Health Coaching, Well-Being and A Working Model up scuttled.

For the last number of years, I have looked upon my life very much as an interesting and fascinating ongoing experiment.  The psychology (how the mind works) of my own performance, good, bad and very often neutral has been at the centre of this curiousity.

While this for the most part has been subjective, as a psychologist I tend to measure also and one particular aspect of personal interest was how I exercised and the relationship between exercise, food and body weight. I have kept count of calories burnt in exercise. I even have an app, (MyFitnessPal) to keep count.  I have kept a record of my weight for a long number of years now.

All of this has been based on a working model which I embraced from a very young age. It is the income / expenditure model.  I have never dieted.  From my army days, I have exercised very vigorously until relatively recently.  If I had exercised for eight hours on a mountain, then, I had earned whatever number of calories which went straight into the bank.  I could then use this credit in whatever manner of eating and drinking that I wished.

It should also be noted that never having dieted, I also never considered what I was eating except that I knew I would eat and enjoy almost everything, with perhaps the only exception being sheep’s tongues.  Food is such an important part of our lives and indeed mine that I went to the trouble of learning to prepare and cook some interesting foods and meals which I later cooked and served in my Restaurant.

I have always looked on food as another language which was of considerable benefit on my travels.   I have found myself in more kitchens around the world making friends through showing an interest in how other people prepare their food. The best human stories and the best understanding of the human condition can be found in kitchens. I later found out in my restaurant that one of the most demanding environments in terms of performance is to prepare food, to a very high standard, consistently, for paying customers. Try it someday and you will get a better practical understanding of your own performance.

But to return to exercise, food and body weight, the value of keeping a record and writing it down for later referral is that you can see trends and patterns. The compelling trend to be observed from my personal recorded data, was that despite maintaining a regime of vigorous exercise, my body weight was increasing on average about 14 pounds per decade to a high point on January 1^st of this year to 264lbs. (18stone 12lbs)    This was from a base line of 218lbs when I was playing competitive rugby at 25 years.

In order to become a good coach, it is I believe important to develop the capacity to self coach; that is to “walk the talk” as it were in awareness, of how you tend to explain your thinking, emotions, moods, behaviours and actions.  This is at the heart of your working model(s) of your world.

While I could observe the upward trajectory in body weight as described above, no amount of exercise seemed to have a beneficial impact. In fact, in April 2010, for the first time since I was an officer cadet all of 35 years ago, I prepared all my kit for a 5 day trek around the Dingle peninsula, covering 90 miles in 5 days, cooking and living out as I went and carrying all my equipment and provisions for the 5 days.  When I returned after burning all those calories, I had not lost one pound.  I was the same weight as when I had started.

Fast, forward to the early days of January this year and my eldest daughter arrived home to announce that, for her own reasons, she had paid a visit to weight watchers. She described something which was not a diet, which focused on enjoying your food, but which changed the emphasis and balance completely. It was not about necessarily giving up anything but rather eating mindfully.

Mindfulness is a subject close to my heart. The evidence emerging as to its beneficial application to many aspects of performance is increasing but I had never really understood its application to mindful eating.

What has this meant?   Well, it has meant that the insights of psychology sit well with mindful eating. You need to prime yourself positively. You need to make choices. You need to change and rearrange some of the unhelpful patterns of behaviour. You need to practice good habits.

In my own personal practical experiment this has meant (much) less mayonnaise.  In fact a jar bought at Christmas which would ordinarily last a week, is still in the fridge.  In cooking terms this new approach has meant less Marie Rose sauce or garlic mayo on the wedges and less mayonnaise on the sandwiches,  It has also meant (much) less butter, cheese, bread, potatoes, cream, oils, vinaigrettes and fried stuff.

In a (coaching) conversation with my daughter a few core things stuck. If it doesn’t have a mother and if you can’t pull it out of the ground then don’t eat it.  Fruit and vegetables of all sorts are zero heroes and provide the filling.  The strange thing is that I don’t feel hungry. It is also curious to report that I can now really taste and in a way which I didn’t for quite some time, enjoy the flavours, the textures and the lingering delights of all the food I now eat.

Finally, what has all of this meant in measurable, quantifiable terms? Since the first of January to this date, I have, without any drama, lost 23lbs.   This world is by no means perfect and there are times when the extra glass or two of wine or slice of cheese cannot be resisted but the working model has been up scuttled and replaced with one that is more likely to serve me well into the future. The experiment continues in curiousity and in thanks to my daughter who has coached me to a new working model and who is a better coach than she currently recognizes.  Thanks love!! We all need a good coach.