DIET | DETECTIVE^®

Heather Bauer is a Registered Dietitian specializing in the interrelation between eating habits, metabolism, and lifestyle. Since 2001, the has offered private diet and nutrition counseling through her New York city-based nutrition practice, Nu-Train.

Ms. Bauer received her RD from the University of Wisconsian and started her career in the pre- and post-natal nutrition unit at Maimonides Medical Center in New York, and as a nutritionist at Equinox Fitness Club in New York.  She is also the author of The Wall Street Diet (Hyperion, 2008).

Name: Heather Bauer, RD, CDN

Birthday: (can be without year)

Location: New York City

Website: www.nu-train.com, www.wallstreetdiet.com

Diet Detective: Hey Heather, thanks for answering our questions. How did you get in to the nutrition business?

Heather: I always loved food and eating.  I loved to read about food and I was always interested in nutrition.  My interest in food and nutrition really grew when I made the connection between what I ate and how I performed as an athlete.  I was an athlete growing up – a competitive runner – and it gradually became obvious to me that there was a strong association between what I ate and how I performed.  It seems like an obvious link but most of us ignore it!  It was natural for me to make the connection between food and performance a career.  After I finished school I started working with busy, overworked, stressed out people at a New York gym and I realized that I could not only help them reach their weight goals but also help them feel better and be more productive.  The truth is that I’m more interested in the “people” part of nutrition than the hard science: it’s the combination of food and psychology that I find much more interesting than the chemistry of it.  The science is exciting and widely available today but the trick is to make the science work for you.   It’s important to know how many calories in a piece of lean chicken or how tryptophan will affect your brain chemistry but it’s more satisfying to see those facts translate into someone being able to finally lose weight or finally feel energetic all day.  That’s my goal.  The satisfaction I get from helping people is tremendous and I think

Diet Detective:  Can you tell us a bit about the Wall Street Diet – what makes it unique and different from the plethora of diet books out there?

Heather: The Wall Street Diet is a lifestyle book.  The original title was “Live Your Life, Not Your Diet”.  The publishers didn’t like that title but it still describes what my book is.  Most diets are created starting with an ideal of what people should eat.  You have to change your life to follow that plan.  Often these plans are unrealistic and impossible to follow in the long term.  Often they’re set up for a week or two with some gesture to “maintenance”.  Sometimes they’re also unhealthy. 

I took an opposite approach.  I saw every issue that made my clients fail on diets in the past and created strategies to cope with those issues.  Very few people have never been on a diet before.  Most of my clients have been on four or five or more.  And they all work.  Until something happens: a celebration, a business trip, a work deadline, a vacation.  Busy people need a plan that works with them.  Here’s an example: Many of my clients entertain for business.  They routinely have one or two drinks daily.  Many diets tell you that you must give up alcohol if you want to lose weight.  My clients told me that they simply would not give up their cocktail or their glass of wine.  (I refer to these as “non-negotiables”.)  So what’ the point of telling people they can’t drink if you know that in their everyday life, they’re going to.  That’s building in failure.  Instead I give strategies and guidelines so you can have your ‘non-negotiables’ but still lose weight by eliminating something else from your diet that matters less to you.

The busier you are and the more hectic your life is, the more effective this book will be for you.  You don’t have to be a Wall Street CEO – I have plenty of stay-at-home moms whose lives are as hectic as any international lawyer’s or business executive’s.  The point is, if you need to juggle your time and you can’t always predict or determine precisely what your next meal will be, this book is for you.

Diet Detective:  What makes it so difficult for people to lose weight and keep it off?

Heather: Most people can lose weight but they can’t keep it off.  Anyone can lose weight.  It’s not that hard.  But keeping it off is tough, particularly if you have a busy lifestyle.  Roughly one percent of my clients come to me without ever having tried a diet before.  90 percent are successful reaching their weight loss goals.  Why does my diet work when so many others have failed for people?  It’s because it’s geared to everyday, busy lives.  I always ask my clients what diets they’ve been on and why they didn’t work.  The reason is always that something happened or changed in their lives that made it impossible to follow the diet.  They started to commute, to entertain at work, to have kids….  The diets they were on didn’t teach them how to live in that world. 

