From the Health Coach: It’s Not Your Fault
by Helen Hamlin, health coach
www.helenhamlin.tsfl.com
I was recently invited to write an article for the DeKalb Bar News to address the real life challenges that legal practitioners may struggle with on a daily basis in regard to maintaining or regaining personal health and wellness. Many of you may occasionally experience fatigue, headaches, exhaustion, brain fog, lack of stamina and any number of other issues that are causing you not to function at your very best.
You have studied long and hard and worked for years to reach this point in your career only to find yourself suddenly facing serious health issues that affect your performance, and ultimately your life. Hopefully, within this article and in the months ahead, I can share some of the knowledge that helped me understand how to stop the weight loss-weight gain cycle and to encourage you to reach inside yourself and realize that you can have your busy life and you can have good health and, most importantly, you can take control.
As I began thinking about my approach to this article and how I could make it specific to the legal profession, I realized that you are struggling with many of the same problems that most Americans are struggling with. You may spend long days in a court room, or surrounded by papers, depositions, filings, etc., but basically we are all in this yo-yo merry-go-round world together! Many of us don’t know what we can do to manage this downward spiral.
Two years ago, I became frustrated with my own mounting health issues, the increasing “need” for medications, and an overall sense of unhealthiness. Fortunately, my medical doctor recommended a program that basically saved my life. It was based on a simple premise – if you can eat six times a day, you can do this (believe me, it is a lot simpler than it sounds!). Once I made the commitment to regain my health by following this balanced meal program, I succeeded in losing 40 pounds and made the decision to share this wonderful program with others. I am now a trained health coach helping others the way my coach helped me.
I partnered with Dr. Wayne Scott Andersen, author of a wonderful book called “Dr. A’s Habits of Health” by sharing his wisdom and common sense approach to permanent weight control and optimal health. Dr. Andersen was a critical care physician who spent more than 80 hours a week working in the intensive care unit, scrambling to keep patients alive. Most of his patients were in the critical care unit as a result of obesity-induced disease. To make a long story short, he left the reactive end of the medical profession and set out to find a way to help people at the front end of illness rather than waiting to see them after all the damage had been done.
The first step is to understand why we do what we do. When was the last time someone told you that it isn’t your fault that you are struggling with your weight? Nobody ever says that, because we all assume others can better control their eating and exercise efforts! However, I am willing to bet that you would breathe a sigh of relief to finally be able to blame someone or something else if you have a weight problem. I know that when I first heard this, I was all ears! But as I heard what was behind that statement, it was a real “aha!” moment for me. I finally found an explanation that made a whole lot of sense, beyond the standard line, “eat less, move more.”
If you think way back to a point thousands of years ago, humans searched all day long to find enough food to keep up their strength just to survive. They had to be very creative in their quest for survival. This included hunting for their meat (no drive to the closest grocery store for them!). If the season was right, they sought out berries, fruits and vegetables (no roadside fruit and vegetable stand in sight). They ate roots that they had to dig for. And cooking? Well, if they had access to water and the conditions were right to build a fire, they were really fortunate!
When they wanted to travel, they built some sort of flotation device or hiked to their destination. If they were about to become a larger animal’s dinner, they had to run like the wind or climb like a monkey to survive. It was all about survival and a continuous fight against the elements. No wonder they were lean and mean. No high cholesterol or high blood pressure in those genes!
When they were able to find food, they ate it all. Sound familiar yet? Fortunately, their bodies were amazing storage machines made up of billions of fat cells which enabled them to stay alive until the next food find. Without their ability to store energy so efficiently, we would not be on this earth today!
Well, guess what? Our bodies are still designed the same way, but over the years our lifestyles have dramatically changed. We hop out of bed in the morning, throw down a cup of coffee and are in the car to start our day. We have meetings and busy schedules that keep us distracted, and if we are lucky and can find some time, we also have easy access to food. However, this does not always result in our making the best choices. Someone brings in donuts or it’s Bob’s birthday and it would be rude not to share his birthday cake; let’s not forget that candy bowl over on Mary’s desk! We go all day long, not really giving a second thought to the food choices we are making. When we finally find the time to “grab a bite” we are so hungry we tend to eat something quick and easy, perhaps a little something from the vending machine?
Our days are spent being physically inactive and full of stress. Before we know it, it is time to head for home and have dinner. Too tired to cook a well-balanced meal, we hit the drive-thru or we stop at a restaurant and consume something delicious, with little thought to the nutritional value. Then we either continue with the work we’ve brought home with us, or sit down to watch TV with the family.
At the end of the day, we have expended small amounts of energy, and taken in numerous calories. The body doesn’t know what to do with these calories, so it stores them as fat. As the days, weeks, months and years go by, our middles get bigger and we begin to develop health issues: high cholesterol, high blood pressure, Type II diabetes, depression, insomnia, etc. The doctor prescribes medicines to combat these issues, and it becomes a vicious cycle.
So when they said it isn’t our fault, it really isn’t – to a degree. Once we understand that our bodies have not evolved to accommodate the lives we live today, it is so clear why our nation is facing this national health crisis – obesity! We are fortunate on one hand, to have all of the conveniences and access to a bounty of wonderful fresh foods. We are also faced with the unfortunate fact that great profits are being made by companies manufacturing foods that are easily accessible to us, but have little or no nutrition. We must learn to make wise nutritional choices and learn portion control and get our bodies in motion!
The true challenge today is to make a commitment to ourselves to achieve the highest level of health and wellness that we deserve. When we do this, we are finally on our way to becoming the lean mean fighting machines that our bodies were designed to be.
Having personally witnessed clients moving quickly and safely to a healthy weight and seeing them go off many of their medications because they are no longer needed, I truly believe that this program is saving lives. I am committed to helping people regain their health by helping them learn to follow this balanced meal plan and gradually add activity to their lives. It is well worth the effort – you are worth it!
In the coming articles, I look forward to sharing some simple hints that you can easily incorporate into your busy lives to start moving in the direction of health and wellness. Be good to yourselves and be well!
Helen Hamlin has been a Take Shape for Life Health Coach since 2009. She can be reached at helenhamlin1@yahoo.com. Learn more at www.helenhamlin.tsfl.com.