What Is a Diet Reset? Breaking the Cycle of Dieting

[Music] There is so much nutrition information out there. So welcome to Diet Notes. The weekly podcast hosted by Dietitian Susie Barrel designed to make your diet a whole lot easier. Well hello everyone. A little bit different from what I usually do in the world of podcasting, where I usually co-host the NutritionCatch podcast. And the first thing I will say is this podcast Diet Notes is not designed to replace the nutrition couch. The nutrition couch will continue. This is just a short Monday episode drop. I thought would be interesting to cover some diet issues I regularly see with my clients and give a little bit of in-depth content around a set topic each week. So we'll trial it for a few weeks through summer. See if there's much interest in it and then go from there. And that's a great thing about podcasting. You can try different things and reach different people. And it's pretty easy to pop them up. So this is the first episode I'm going to try. And we will see how we go. I'd love to get your feedback on it and see if you're enjoying the content and some of the topics you might like me to cover. So for those of you who I haven't met or come across before in the world of podcasts or nutrition, my name is Susie Barrell. I am a dietitian by trade and I have been a dietitian for coming up to 25 years, which makes me a lot older than I feel. Then I have worked as a dietitian in Australia for that long. By way of background, I had always wanted to be a dietitian. I studied dietetics and nutrition at Wollongong University. And I had done a double degree in psychology and specialised early in my career in sports nutrition, which was the reason I actually wanted to be a dietitian. I had seen a well-known sports dietitian in the media and thought that was a pretty good job. And I went on to work in sports nutrition initially when I was much younger, dad in Wollongong with the Lora Hawks, the St. George Lora Dragons, Parameter Eels, Sydney University Sports. And then I also had worked in childhood obesity at the Children's Hospital for over 10 years and developed an interest in weight control for adults and children. Started to work a little bit in the media. And then for the past 15 years have consulted myself. I see clients in practice myself remotely, primarily women for weight loss and working in hormonal conditions like insulin resistance and of course working in conjunction with the new range of weight loss medication. I write a lot in the media. I have a nutrition podcast and nutrition couch with the colleague Leanne Ward. And we have a supplement company called Designed by Dietitians, which has been going out for two years and is really targeting evidence-based supplementation for women. So I do lots of different things. I've always enjoyed that, dabbling and lots of different areas, but far and away the most fulfilling part of my work is working with women on their diet related goals. And of course that gives a lot of content and information for the media outlets and for our podcasts in educating a wider audience on all things evidence-based nutrition. I have a strong belief that anyone commentating in the media should be seen client because that is evidence-based scientific practitioner model training. I also feel very strongly that if you're getting nutrition advice, it should be from someone who is qualified to be giving it, preferably a dietitian or nutritionist who has tertiary qualifications or a university degree because when we're dealing with people's health, it is serious stuff and you need to be qualified to be doing so. So that is my goal with the podcast like this to make sure that information given is evidence-based and is ensuring that we are supporting optimal health and well-being across a range of variables, including medical variables. So the topics I'm going to cover on this podcast are really catered to what I'm seeing in practice at a particular point in time. I'm going to try some different themes and see if it's helpful to business. But the topic I wanted to launch in with this first episode was the idea of diet resets. And in the day, we would have talked about diet detox and detox is associated with kind of juice cleansers and extreme diets and that's certainly not the goal. Rather, reset has been a theme I have launched in January for the past few years. It has proved very popular with people who are looking to sort of judge their diet, moving into the new year. And I every year released a reset meal plan diet plan and this year it's a four week meal plan summer reset, which contains more than 40 recipes, a lot of content around mindset, self sabotage, setting yourself up for dietary success, product recommendations, meal plans and recipes. So you can find that at my website, suzibarral.com.au. If you are looking for more prescriptive dietary advice, I'm going to need to maybe lean up after the Christmas holiday period. But I wanted to also give some content around how you can reset and really start the year on the right track. So the main group of women and clients I'm seeing are really, really busy, they're overwhelmed, they're juggling work, children, family, they're a sandwich generation, they've got aging parents who are sometimes becoming more like children themselves and like myself, we feel pretty