It’s easy to diet if you can stay at home and cook all your meals and have a regular schedule and have no food in the house except healthy low-cal foods.  But how many people live like that? If you have kids, if you travel, if you eat out a lot, if you are in situations where you can’t choose what you’re eating…. Well of course you’re going to have trouble keeping weight off unless you have strategies.

Here’s an interesting example.  I met an elderly woman recently who looked fantastic – slim and trim.  I complimented her on her appearance and she told me that once upon a time controlling her weight had been hard for her.  But years ago she made a recognition: if she never, ever snacked and only ate meals, she could stick to her best weight rather easily.  It was a simple strategy but it worked for her.  This is the type of strategies I share with readers.  Simple decisions that you can make that will last a lifetime.

Diet Detective: What’s different about being busy that thwarts our efforts to stay fit?

Heather:  Do you know anyone who’s not busy?  The truth is that real life is about juggling.  I don’t know anyone who wakes up in the morning with nothing to do but go to the gym and cook special meals.  Everyone is running to beat the clock.  It becomes difficult if you’re trying to follow a particular plan that requires you live outside your regular routine.  You may be able to do it for a while but sooner or later you’ll find yourself in an impossible situation and you’ll “fall off” your diet.  When that happens, no only do you lose ground in terms of your weight loss goals, but it also makes you feel bad and defeated.  You need strategies at your fingertips – a voice in your head, as my clients call it – to help you navigate the challenges of daily life and still eat well.  That’s what the Wall Street Diet is, strategies at your fingertips. 

Diet Detective: Tell us about carrying an emergency eating pack? What should we put in it?  

Heather:  I recommend that my clients create their own personal emergency eating pack.  They might want to keep it at the office, in their briefcase, in their carry-on bag for travel.  They can rely on it whenever healthy food isn’t available – while traveling, at long meetings, etc.  The basic emergency eating pack would include:  One nutrition bar (no chocolate or vanilla coating) that’s under 200 calories, Fiber Rich crackers, peanut butter packets (between 100 and 200 calories), Baby Bel light cheese, one liter bottle of water.  Of course this would vary depending on personal taste.  I give alternatives in my book.  And, by the way, lots of my clients travel with Fiber Rich crackers in those plastic soap dishes.  They fit perfectly. 

Diet Detective: What’s the best grab-and-go-meal?

Heather: Of course it would depend on whether you’re looking for lunch or dinner and it would depend on whether you’re at home, in an airport, at a highway rest stop….  I give lots and lots of specific top fast food and restaurant picks in the book for all these situations.  But most people feel it’s a big relief to just know that a great, healthy lunch or dinner can be a turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread with mustard and lettuce.  You can grab this most anywhere – a deli, a diner. 

Diet Detective: What was the most interesting nutrition concept you’ve found in the last few years that would surprise us?

Heather: Don’t worry about exercise!  I tell people to forget about exercise and focus on diet.  I can’t tell you how many of my clients come to me and say they simply can’t or won’t exercise because they have no time and/or no desire.  They’re so discouraged about exercise and always being told that they must exercise that they use it as an excuse to avoid dealing with weight issues. 

Of course exercise is important and most of my clients find that once they lose a few pounds, they find time for exercise.  I exercise every day and ideally it’s an important part of everyone’s routine.  But I understand that some people really, truly don’t have time to exercise and this lack of time leads them to put better health and weight loss on the back burner.  While it’s true that you can always control your time, it’s also true that you can always control what you put in your mouth!  So focus on the eating first and the exercise will follow.  Don’t let anything stop you from making your next meal a healthy meal.

Diet Detective: What do you consider the world’s most perfect food? [Please be specific and try not to answer with a category but rather with a specific food item: for example, not “whole grain” but “raisin bran cereal”?]

Heather: In general, a variety of foods is critical to good health.  I don’t think there is a most perfect food.  Food tastes are so individualized.  Some excellent foods like turkey for example would not be a good choice for a vegetarian.  Eggs can be an excellent food choice but for some people they’re too high in cholesterol.  Mallomars are a pretty perfect food in many ways but they do have some serious drawbacks! 

Diet Detective: Tell us the biggest secret that nutritionists typically don’t tell their clients, but should?

