those numbers, I sit down with the person's regular food plan. What do you usually eat? And I set up a food plan that matches their lifestyle and their food preferences to work for them. If this is a nurse who works from 7 p .m. to 7 a .m., her food plan is going to be totally different from a mom who stays home with her kids.
About H. Theresa Wright
H. Theresa Wright, MS, RD, LDN, is the Founder and Director of Renaissance Nutrition Center, in Pennsylvania, where she has developed programs to help people master skills to make lifestyle changes that lead to freedom from food addiction and encourage a “sane approach” to eating and living. Theresa has been a nutrition therapist, registered and licensed dietitian and nutritionist, for more than 36 years. Theresa has helped people struggling with compulsive eating, obesity, eating disorders, weight loss, and food addiction, guiding them to experience freedom and recovery. https://sanefood.com
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