Yes, it’s a new type of therapy. You look at food, yes, every single thing you are eating, and boom, there are your issues.
Sounds odd I know, but a session with Perth based psychologist, Doctor Katherine Iscoe and a subsequent week of keeping a food diary helps you gain a deeper understanding of who you really are.
“Mots of us are at war with food, and it should not be the case,” Dr Katherine says. “We should not have stress around food, and keeping a food diary for a week helps you understand not only what you are eating, but why you are making the food choices you are. People very quickly see connections with what they are choosing to eat and how they are feeling and where their emotions are at.”
So I had to send Dr Katherine text messages with images of everything I ate, from my daily coffee to lunch and all of those sneaky snacks inbetween. It was far more confronting than I expected. And yes, I made lots of choices in line with how I was feeling. I drank wine when stressed, skipped meals when I was overhwhelmed and don’t drink enough water.
The message Dr Katherine is sending is to throw out the diets, the detoxes and the quick fixes, and make conscious food choices for a more balanced mind and body. It actually makes perfect sense, but like many things that make a lot of sense, it’s not that easy to instigate without someone like Dr Katherine supporting you through the process.
Dr Katherine is certainly qualified to give advice on eating. With a bachelor, master and doctorate degree in Health Sciences and over 20 clinical papers and abstracts to her name, Dr Katherine is also an exercise physiologist and is the recipient of multiple awards in recognition of her academic excellence.
Her approach is the ‘Forever Approach’ which has seven key pillars she says we need for a healthy and happy mind and body. They are nutrition, activity, sleep quality, stress levels, state of health, state of mind, and state of satisfaction.
The key message is we can’t have a healthy body without a healthy mind, so we need to deal with ourselves holistically, not quick fix approaches.
After just one session where we talked about all of the different aspects of my life, I learnt a lot about my children, my approach to mothering, my friends and felt super positive about a lot of the choices I have made and continue to make in my life.
After a week of a food diary, we had a Skype session, and I left feeling enlightened and really, really positive about my world. She’s the kind of person I’d love to check in with once every 6 months.