Heather: There are a lot of slow losers out there. We’re not robots. Most people don’t lose 2 pounds each week until they reach they’re goal. Some people won’t lose weight until they’re on a plan for a month.  That’s why some people live their lives chasing different diets because they’re not on one diet long enough to see results.  Persistence pays: you have to give a diet at least a month.  You have to be patient.

Diet Detective: How do you get a body by Heather Bauer? What do you need to do each day?

Heather:  Embrace who you are as an eater.  In the book I talk about figuring out if you’re a Clean Plate Clubber or a Controlled Eater. You can’t change who you are as an eater.  I’m a Clean Plate Clubber.  I can’t be trusted with peanut butter.  I’ll eat a whole jar.  So if we have any in the house my husband knows to hide it from me.   It’s important to learn the strategies that apply to your life.  For most people the single most important can do to help lose weight is to plan ahead.  What’s your day going to be like?  Where/when are you going to have lunch and dinner?  When are you going to have breakfast?  What about snacks?  It’s amazing how important snacks can be.  Some people tell me they’re just too hungry to eat well at meals: they stuff themselves.  That’s because they’re not snacking properly.  Breakfast is critical. If you’re not hungry for breakfast it’s probably because you’re eating too much the night before.  You don’t have to eat breakfast the minute get up: some people find it works best for them to delay their breakfast.  That’s fine. But you can’t skip it.

Diet Detective: What are your hobbies?

Heather:  I have a brand new daughter and so my free time these days is all about spending time with her.  I love to be outdoors – to run and hike and bike and ski. 

Diet Detective: Which historical figure can you relate to most?

Heather: Marie Antoinette who famously said: “Let them eat cake”.  This advice would create a huge audience for my book.  She also had a fabulous wardrobe. 

Diet Detective: What’s your favorite “junk food?”

Heather: Where do I begin?  If I’m craving sweets, I like Mallomars and anything chocolate.  On the salty starchy side, I like French fries.  For a dual purpose food, there’s always chocolate covered pretzels.  (Can you tell that I’m a true Clean Plate Club eater?) 

Diet Detective: What’s your favorite healthy breakfast?

Heather: I tend to be a Phase Eater.  In the book I talk about Phase Eating.  It’s a great strategy for busy people.  You just pick a breakfast or lunch that you like and is healthy and stick with it.  Research shows that more choices mean more food consumed.  Phase Eating and is easy and it works.   Right now for breakfast I’m having Greek yogurt with a half cup Kashi Go Lean cereal mixed in and a few strawberries.  In the winter I may have an egg white omelet or oatmeal.

Diet Detective: Who do you respect most, or who motivates you?

Heather: I really respect my grandfather.  He was a Holocaust survivor who came to this country with nothing.  He learned the language, he built a business sand created a really rich life for himself.  He had to overcome terrible loss and start over and that’s such a hard thing to do.  It’s difficult for me, in my happy, comfortable life, to imagine what he went through.  As for someone who motivates me, I’ve always been very self motivated.  I had to struggle with learning issues in school.  I had a diagnosed learning disability and many people felt I wouldn’t go anywhere.  Having to always work harder than most people and then seeing any measure of success really motivated me. 

Diet Detective: If you weren’t a nutritionist what would you be?

Heather: I can’t imagine being anything else.  I love what I do.  The satisfaction I get from seeing people change their lives is incredible.  There really is no better gift in life than helping others.   It was always my life dream to have my own business, to be a mother and juggle it all and I feel I’m living what I’ve always wanted.   

Diet Detective: What do you do to reduce stress/relax/center your mind? Do you participate in an organized relaxation activity such as yoga, meditation or tai chi?

Heather: I run.  I also do yoga.  I take yoga classes in my neighborhood.  I also do Physique 57.  It’s a combination of stretch, yoga, Pilates and core strengthening.   I love it.  It’s great for the body. 

Diet Detective: What was your worst summer job?

Heather: I worked in a high school cafeteria at one point as part of my professional training.  The combination of having to deal with hungry, high-energy high school students while wearing a hairnet was perhaps the most challenging and demoralizing work I’ve ever done.  My hat (and hairnet) are off to cafeteria workers of the world.  

Diet Detective: What’s your motto?

Heather: Live your life, not your diet!! 

Thank you!!!!

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