overwhelmed and diet, it's not that we necessarily don't know what to have or what to eat, but it's just another thing on a very overwhelmed to-do list. And so my goal is to make nutrition as simple as possible and rather than berate people and expect them to follow extreme diets or spend hours in the kitchen preparing food. My content is always around quick and easy solutions for busy women because in my experience, they are, they know what they should be doing, but they are just tired and exhausted and nutrition is down there, it's the priority. So it's about making it as easy as possible within busy, busy lives. So if you're yourself feeling like, got a couple of weeks now before the kids go back to school before I go back to work and I really want to make sure that I'm in a better place from a health perspective at the end of 2026 than I feel at the moment. The first thing I want you to prioritize in terms of your own reset this holiday season is I want you to consider when was the last time you went and had some decent blood tests done at the GP and really look at where you're sitting from a health perspective. Are you due to have a mammogram? Have you had a colonoscopy if you're over the age of 50 or if you're over the age of 40 and have a family history of bowel cancer? Do you know what your bone density is? Do you know what your estrogen levels are like? Have you got low iron? Is your cholesterol creeping up? Where is your position in the menopause journey? Are you peri? Are you menopausal? Is your testosterone low? Basic blood tests that sometimes we just put to the side and don't have time to either get or actually review and be managed appropriately. So somewhere in the next, if you haven't had a blood test in the last 12 months, somewhere in the next month or two, I want you to set aside half a day, a work day, a doctor's appointments faster, go and get a full blood profile. Now, if you're struggling to find the right doctor, message me, I can certainly point you in the direction of some amazing GP's across Australia or at least what blood tests to get to then take to a medical doctor, but basically you need the data and then you need a good GP reviewing it to see what is the next step. Now, in saying that whilst it's amazing to have a fantastic GP or endocrinologist or menopause expert, if you do not, don't forget how powerful dieticians can be in interpreting some of those results. So sometimes if I've got a new client who I'm working with, I'll give the list of the blood I'm looking at. And then I'll ask the client to go to the medical center, get them and then I can have a look at the results and then we can tell what is the next best referral path way. So don't forget that's the benefit of seeing dieticians. They can interpret blood tests and interpret them quite differently. So recently I had a client who had found the history of type 2 diabetes and I, when I had a look at her numbers, I was able to interpret whether that client would, in fact, benefit from a medication or whether she was managing it quite well on her own with diet at the time. So I said dieticians are very well versed in blood tests for you and that's the benefit of seeing someone qualified to do so. So that's the first step. It is setting yourself up, bit to the doctor, get your blood test laid up and be ready to go. That's the first step in getting your health on track for a healthy 2026. The next thing I would do is really take a look at your diet and think to yourself, how can I make it this year as easy as possible to eat well? Because I think some of us have been really programmed to think that we have to cook every meal from scratch. And if we do so, we're going to get extra bonus points in the world of nutrition. We shouldn't be using pre-cut vegetables. We shouldn't be used pre-crum foods. Basically, it has to be fresh and homemade 100% to be on track nutritionally. And I want to challenge that the leaf because whilst if you've got plenty of time to make home cooked meals from scratch every day, get to the fresh food market to buy, produce, shop each week, go to the butcher, fantastic. That's awesome. But it doesn't mean that you can't be healthy by using convenient options. So I argue that in busy lives, if you cook a piece of lean steak and fresh veggies, each night, fantastic. You've got the resources to have that available to cut and chop when you get home to make it taste good, and have the cooking skills fantastic. But you don't get more marks at the end just because you bought a packet of pre-marinated meat and threw it to the butcher. together with a salad bag from Coles. It's not like you bank extra bonus points for preparing everything from scratch. Is it better nutritionally? Slightly, but often it's not. Often it's very similar nutritionally. You're still taking the box on those key nutrients and you're enjoying flavors and meals that are easy to prepare. So I think there's a wide and growing range of quick and easy options out there that mean you can eat very, very well with minimal food prep time. So whether you're buying frozen fish, whether you're buying pre-marinated meat, whether you're sometimes getting a barbecue chicken and enjoying just the breast meat of it, you might be buying a pre-prepared pasta from a local shop using things like salad bags, pre-chopped vegetables, marinades that