“Your mission from a health coach is to eat a pint of ice cream every night before bedtime.”
Even if a word came out, I knew how ridiculous it was. But this was not an attempt at reverse psychology. It was an invitation to experience ice cream about what it is — exploring the pros and cons of considerable evening doses of sugar and cream.
Health coaches are not therapists, and well-trained coaches provide specific guidance only when requested, depending on the needs of the client. This particular client had already eaten a pint of ice cream most nights. She loved nightly luxury, but she hated the long-term effects on her health. She felt her deadlock and was looking for a solution.
As a Mayo Clinic and National Board of Review certified health coach, I’m working with people who are rather obsessed with the habits they want to lose and are interested in creating new habits.
“Every night, the whole pint, until we meet again,” I said. “Watch out for the moment and the consequences, and you’ll get a clear, guilty assessment.”
My client was involved in a classic struggle. Wake up with all the “best” intentions and set a set of rules on how to survive day and night. Decide in advance how much you will eat (when) and what gymnastics you will do. As the days go by, you become frustrated, abandon your goals in exchange for tomorrow’s promises, become very engrossed in anticipation of the next deprivation, and sleep soundly before redoing everything the next day.
To be clear, this was not an eating disorder as assessed by herself or her doctor. Unlike bulimia, which is a clinical diagnosis characterized by shame, food concealment, short-term overdose, withdrawal from friends, and meaningful activities that enable bulimia, it was paved on a rocky road. It was a rut. (If you are suffering from BED or other symptoms of an eating disorder, you can find help through the National Association of Eating Disorders.)
My client wanted an escape hatch from the unpleasant carnival rides of food culture. She wanted to be healthy, functional and confident. She also wanted ice cream to remain a part of her life.
“My client wanted an escape hatch from the unpleasant carnival rides of food culture.”
Over the last century, the traditional way to “get healthy” in the United States has been to set and exercise control to set and comply with rules that are believed to help achieve this elusive goal. There are two problems with it: (1) life is stressful and triggering, and (2) most people don’t like being controlled even by their own rules. They want autonomy, they want to make their own decisions at their own time, and they want to deal with stress in the way they think it is appropriate.
“Bad” habits are just coping mechanisms. And for those of us who are lucky enough to do a stable job in a relatively peaceful developed country, food is one of the most reliable “quick solutions” out there. It is easy to access and can easily give joy.
Trying to expel soothing balms in the flames of chronic stress is a recipe for frustration and failure, even if those balms don’t feel so good in the long run.
We were told: Stop eating late at night. Cut out all your favorite foods. If you don’t go well you are lazy and God forbids you simply not to like cooking. You need to control yourself! Send us self-care apps, trackers, diets and fitness plans that will turn you into a “better” person.
If the word of self-help landscape can be fossilized and crushed by the power of the Medusa snake, which makes a violent swooshing overhead, it becomes the word CONTROL. “Self-care,” which feels more like a prison than a step towards freedom, blindly returns the bounce back to the old “bad” habits.
No need to control. I need peace of mind. The way we find it is as unique as we are.
When I started as a personal trainer many years ago, I was hurt by my ex-boyfriend. I worked hard every day to keep my heart from shattering. I was dragged out of bed, furious at the gym every morning for an hour, and then jumped behind my desk for a temporary job.
It felt like a relief to knock his memory out of my body, but over time the routine began to feel like a trap. He owned my morning even after he was gone. Habits initially served their purpose, but eventually faced the choice of sticking to a tired routine, giving up and feeling like a failure, or respecting what it was and moving on to new things. Did.
I chose the latter and went hiking instead.
Throughout all this, I was stuffing myself at night: a bowl of homemade cookie dough and one big pizza. Food felt like another kind of relief, and I found that I didn’t get any benefit from trying to “control” myself. It put me in the idea of deprivation. There I usually shook from a ceiling fan with a box of crispy cream barks. Buzzkill, how about this? “
Again, I faced a choice. You can continue to eat reactively and hate it, keep stuffing and enjoy the comfort, or start looking for alternative ways to get the relief of the night.
I couldn’t decide. I knew I didn’t want to hate myself, but the other two options confused me. Was the food feeling good enough to justify the acid reflux and bloating pain? Maybe that was certain. I really loved the height of the sheet cake and fork (and still so). But what if there was another way to feel the same at night?
