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To continue the series I want to address the people who you will want to coach. If you are reading this series as a possible client you may see yourself in one of the categories mentioned.
First Timers
This is a group of folks that have decided for the first time in their life to really take on their health. They are ready to take an honest look or have been motivated recently to take care of themselves. Often one would associate this with age, but I see a trend that it is about awareness of their personal health condition. They may have recently visited their doctor, taken an honest look in the mirror, or even heard someone say something when they thought they weren’t listening. Something has them thinking about needing to make a change without any knowledge of how to get started, more or less to finish the journey successfully. They need someone with the expertise to do it right and teach them how to make it stick!
- Image by Getty Images via Daylife
Yo-Yo’s
I was one of these so I have particular affection for them. This person is someone that tries to lose weight, in fact often has tried many times. They may have had some measure of success. The hard thing for them is the ability to find it inside to try one more thing. Why would they think this diet would work for them, everything else failed at some point, why this one? They don’t understand why and they don’t know about metabolism and diet, they just know they have really tried and failed. They need someone that understands they are serious about it, they just struggle with something that keeps them from succeeding. Often they are the hardest to get to try again. They need an uplifting coach to believe in them and motivate them to give it effort and determination that this time they will succeed.
The Expert
Image by Getty Images via Daylife
This bunch is a hard bunch to even get to work with. They know it all. They have read every book. They have tried everything, and yet they have not reached optimal health. Another version of these wonderful people show up at trade fairs and run when they see a weight loss booth. They know nothing will work for them. I was also part of this group. I was convinced that nothing would ever work and that somehow I had messed up my body so bad that I would never be able to lose weight. I knew that there was no magic pill, no patch, no abs system, and it seemed like there was nothing that would work. If there was certainly I would have found it already, after all wasn’t I the real expert on what would work for me. This group has one question to ask them: Are you happy with the results you are getting now? If the answer is yes, they automatically become un-coachable. To be coach you have to be willing to admit you don’t have all the answers.
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No this is not an article on how to raise pot and lose weight, it is about growing your own food and getting some exercise while doing. An added benefit has been some quality time with both my wife and son as we work together to completely redo our backyard.
For the last 4 nights (with many more to follow) we have been working on moving what would be a dump truck load of dirt around the yard. Because our back yard was part of the Boise river many, many years ago, it is full of rock of various sizes. We have to shift the rocks out as we prepare it to go into some raised beds we are doing square-foot gardening with this year. There is also the digging out of spots to put the new sifted dirt into the raised bed area.
- Image via Wikipedia
Come to find out the approximate calories per hour for a 150 pound person (not me) is 350 calories per hour. For me it is closer to 460 but we will use the 350 number to illustrate a point. One hour of digging would then equate to the following food intake to put things into perspective: The numbers on the right under the Cals column are the calories per serving.
These numbers from Calorie Count at About.com
| Quantity | Description | Cals |
| 1.3 | Grande Starbucks Caffe Latte – Made with whole milk | 272 |
| 0.5 | McDonald’s Big Mac – With cheese | 704 |
| 4.3 | Glasses of wine (3.5 fl oz) | 79 |
| 1.2 | Snickers Bar | 273 |
| 1.6 | Cans of Coca-Cola | 207 |
| 11.3 | Carrots | 30 |
Translated, it means that it would take a 150 person two hours of shoveling to burn off a Big Mac or 1.3 cups of a Grande from Starbucks. We wonder why 15 mins on a treadmill and a few other exercises don’t cut it for weight loss. It all depends on energy in versus energy out. I tease my wife that each night I have earned the right for a donut. Truth is donuts are once in a while treats these days and figured into the total for that day. Unlike in the past where it was nothing for me to eat 6 or more in one sitting and eat the rest of my meals that day.
Lesson for the day, it takes a whole lot more effort to burn off calorie dense food than it does the few minutes that it takes to eat it.
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Yesterday was my birthday. It was a day of mixed emotions and feelings as birthdays normally are for me. My wife remembered as did many of my friends on Facebook. My son remembered by giving me an extra special dose of a hard time. My mother chose to be mad enough with me not to call so I had to deal with those emotions. Then at work the usual happened, I fell through the crack of the usual card and well wishes system we have there. All in all it was a very normal day, some sweetness, some sorrow and a lot of gratefulness for the good things in life.