you get from the shop. There is nothing wrong with doing that and you can eat very well because there's this belief that as soon as you see something that's processed, that it's instantly bad and challenging nutritionally. And often when you take a closer look at those numbers, they are very still strong nutritional products. So I think if you have a general motto of things that have a relatively short and gradient list, if you're using simple salad dressings or marinades to make lean protein, taste good, if you're using vegetables that have a sauce on them, which means that you'll eat more of them, the benefits outweigh any negatives. And I think that's where a lot of food guilt comes from that we feel we think it has to be a certain way, whereas that is just not the case. That is not how nutrition works. It's about consistency with our food intake rather than perfection. At the irony of that is I'll see people who perceive they're eating well and doing everything from scratch and then very happy to go and drink two bottles of wine or order pizza on the weekend. So you can see there's that real black and white thinking you're either on or you're off as opposed to consistency, which leads to my third point, a successful dietary shift. It is about the consistency as opposed to being perfect. So time and time again, I'll see clients who will eat what they'll describe is perfect for the first, you know, two thirds of the day before getting over hungry in the afternoon and then over eating or over indulging or evening because they are tired. So it's about that consistency and not being on or off a program. And that means just backing up and taking each meal as it comes rather than getting much more in a head about what we should be eating. And that's where I find clients are psychologically managing their food intake as opposed to listening what's going on in their body. So they're thinking that's what they should have and then inevitably are not satisfied with that. So keep eating anyway. So if you're someone who routinely starts the new year in a way you would describe as on track or eating well or being perfect, what I want you to practice is taking each meal as it comes and just focusing on consistency rather than perfection. And if you have a meal where you eat too much or it's not balanced or you find yourself at an event and there's not good food on hand, I want you to practice getting back on track with a healthy meal the next day rather than being on or off a program. So really focusing on that consistency rather than perfection. The fourth point that will make an ultimate difference when it comes to your overall health and wellbeing and something that we really focus hard on in the 30 day reset summer program is focusing on building a meal plan that you enjoy. And again, when I talk to people online or I have clients start a new program, they want a meal plan. Always, that's why reset does well. It's got meal plans in it. But the issue with a meal plan is that if it's not written for you, you're following someone else's meal plan and you may not really like it that much. And that's why it doesn't become consistent because you may enjoy having a glass of wine every night or you may prefer to have a higher carb meal early and then not have dessert. Or you may have a real sweet tooth so you need to factor in foods that you actually enjoy eating. Or you might party regularly so you need to be quite strict in the week so you can have the extra calories available for the weekends. Which is why building your own plan and using certain guides to do that which might be higher protein foods, high fiber foods, enough fresh food, these are the diet foundations we all need. But what we actually want is to you to develop a plan that suits you. And ultimately, you can work with a professional like myself to do that. But ultimately, only you can decide how you like to eat. And as such, that will also be a key thing. I want you to really consider before you embark on a new regime what's going to suit you most when it comes to eating. Do you love to eat out and really indulge once a week? Could you give or take alcohol but you love chocolate? Do you really enjoy foods like pasta and pizza and want them party your day to day plan? Do you feel unfulfilled if you don't have potato at night? What is the key aspects of a meal plan that will be sustainable for you? And that will be the key thing moving forward. Otherwise, you'll be again, on and off someone else's program following a meal plan short term before reverting to your old habits. So questions to ask yourself are, what do you like eating for breakfast? When do you feel most satisfied at lunch? Is it with a hot meal? What makes you feel fulfilled at dinner time? What's a meal that you're looking forward to eating? How often do you need to treat yourself or are you treating yourself too much if you're getting honest with it? So all those things are be considered but developing a plan that suits you and that you like is paramount because if you don't, again, you will be on and off a regime before you know it. And then the fifth and final aspect of resetting your diet for good. And this is perhaps one of the hardest skill sets to learn but one of the key predictive variables is that I would ask you or you committed to what we call hunger-based eating. Because