I need to investigate, to investigate, I deliberately to take root in old habits (and play with new habits) for a while, to understand what is “good” In addition, I had to eat with unjudgment and curiosity. And “bad” actually felt like. Having eaten that way anyway, I can also see exactly how the bowl of cookie dough and the big pizza felt in my body.
After all, it was unpleasant to be so full at night. It ruined my sleep. It didn’t feel good to abuse myself at the gym in the name of my ex-boyfriend who was absent. These truths are now trivial.
During that time, my clients faced all sorts of health challenges. Some had children and some had no children. I had lawyers, gardeners and designers, all of whom wanted to know the same thing. How can I change my bad habits and why do they change so drastically? They asked me to provide an answer, but I was a 26-year-old personal trainer and my food relationship was volatile. I didn’t have the answers yet, but I was keen to find them.
In the next 20 years of health guidance and personal training, I’ve found that prescription diet and fitness plans create rebellion for most people, which is often a quiet rebellion. If I made a plan for them, they didn’t tell me not to bother me. They took it home and printed it. They faithfully stuck it on the fridge or bathroom mirror.They blamed themselves I didn’t obey, but at the end of a long day, my intended instructions had nothing to do with them. relieved.
People tell me that they are always doing “wrong” things. They imagine that directing their bodies and impulses is the only way to change, but when I ask what they are trying to achieve, the answer is usually diet, procrastination, and low body image. Pain and distress, which is about discomfort, or freedom from the body.
In my professional experience, control is not free.
The rules can certainly provide relief, but only if they are established to meet the needs. They can serve as a kind of scaffolding to foster a thirst for new healthy habits, but the decision to follow the rules must be made over and over again each day. If it feels like a chore, how likely is it to follow through? The rules are very easy to follow when providing a hit of joy or relief.
Destructive habits are not personal failures. They are evolutionarily meaningful. People return to activities that relieve stress and suffering in the past. Research on behavioral changes is complex, but first, the most effective ways to change are:
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Gather evidence of what is important to you and why (in other words, identify what motivates you).
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Create conditions for easy access to new choices.
We need built-in, reliable and unbiased data to determine which routines enrich our quality of life, which routines undermine it, and which are useful and attractive options. The most reliable place to find data is the habit itself. They have a lot to teach us, but while they are silent and demonizing themselves, we cannot receive the message.
“What is the odds of following through if it feels like a chore? The rules are very easy to follow when providing a hit of joy or relief.”
She was full of apologies when my client returned a week after receiving the ice cream assignment. She was unable to complete her mission. The next night she knew another pint of ice cream was coming and she found herself happy with half or a third of the pint. She made her body talk and she actually talked like ice cream, but she found that she wasn’t as enthusiastic as she thought. The battle became fierce when she understood it — anyway, the battle for ice cream. She then robbed the fuel.
Most of the people I work with want to maintain the flexibility and joy of life, so we start by identifying what joy really means to them. .. For this client, one pint wasn’t.
She put “control” aside and put herself in a position to choose “good”, “bad”, or whatever she feels good about. Even if she didn’t follow the declaration she made the day before, she didn’t have to pretend to know in advance what choices she would make tomorrow. Without the threat of deprivation, the urge to pamper would have diminished.
Bad habits can be a lot of fun until the impact is worth the change. When that happens to me, I go straight back to bad habits until the desire for something new is indisputable. From there, I go looking for relief, and always find it with something a little gentle on my body.
It’s a scavenger hunt for satisfaction, and relief is just around the corner at the crossroads of health and joy.
If you are suffering from an eating disorder National Eating Disorders Association Hotline At 1-800-931-2237.
Sarah Hayes Coomer is the Mayo Clinic, a national committee-certified health and wellness coach and author. She writes a biweekly column for Forbes Health.Hey, health coach.. Sarah has spent almost 20 years helping nonconformists build personalized systems to support their health and relieve chronic stress. She has contributed to publications such as Forbes, HuffPost, Triathlete Magazine, Utne Reader and Thrive Global. Her books include “The Journey of Habits,” “Physical Disobedience,” and “Lightness of Mind and Body.” She lives in Nashville, Tennessee with her family and two rescue workers.You can find her www.SarahHaysCoomer.comInstagram @ sarah.hays.coomerOr Twitter @sarahhayscoomer..
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If you are suffering from an eating disorder National Eating Disorders Association Hotline At 1-800-931-2237.
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