But this morning I am reflecting on my own age and where I am. I am coming up on the first year anniversary of my 100 pound weight loss. The middle of April last year I went back to eating what I wanted and how I wanted. I looked at that this morning and realized after another year in my life I am in better shape than I was 30 years ago. I can do things that I couldn’t do physically and mentally. I am stronger all the way around. I have given myself the gift of life and as a weight loss coach I am able and willing to give it to others.
This time last year I felt like I had arrived. I had reached my big goal in life. Now I realize I am just getting started. This month alone I started working with three new health coaches. These people will join me in making a difference to people. Being there with them in a journey that can often challenge people to their core. The rewards are there each step of the way but it often feels like a hill that cannot be climbed. It is great to walk side by side with some one and say, of course you can do this, look how far you have come already.
Today then I am grateful for all the new friends I have. I am grateful for my journey even when that last step might seem a bit harder. And I am grateful that my spirit has moved me in the direction it has. I can’t express the joy I have being involved with so many good friends and people that are taking on the same journey. Optimal health is a journey, weight loss is just a beginning. Loosing weight is just the start of the search for better health and happiness. Come and join us!
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Seems to be a lot more written lately about if being slim means that you are in better physical condition. I find this question lacking in common sense actually. Why? Because it relates to the idea of physical fitness. Not to how you are doing physically. Over the years as I had become bigger and my obesity started to really take it’s toll, I was often more active than many people my age. Now looking at me you would not have guessed it because at almost 3/4 of my height inches around my waist. I worked out each week. Many of my friends did not. I would often work harder in group situations than many of the people that where thinner and even younger.
You could say I had more endurance than some, but still I wasn’t physically fit. I could not have run a mile to save my life. Three miles before work like yesterday would have been out of the question. First of all I could not have done 3 miles in one setting walking or running. Giving it my best still would have wiped me out for the day. So active is not always fit. And slim is not always active. How to measure fitness?
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1. Determine if you are talking medical fitness or endurance fitness. Medical fitness can be tested and measured as well as endurance fitness. Each one is a different set of tests. Medical fitness is measured with things like blood tests, having check-ups, body fat percentages, and various other measurements of healthy body. Put them all together and you have a measurable results that tells you if you are healthy or not. Physical fitness has other tests. Length of workouts, recovery, intensity, endurance, and the list goes on. It too can be measured and tracked. If physical fitness is not being worked on, it is dropping.
2.Decide what needs to change. If you are at your ideal weight (determined by you and someone you trust) than you may need to look at the other forms of testing. Are there areas of either physical fitness or medical fitness that you need to look at? Start working on them and perhaps you can combine the two for “optimal health”. If you weight needs to change, stop fighting it and work on weight loss. If you have no endurance then exercise and come up with a plan to change it. If you have no ideas, than ask for help. It is available here and many other place on the net. Make a change.
3. Lastly stop making excuses for yourself. I hear it all the time. On of my favorites is that BMI charts are old science and have no bearing in truth. So frigging what! Adjust it for your body type and muscle mass and figure out if you are in shape or get your body fat measured. Stop using it as an excuse for not doing the work to reach a healthful state. Same with exercise. Here it is I am too out of shape or it takes too much time. How will that change if you don’t change something? As far as time goes you can pack life changing fitness into 20 mins a day or less. So time is not the issue. Commitment is! Way out of shape? Start slow and keep ramping it up till you get where you want to be.
You are not too big, too old, too young, too timid, too out of shape or too anything to not change something to make an improvement. You may need some help to get started. You may need a kick start on your weight loss or your physical program. You may even need some one like our team to teach and encourage you. But you can do it! You can reach optimal health no matter where you are now. And optimal health is the best that your body can do for the condition it is in, not in comparison to someone else and their abilities.
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I often find myself giving doctors a bad rap when it comes to weight loss care and obesity treatment. I use my own experience and in the back o f my mind I start thinking “Well on all the other fronts he seems like a good doctor.” Then I run across something like this report included in this video and I am reminded that obesity is a problem on many fronts. One of which is fair treatment of the individual.
Imagine if you will walking into your doctor and telling them you have a symptom that may be extremely important if you where normal weight and they would run all kinds of tests to find out what was going on. The same symptoms on an obese person might get, oh that is just a symptom of your weight, loose some weight and lets see if it continues.