so often, particularly when you've been someone who's been on and off a diet for your entire life, you will be eating according to your head and not your body. And that is where we know you're disconnected and probably overeating at times because you're satisfying what you think you should be eating and then you're actually not satisfied so you eat more anyway. Whereas what we want to achieve is someone who is eating according to their natural hunger, which should differ because like following a meal plan, often clients will want to know how many calories they're allowed to consume. And that is a really open-ended question because there's no rule with that. Some days we might need a thousand calories and then other days we may consume 2,000 just by chance. So if I tell clients that they're allowed to have 1,500 calories, well, they'll eat that regardless of when they'll need them or not and that is ultimately the definition of non-hunger-based eating and eating with your head and not your body. And that it inevitably leaves us in a cycle of gradual weight gain and that's why we're 5, 10 kilos heavier throughout our 40s, 50s and beyond is that we eat in our head and then we of course eat in our body. So how do you get focused on hunger-based eating? And the first thing to do is really always consider if you are hungry at all because many of us for many reasons are eating on auto-Q. We eat because it's breakfast time, we eat because we're scared of being hungry, we eat because nice foods aren't off-art, we eat because everyone else is eating, we eat because we're scared of getting hungry, we eat because we're allowed to, we enjoy eating, we eat when we're stressed, we eat when the tired, very, very rarely to eat because we're hungry. And that may sound so counterintuitive but just simply asking yourself each day, how hungry am I is a good starting point. As a rule of thumb, we don't want you to be ravenous when you're hungry. 9 or 10 is when you'll be bingeing and eating everything in sight because you blood glucose is low. Rather, you want to be about a 7 to 8 of hunger and you can certainly practice this and trial it and say when you wake up in the morning, am I really hungry? I'm a six, well maybe I can wait an hour until I get that real Google in my stomach. And then the other aspect of it is ensuring that you eat according to what you feel like, not what you're allowed to have. So for example on a meal plan, I might write someone can have two eggs the size of toast and a coffee for breakfast, but if you don't feel like that, you can eat it and then you'll still be craving the fruit and cereal anyway. So how can I not only eat when I'm hungry but eat what I feel like and something that will fill me for at least two to three hours which is what a balanced meal should do. Whereas often we eat too little and we're eating an hour or two later or because we haven't had what we're actually feeling like or we're overeating and then eating for several hours later and then of course overeating again. So that's a very simple starting point as you kickstart hunger-based eating. How hungry am I? Could I wait an hour? What will fill me up until my next meal rather than snacking constantly? And then actually what do I feel like and how can I balance that out with the right macaroon nutrient ratios of controlled portion of carbohydrates, good quality carbohydrates that will keep us full? How do I get enough protein? Where's my fresh food? So rather than having eggs on toast, where's my tomato, where's my spinach? How do I bulk each meal up? So it always has that balance and will fill me then for three to four hours not just a couple. So I end up snacking again an hour or two later. So it sounds simple in practice but as you can imagine, after years of eating according to our head and not our body, it can take a certain amount of time to reprogram and understand that calories are not stable. Some days we need very few and some days we need a lot more and that's the natural cycle of eating rather than it being a target where we're always trying to reach it or give ourselves permission to eat because we've got calories in the bank. So that is a very brief start of where if your diet needs work, you can reset. First of all, you want to get a baseline health data where are you sitting and what do you need to work on and what are some positive outcomes for your health and wellbeing? You want to work on consistency, not perfection. You want to develop a meal plan that you like and you want to commit to hunger based eating. These are all steps that will take you into a good place. managing to learn how to balance your nutrition long term. And if you are looking for some more guidance or more in-depth information on that, do check out my new four-week reset plan, which is at suzibarral.com.au. We really discuss a lot more of those in detail, and yes, there are meal plans, but there are also guides on how to develop your own type of meal plan so that it becomes consistent and sustainable for you. So I hope you've enjoyed this first launch into Diet Notes with Suzy Barrel. As I said, I'm going to just cover a topic in depth each week on a Monday to launch into all things good nutrition, particularly for women. Have a good week, and I'll see you same time, same place next Monday. Thanks for listening. [MUSIC PLAYING]