Aoife Hearne Donal O’Donoghue meets the popular dietitian in her Waterford home
When Aoife met Agi on Operation Transformation the sparks flew but the dietitian says she was only preaching what she does herself. Donal O’Donoghue talks family matters with Aoife Hearne
“Some people thought that I was disrespectful but that was never my intention,” says Aoife Hearne, the Operation Transformation dietitian, of her TV moment when she clashed with Agi, the wife of leader, Cathal, back in January. “I was invited into their home to talk to Cathal and give advice and that was what I did. Maybe there was a misunderstanding or perhaps some things were lost in translation. We have chatted since and the air has been completely cleared. But it was a good talking point about how we feed our children because I do believe that children should be, as much as possible, eating the same food as adults.”
Aoife Hearne is feeding the youngest of her three children when we call at her home in Waterford city. Baby Zoë’s happy face is smeared with yoghurt, with Aoife wielding the spoon and the nine-month-old grappling with slices of apple. The floor around the high seat is surprisingly spotless. “I furiously cleaned it before you arrived” admits Aoife, a thoroughly organised person, as anyone who watches Operation Transformation will know. Her spick and span home – books neatly stacked on shelves, family photographs arranged on the wall – tell the story. Yet even with her super-efficiency, the arrival of Zoë just upped the ante for Aoife. “Some say that the third child just slots in,” she says with a rise of her eyebrows. “That didn’t happen for us.” On screen it has also been an eventful season of Operation Transformation. Apart from Aoife v Agi, we’ve had Taoiseach
Leo miffed with his metabolic age (the 40-year-old was clocked at 53) and Jean Tierney’s incredible story, who, following the tragic death of her little girl, Sloane, and a miscarriage, had to bow out when she discovered she is pregnant for a third time. There’s also a new doctor in the OT House (Sumi Dunne replacing Ciara Kelly), a new location for the weigh-ins (Bremore Castle, Balbriggan) and a new hi-tech weighing scales, the Body Composition Analysis Scale. For Hearne, the latter was the real game-changer. “The scales gave us a much more detailed picture,” she says. “And the message is important: it’s not just about losing weight, it’s about losing excess body fat and maintaining if not gaining muscle.”
An important message is: one family, one meal, one kitchen table
Dressed in a pink top and sporting trendy purple-framed glasses, Aoife talks like she used to run (a former national champion at 60m), ten to the dozen, laughing occasionally and animated with facts and stats. This August she will turn 40, so she was mightily chuffed when her metabolic age was recently clocked at 24. “I was worried after having the children,” she says of her health. Dylan has just turned four, Alva is 2 years and 9 months and Zoë makes more noise than all five (Aoife is married to Alan). But that’s family life. “Eating together as a family is very important for us,” she says. “When Pamela (Swayne, OT leader) said to me that she was considering selling her kitchen table because they never eat at it, it blew my mind. So an important message for me is: one family, one meal, one kitchen table.”
A believer in tough love, Hearne is probably toughest on herself. “Yes,” she says with a self-conscious giggle. “I have certain standards that I dream of achieving. But exercise is virtually non-existent for me right now. After Dylan was born, I got Pelvic Girdle Pain (PGP) so I haven’t been able to run since, so I will be walking the 5k in the Phoenix Park with Cathal.” Before the birth of Dylan she also worried that she would not be a good mother. “I’m an only child and hadn’t been around kids before, really,” she says. “But your maternal instincts do kick in and having trust in yourself is the most important thing. I surprised myself and I learned that being good enough was good enough. You don’t have to be the perfect mother.”
As with all her children, Hearne breast-fed Dylan, who was “an easy baby”, sleeping and feeding on cue and without any great hardship. “You can be lucky with the baby that you get and sometimes you can take credit for that when really you’re just lucky,” she says. “After a while and with two more, it does get easier in that you don’t worry as much. I always tried not to wrap them in cottonwool too much but it can be hard when your baby is sick and you’re wondering when should you take them to the doctor. You don’t want to be that person running in all the time, but you also don’t want to be the neglectful parent either. It’s a tough balance and you’re always learning.”
Aoife grew up in Waterford, a short hop from her current home, the only child of Martin and Corinne. “I now understand why I am the way I am in that I didn’t have siblings and didn’t have to share,” she says. “Maybe I focused more on what I wanted because that’s what it’s like when there’s just the one.” And in the beginning all she wanted to do was run, for club and country, with her father as her coach. Following her Leaving Certificate and a secretarial course, (“handy for typing”) she was offered a sports scholarship to University of Rhode Island before transferring after two years to the University of Tennessee where business ceded to nutrition studies in the second semester and that was that.
Back in Ireland, Aoife met her husband, Alan Kirwan, through her work as a dietitian with Ballygunner hurling club (Alan was team captain at one stage). They married at Faithlegg church on New Year’s Eve 2012 and she became pregnant two years later. “I was never one of those people who always thought they were going to be a mother,” she says. “But when I met Alan it was something I knew I wanted and I always wanted more than one.” By then she was already established as a dietitian, having graduated with a BSc and MSc in nutrition, and set up her own practice. In 2014, following the departure of Dr Eva, Operation Transformation called and a star was born.
So what is the biggest myth or misconception about diet? “The word diet,” she says without equivocation. “The notion that to lose weight, you have to follow a diet. The key is to eat little and often and stay connected to your hunger and fullness. Eating enough to maintain your metabolic rate and how many calories you burn is really important. It has to be a sustainable long-term weight loss.” Hearne, who published her first book, The Plan (recipes and advice for healthy living) in 2016, has an idea for a second. “When Zoë came along, the question ‘what’s for dinner?’ was driving me bananas, so that gave me the idea for the book,” she says. “It will be all about how to make it easy to get food from the supermarket onto your kitchen table as a tasty meal.”
The other big job – put on hold following the arrival of Zoë – is a new home. Next March is the start date for their ‘forever home’ which will be built on the lands of Alan’s family farm. “We have a great architect, Alan is an engineer, I have lots of ideas and we watched Room to Improve and Grand Designs,” she says. “With so many moving parts, the key is that it all works and in that respect a big laundry room was vital.” Is her upcoming fortieth birthday a big deal? “I haven’t thought about it too much,” she says after a short pause that suggests she might. “When I was younger, I thought 40 was old, but it’s not really. To be honest I’m not trying to think too much about it but I will celebrate it. I will have a party, that’s all I know.”
In the meantime, life goes on in a home with a lot of “moving parts”. As we leave, the washing machine is beeping to be unloaded, the kids need to be collected from play class and down on the farm it’s calving season. There is a family holiday planned for Prince Edward Island in Canada this summer, meeting up with old college friends. But long before that is the imminent final week of Operation Transformation and Aoife too is intent on her own transformation, joking (maybe not) that she might hire OT’s Karl Henry to get her up and running. “Everything revolves around sleep,” she says. “If I can get some more sleep . . .” As her voice trails off I reckon that if she ever did get a full night’s sleep, there would be no stopping her.
You don’t have to be the perfect mother