CityView Magazine

FEATURE C Eat Neat A dietician shares her tips for healthy dining By kelly twedell arla Caccia spends a lot of time talk- ing about food. As a dietician for Cape Fear Valley Health System���s Health-Plex, Caccia helps members get on track towards finding healthier choices that will work in their lifestyles. But nutrition means more than just eating healthy food, Caccia said. She also educates. She plans two nutrition and health education events each month for both Health-Plex members and non-members. Past events have included recipe demonstrations, grocery store tours or just workshops. One of the many skills that Caccia helps others to develop, and a technique she uses in her counseling, is called ���mindful eating���. This includes noting when you are full during a meal and determining when you want food because of true physical hunger or if the craving is due to what she calls ���head hunger.��� ���Sometimes we are not hungry but we want something warm or crunchy,��� Caccia said. She explained that mindful eating is about evaluating your habits and working towards your personal goals and choices. Triggers that occur with eating can be environmental, emotional or based on past habits. 46 | January/February ��� 2013 Many of Caccia���s clients bypass cravings and bad habits by using smartphone apps. One popular one that tracks a host of information each day is called My Fitness Pal, though Caccia is quick to say that she does not endorse any particular fitness or nutrition app. ���I don���t recommend reliance on external cues, but counting and numbers can bring awareness in the beginning of the process,��� Caccia said. In some cases, she explained, that counting and tracking numbers might not be helpful if food and eating is tied to a negative emotion and causes you to beat yourself up if you indulged over your given caloric value intake that day. Furthermore, what works for one sex might not work for another, she said. Men and women are talk differently about food and feelings. Research has shown that women are likely underestimate their food intake by 30 percent, even when tracking their consumption in a food journal or on an app because of the guilt or shame they feel about overeating. The different approaches men and women have toward nutrition can make getting healthy difficult when someone who is trying to get healthy is part of a couple. ���I���ve seen when in a relationship, one person is more on

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