Stefanie Lekkas

Stefanie is now working with our sister brand Ayla Health.

Despite having the word “diet” in my job title, I take a non-diet approach to my practice. This includes understanding that people come in all different shapes and sizes, and that there is nothing wrong with that. It also includes working with people to build skills in mindful or intuitive eating, and, ultimately, focussing on a person’s overall health and wellbeing rather than encouraging a restrictive, diet-focussed mentality. It also means that weight loss is treated as a neutral side effect, rather than a goal. For an in-depth look at why, check out this article.

Whether your goals are around lowering your cholesterol or blood pressure, dealing with your new diagnosis of coeliac disease, managing your food intolerances and gut troubles or being at peace with your body and food choices, I’m here to help. All without judgement, all without hype.

If you’re looking to improve your health and would like assistance in how food and nutrition fit into that, or perhaps are looking to improve your relationship with food or body image, I’m here to guide you. Together, we can work towards small, sustainable changes that over time become healthy habits.

Stefanie can help you with:

General Health and Wellbeing – healthy eating, managing nutritional deficiencies, malnutrition, healthy ageing, HAES (healthy at every size) and weight-neutral practice, body image work and vegetarian and vegan eating.

Gut and Digestion – irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease, low FODMAP diet, food intolerances, food allergies, maximising and improving gut health, digestive issues (diarrhoea and constipation), diverticulitis, coeliac disease, and support for other gastrointestinal issues.

Chronic Disease – support for heart disease, stroke, and other cardiovascular disease, lowering cholesterol and/or blood pressure, type 2 diabetes management, gestational diabetes management, reducing insulin resistance, treating and preventing gout, fatty liver and other liver conditions.

Mental Health – disordered eating, managing emotional eating, support for depression and anxiety, food anxiety and stress, building a healthy relationship with food.

Women’s Health – polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), pregnancy and postpartum nutrition.

Family and Kids – healthy growth management for kids, healthy eating for families, introducing solids to your baby, feeding fussy toddlers and kids (including those with feeding difficulties).

Qualifications:

• Accredited Practising Dietitian (APD) with Dietitians Australia (DA)
• Bachelor of Food Science and Nutrition, Deakin University
• Master of Dietetics, Deakin University
• Professional Certificate in Medical Nutrition Therapy in Food Allergy and Intolerance through the Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Dietitians Australia
• Special training in mindful eating, body image and in a non-diet approach to nutrition care

Q&A with Stefanie!

What is your favourite food?

Clients ask me difficult questions all the time, but this has got to be one of the hardest! Choosing just one food as a favourite? ‘Tis bordering on impossible! But if I really, really had to choose, I guess I would say pastitsio, a traditional Greek-Cypriot baked pasta dish.

What’s your favourite cooking method?

Roasting – let the oven do the work, I say!

Why did you become a dietitian?

I have always had a passion for food and an interest in how nutrition plays into our overall health. I was discussing this with my health teacher all the way back in high school, and she suggested a career in dietetics might combine these interests. While I had never heard of a dietitian at that stage, it turned out this was exactly what I was after – a career where I could positively impact people’s health while getting to talk about one of my favourite topics all day – food!

What’s your area of expertise and why?

My areas of expertise are intuitive eating and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) involving food intolerances.

Regardless of whether a client comes in for high cholesterol, prediabetes, nutritional deficiencies or even gut complaints, there is usually more at play than just what is being eaten. The busyness of everyday life, our sense of self-worth and body image, and expectations from society all influence how we use and feel about food, so a relationship with food can become very complicated. The emphasis of my work as a dietitian is going beyond what we eat, to also focus on how and why we eat. Making long-term nutritional changes is difficult for most people, especially with the influence of a diet culture selling the lie that quick fixes are an easy way to instantly and magically make everything better. It doesn’t sit well with me that food choices are used to award us with moral superiority or feelings of failure. So instead, through a variety of non-diet approaches including mindful eating, I help place clients into the driver’s seat of their own body. This empowers them to make the decisions right for them, and avoid the dangerous cycle of fad diets.

One of the key aspects of this work, where we move beyond the what and delve into the how and why of eating, is a keen sense of curiosity. Curiosity naturally goes hand-in-hand with being a diet detective, which is exactly what it takes to nut out intolerances! Untreated IBS and undiagnosed food intolerances impact daily life and can complicate eating more than they should. I really love working in this area because the dietitian is a key health professional in getting to the bottom of the issue (no pun intended!), and I do enjoy being helpful!

What’s your philosophy when it comes to food?

Enjoy it! Food has so many different roles to play in our lives; not only is it a source of nourishment, but it also helps to bring people together and shape our cultural identity. It certainly isn’t there to make us feel shame or guilt, or to be a source of moral superiority. So, in a nutshell: eat, enjoy, and be empowered to keep moving with your life!