Holistic Nutrition Researcher
Founder
Whole Person Integrative Eating
Phone: (415) 324-4158
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.integrativeeating.com
Deborah Kesten, MPH, is an international nutrition researcher, award-winning author, and medical/health writer, with a specialty in preventing and reversing obesity and heart disease.
Kesten is the founder of the Whole Person Integrative Eating, a science-backed program for halting—even reversing—overeating, overweight and obesity. Her latest book is the award-winning Whole Person Integrative Eating: A Breakthrough Dietary Lifestyle to Treat the Root Causes of Overeating, Overweight and Obesity.
Question: What was your motivation for writing Whole Person Integrative Eating?
Answer: My motivation to write Whole Person Integrative Eating is based on the deep compassion I feel for the millions who struggle with their weight. Most of us know the disheartening stats: As I write, almost 70 percent of Americans are overweight and obese. At the same time, close to 50 percent of us are “on a diet.” Yet millions continue to struggle with weight, and the obesity pandemic continues to soar.
As a holistic nutrition researcher, I was acutely aware that so many grapple with food-related conditions—from overeating and overweight to heart disease, diabetes, depression and more. With this in mind, I wanted to create a scientifically sound, dependable, new recipe for weight loss success; a way of eating that transforms peoples’ relationship to food, eating and weight so they can lose weight and keep it off—with a pleasurable, positive relationship to food, eating and weight. For life. Not by dieting. My Whole Person Integrative Eating (WPIE) program does this and more.
Question: What is the concept behind WPIE.
Answer: The paradigm-shifting, well-researched message in Whole Person Integrative Eating is that when you nourish yourself multi-dimensionally—physically, emotionally, spiritually and socially—you are empowered to halt, even reverse, overeating, overweight and obesity. In other words, with our “whole person” ingredients at your table, you will have the tools to re-envision and transform your relationship to food, eating and weight and, in the process, find true nourishment.
Question: What are the root causes of overeating?
Answer: Here, I’m presenting the overeating styles to you in the order in which they predict overeating—from strongest to weakest:
1. Emotional Eating—Turning to food to manage negative feelings, such as anxiety and depression.
2. Food Fretting—Dieting. Judging food as “good” or “bad.” Over-concern about the “best” way to eat.
3. Fast Foodism—A diet of mostly fast, processed, fried, high-calorie food.
4. Sensory Disregard—Not savoring scent, flavor, colors, etc., or “flavoring” food with loving regard.
5. Task Snacking—Eating while doing other activities: working, driving, watching TV, etc.
6. Unappetizing Atmosphere—Eating in unpleasant psychological, and aesthetic surroundings.
7. Solo Dining—Dining alone more often than not.
Question: What is the Sensory-Spiritual eating style?
Answer: To understand Sensory-Spiritual dining and its WPIE link to weight loss, health, and healing, recall that WPIE encompasses a relationship to food and eating that nourishes “all of you” each time you eat. A closer look at the Spiritual Nutrition facet reveals three elements that include eating with:
1. Mindfulness. Bring moment-to-moment, nonjudgmental awareness to each aspect of your meal—reduced their overeating and lost weight.
2. Appreciation. Appreciate food and its origins—from the heart.
3. Love. Savor flavors, aromas, colors, and the mystery of life in food.
The WPIE takeaway is this: In the large national sample of 5,256 research participants (RPs) in our study on WPIE, the more RPs replaced the new-normal overeating styles discovered, with all the WPIE antidotes—including the three ingredients of Spiritual Nutrition: moment-to-moment mindfulness, heartfelt appreciation and loving regard—overeating lessened and the more weight they lost.
Question: Is there anything else you would like to add?
Answer: Today, our WPIE program is the first integrative, “whole person,” scientifically sound dietary lifestyle to treat the root causes of overeating, overweight and obesity.
To jumpstart you on the WPIE dietary lifestyle, I want to share three steps to take now to reap the weight-loss and optimal-eating rewards of WPIE.
1. Discover your overeating styles by taking the “What’s Your Overeating Style? Self-Assessment Quiz” in WPIE. It will tell you your trouble spots, and give you instant insights into the food choices you make, and eating behaviors you have that are leading to overeating and weight gain.
2. Prioritize your overeating styles and decide which one you want to work on first. For instance, a formally overweight woman I coached, who lost weight and has kept it off for more than six years, decided to begin to replace her Unappetizing Atmosphere overeating style with a beautiful place setting. Start with what’s important—and manageable—for you, personally.
3. Put WPIE into action by practicing “The WPIE Guided Meal Meditation.” I created the WPIE Guided Meal Meditation to empower you to turn Whole WPIE into an actual practice, so that each time you eat you nourish body, mind, and soul, and in the process, up your odds of losing weight and keeping it off.
