Bastienne Neumann: "How I changed my eating habits!"
A bag of potato chips and Netflix simply belong together. So do stress and a large portion of ice cream. We all have eating habits and eat out of boredom, stress or because we want to reward ourselves. Bastienne Neumann knows this. As a nutritionist, she has changed her eating habits and helps people learn to eat healthily again.
What has helped you the most to have a healthy relationship with food?
As a former judoka, I had a complicated relationship with food from a very early age. For years, I consciously and disciplinedly intervened in my eating behavior in order to reach or maintain my weight class for competitions.
On the other hand, I often rewarded myself with food after competitions and feasted properly in the months when there were no competitions. So it was a constant up and down.
When I injured myself and had to stop judo, I had no idea how to stop eating. Even when I wasn't physically hungry, I constantly felt the need to eat. Even the nutritional knowledge I had built up over the years couldn't protect me from this.
And when did your eating habits change?
When I decided to study nutritional science and came across the subject of "nutritional psychology", the tide turned. For the first time, I questioned not only "what" I ate, but also "why" I ate, and realized that I usually misappropriated food.
For example, I used food to compensate for my emotions and stress or to reward myself. With this realization, I had a new point of attack and began to question and work through my relationship with food.
But isn't it also a pleasure to eat and sometimes compensate for stress with it?
Every one of us is an emotional or stress eater from time to time, as food has the ability to release happiness hormones, which can make us feel positive and calm. Even if we are not always aware of this effect, we often make use of it.
I have now developed many strategies for reacting to challenging situations in ways other than eating, and I would say that I succeed in 80 to 90 percent of cases. In the other 10 to 20 percent of cases, I also slip into old patterns, especially when new and unknown challenges await me. However, this always gives me the opportunity to reflect on the situation afterwards and learn from it.
You are also a new mom - congratulations! Have you encountered any new hurdles as a mother?
Thank you for the congratulations! Yes, pregnancy and the new role of mother can definitely be such new, challenging situations in which you eat more.
In my case, I'm very lucky because my daughter is quite relaxed and "low-maintenance", which means I don't need food to regulate stress, for example. Being a mom even encourages me to pay even more attention to my health and to be a good role model for my mouse in terms of eating habits.
"If hunger is not the problem, then food is not the solution". This is probably your most quoted sentence, but it illustrates the issue so clearly and beautifully!
Haha, yes, that's probably true. But I also really love this sentence because it sums up the problem for many people.
We often eat but don't really know why. Yet it is precisely this realization that can be the key to working on your own eating habits.
So when you get the urge to eat again, it can be very helpful to pause for a moment and ask yourself why you want to eat. "Am I really hungry? Or am I feeling lonely and want to distract myself by eating?".
What if I'm feeling lonely but hungry?
If physical hunger is behind the urge to eat, you should of course eat, as this is the solution to the problem of "hunger". However, if you find that you want to eat because of loneliness or because you are bored, eating is a measure that makes the negative feeling more bearable in the short term, but it is not a real solution. Instead, you should think about how you could solve the actual problem instead of resorting to food. Because if hunger is not the problem, then eating is not the solution either.
Let's get specific: I'm sitting at home in front of the TV in the evening and want to eat potato chips. What advice would you give me to avoid this?
Here, too, it is important to first understand why you are reaching for potato chips in this situation. Is it a habit, and potato chips are simply part of a successful evening of television for you, or do you want to reward yourself with potato chips for a stressful week at work? Depending on what the trigger is, the procedure is different.
With habits, for example, you could work on consciously replacing potato chips with a healthier alternative in order to build up new habits. This won't happen overnight, but it is possible.
However, if you find that you are rewarding yourself with potato chips, ask yourself what other resources you have in your life besides food that you could use to do something good for yourself. A nice candlelit bath might also be an option.
What does it actually mean to have a "good relationship" with food? That I can eat whatever I want all day long without feeling guilty?
Eat without a guilty conscience, yes. But not all day long, but primarily only when your body craves it.
For me, a healthy relationship with food means that you can enjoy eating again, free from prohibitions, but that you pay attention to your body and its needs, i.e. that you don't constantly eat far beyond the point of satiety.
Can you give us a tip on how to build a healthy relationship with food?
with food?
As mentioned earlier, it's super important to work with bodily signals such as hunger and fullness if you want to get back to a healthy relationship with food. However, this is easier said than done, as many people hardly notice their physical signals, if at all. That's why the tip I'd like to share is aimed at learning to perceive these signals again.
Mindful eating is the absolute key here.
Finally, can you explain in more detail what you mean by mindful eating?
We often eat on the side, i.e. we eat and watch TV, read a book or type on our cell phone at the same time. However, humans only have a limited capacity for attention. This means that if we are doing several things at the same time, we are less aware of what we are experiencing.
So when we eat on the side, we hardly notice how much we are actually eating, let alone when our body tells us that we are full.
Even if it feels strange at the beginning, you shouldn't do anything else apart from eating in order to have enough attention for this process.
Mindful eating also involves consciously tasting and perceiving every bite. Focus on the taste, notice the individual spices, aromas and textures and take your time when eating. Chewing thoroughly also helps here. It is recommended that you chew each bite at least 20 times. And last but not least, consciously enjoying and celebrating your food is also part of this.
(The interview was conducted by Giannina Schmelling and Kerstin Kuchmetzki).
