Craving Change: A How-To Workshop For Changing Your Relationship With Food

by Bob Montgomery

The Huron Perth Diabetes Program at the Stratford General Hospital is launching a new program that should have some appeal for just about everyone.

The program is called Craving Change – A How-to-Workshop for Changing Your Relationship With Food. Kylie Ward is a Registered Dietitian with the Huron Perth Diabetes Program. She says this new program takes an in-depth look at the relationship most people have with food and how it can be improved.

The program is broken down to four main section and the first section is Why It's Hard to Change and in that section Ward says they look at different influences. “We look at environmental impact, our own body and learned behaviours as well, for instance feeling a need for popcorn when we're watching a movie, so the first thing we look at is why is it so hard to change those behaviours.”

The second section is What Needs Changing and in that section they do a lot of reflection. “We build awareness on our personal eating triggers, we'll look at how we're feeling before we eat a food and how we feel after we eat a food and really try to understand how the food is impacting how we're feeling.”

The next main section is How Do We Change and this section looks at the fourteen different strategies for helping people change their behaviours and they hope that everyone finds something in this section that works for them. “And with this section, we encourage people to pick one and give it a try and if that doesn't work, try a different one.” Ward says this part of the program is called The Change Buffet because people can keep helping themselves until, hopefully, they find something that will help with their craving.

The final section might be the most difficult for some people. It's called Keeping the Change and in that section they go over changes that will allow people to be successful. “Here we talk a lot about creating goals that are specific, measurable and attainable.”

Ward says they don't discuss specifically about what to eat, when to eat or about diabetes medication. The program will be held in-person at the Seaforth Community Hospital on April 24th from from nine in the morning until noon. It's a free program but they do ask people to pre-register and they can do that by emailing Kylie Ward at kylie.ward@hpha.ca and she'll have work books ready for everyone that registers and they can take them home and continue to practice the activities in the work book.