Take a look at the video clip …
Obesity doesn’t pay at the doctor’s office
Now we all know that not all doctors are the same. I don’t want to start another prejudice in this country we have enough as is. What I will say over and over again is if your doctor won’t talk honestly with you about your weight, find one that will. Do not go years with the idea it is all your fault and all you have to do is work harder and eat less. Also be wary when they go to the other extreme and tell you that you have no self control so the only answer is surgery or pills.
Find a doctor that will discuss your options fully and look at you like a regular person with a medical condition, not some one that they don’t want to take proper care of because they judge you as someone that doesn’t want to take care of yourself.
I want to thank the folks at Obesity Thunder Bay for their emails bringing this type of information to my attention. The more you know the better you can take care of yourself.
This last week was the first time in months that I was feeling so bad I had to take some time off from work and workouts. I came down with a cold or flu and just before that I had pulled something in my back during one of my last weight trainings. Reminder to self remember to stretch more. So imagine for a few short moments coughing and sneezing with your back spasms that would normally bring me to my knees if I could just get out of bed. That was just two days ago and this morning I was back up and walked out 2 miles.
No, I am no superman. I did have to dig in and find that hero I wrote about recently. I had to get back at it as soon as I was able. Why you ask? Well because it was the workouts and the weight loss that turned what would have been a full weeks worth of illness to just half a week. That’s right my recovery was faster because my body was stronger. It wasn’t hauling around an extra 100 lbs. It was not in the constantly worn down condition of no sleep and no reserves. When I got back there where still people out from the same or similar bug.
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I went and got my back adjusted as I had gotten it out of alignment. Feels much better today. Again a recovery that would normally take a couple of weeks before I would even think of going back to working out. In talking to the chiropractor we talked about recent vacations he had taken this last year and I commented that I used to think that action, fun-filled things like hiking and snorkeling where out of the question for me just one short year ago. That this last year I had hiked the Grand Canyon for the full day and loved every minute of it. I look forward to my next tropical vacation where I can get back in the water and enjoy the fish and swimming without feeling like I was going to run out of breath.
To answer the question I used for the title, I realized on my walk this morning that the way to recover is to start back at it. It doesn’t matter if it was illness or lack of weight loss that slows us down. It doesn’t matter that we are discouraged or feeling a bit let down. It matter how we overcome that feeling. It matters that we do what we can do. Last week it was keeping the hands out of the chocolate jar at work. This week it was going for a walk rather then slacking another day. All of it based on choices that stacked up over this last year that made it even possible to do it in the first place.
That’s right loosing weight and working out made me stronger and recovery was faster. Small price to pay to have along with it more energy and determination to keep going. What goal are you working on today? What are you willing and able to do to get there? Think about it and DO Something about it today!
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I had an experience yesterday that I won’t go into a lot of detail with, but I found myself severely disappointed and feeling let down. Perhaps you know the feeling. You work really hard during the week. You eat right, you work-out as planned, and you even pass right by that tempting desert. Yet at the end of the week you don’t see the results that you had great expectations for. Well this disappointment wasn’t weight related, it was people related. It also didn’t involve days, weeks, or even months worth of work. It involved years! Thank goodness I have had this last year to learn a few things. Otherwise I might have been even more crushed by the results.
- Image by ninahale via Flickr
First Lesson: No matter what you think the results should be, they are what they are. You have to dig down to find that hero inside to keep going. After all why do you do what you do? Is it the short term results or the long term journey that you are after. For instance in weight loss. Loosing weight and adding years to your life is a long term goal. In the scheme of things does it matter if it moved today? No what matters is your consistency of doing the right stuff to reach the long term goal.
Second Lesson: Don’t count on anyone else to get you where you want to be. After all they are so focused on themselves they might not even give you another thought. Now don’t confuse this with coaching and mentoring. They are essential to success. It is just a clear statement that if it is meant to be it is up to me! I will need to take the steps each day to achieve that dream I have. I need to stay on my purpose.
Last Lesson: It is not if there will be disappointments in a journey. There will days when it seems like everything is going as planned. The scale is moving, people are noticing, you are feeling stronger, and you make all the right choices towards your goal. Then there will be days that everything seems to go in the opposite direction. It is on the days that you feel like nothing is changing, you question yourself on if you will ever get there. Remember this one thing: “What the mind can conceive it can and will achieve.” Stay faithful to your journey and mindfully take each step. You will get there!
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