If you go to the website of her practice -theharleynutritionclinic- there is more press on there. Also – something you might be interested in – Hala is actually launching a website in a few weeks called “Nutrition Rocks” http://www.nutrition-rocks.co.uk/ which will be trying to ignite people’s passion for health, fitness and good food – trying to get people to improve their attitude towards food and eating and also improve body image and self-esteem. So there will be lots of content on there if you are interested in reading more about it all. Have a great day.

Maybe it’s the “don’t” word that got me.

And I’m not a great fan of WW. I’m very very cynical about the corporate stuff and wouldn’t touch their food for anything. But it’s not a bad place to start if you can’t afford specialist help and want to begin the journey to a saner relationship with food and body. I’d certainly recommend it over any other meeting based programme.

Anyway- I’m very happy for you to set the record straight and I hope that someone gets the help they need because you bothered. I’d be interested to know more about what Hala El-Shafie offers. Has she written anything that’s available to those of us who live a long long way from Harley Street? Thanks!

You have taken a very small passage of text out of an article – this hardly illustrates the extent of Hala El-Shafie’s clinical technique or viewpoints. I used to be one of Hala’s clients and what makes her so amazing as a nutritionist and dietician is the fact that she looks at not only your eating behviour, but also your sleep and mood behaviour – and tries to target the psychological issues underlying your eating. It is so much more than just saying “eat less” but it’s very hard to demonstrate that in a small article.

You give credit to diets such as Weight Watchers – but that has exactly the same ethos as what Hala El-Shafie said: eat a range of food and have treats, but have smaller portions – hence why you have to weigh out specific amounts of food!

I really appreciate how hard losing weight is and I too get very irritated by those who just say “don’t eat” and don’t take into consideration your lifestyle or feelings – but I really don’t think this is what was done in this article.

I think we are kindred spirits. I do believe that there are some things that one can figure out, lessons to be learned, mistakes not to be repeated. And I do this in the hope that, once that work is done (and, in my case, a long bout of retraining to get me back to where you are now), then it will be possible to live a normal life. Won’t it? Otherwise, it will be losing, gaining, losing, gaining, and making those cute little charts AND feeling horribly guilty because one is supposed to lose 2 pounds a week. Or so they say.

I can’t count the number of times I’d find a diet where “Step One” was to take someone’s “regular” menu that added up to, say, 2500 calories and, with just a few simple changes (switching skim for full fat milk, cutting out the banana split and substituting a 1/4 cup cottage cheese, etc.) you’d be down to 1200 calories and halfway to nirvana. But I didn’t have a typical menu. I didn’t eat three meals a day. That approach would have worked for me in high school, but not now.

I’ve been doing this very slowly. I lost 36 pounds over a 15-month period, ending last year about a year ago. I’ve lost only 2 pounds since. BUT I had a very stressful, challenging year and I did not regain, nor did I “slip back” into the old bad habits I’d been able to break. I count that as a victory, and — finally — have realized that that’s the map to winning the war. It’s guerrilla warfare, picking off the snipers and clearing out each little band of saboteurs until there are none left, and then I’ll be ready to sit down and have a cup of coffee (no cream, no sugar) with Ms El-Shafie.