Health Coaching - Session 2

Yesterday I had my second health coaching session with myself. It was a few days later than scheduled because of how crazy our last week of summer break was, but I actually think I will be better able to focus on my goals for the next 1 1/2 weeks now that 3 of my 4 kids are in school all day.

I do feel like I've been doing better these past two weeks. My eating hasn't changed considerably, but I haven't had as many cravings nor have I felt the need to binge (until today). And I ended up losing about a pound just from focusing on strengthening my relationship with God through scripture study and taking time for myself every day. And while I'm still really struggling to feel happy, I have been doing better mood-wise than I was before my health coaching session. So I'm seeing progress! Hooray! I have to remind myself when I am not seeing the results I was hoping for that I'm just taking this one step at a time. Even a little progress is still progress.

In yesterday's session, I decided that I need to make my marriage more of a priority. As I was thinking about all of the other things that I've been wanting to change or focus on about my life and particularly my diet, it occurred to me that maybe what's at the root of all of the issues I've been having lately is my struggling marriage. So for now I'm going to focus on showing my husband more gratitude, on sending him at least one message every day thanking him for something or letting him know something I appreciate about him.

I am also going to make it a priority to do a relaxation meditation for at least 5 minutes every day. I have been so stressed lately, and I can feel it in my neck and shoulders. I need to teach my body how to relax rather than holding all of that tension in. So I'm going to spend a few minutes focusing on relaxing each muscle in my body on a daily basis.

I also have decided to take a week off of dairy, which accounts for the binging I did at lunchtime today. I was afraid of feeling deprived by not being able to eat pizza and ice cream, so I went and bought a pizza for lunch today, along with some dessert bread sticks. I then proceeded to eat 3 or 4 pieces of pizza followed by several bread sticks. I will say, however, that I stopped much sooner than I would have in the past. So I still consider it progress. Also, the reason I'm going to cut out dairy is because my stomach has been bothering me so much lately, and I'm inclined to think that it's due at least in part to my dairy consumption. So I have high hopes that I will feel so much better once I've removed the dairy from my diet that I won't have any desire for it anymore.

Finally I'm going to keep a food journal for a while, just writing down what I ate, at what time, and how I felt throughout the day. I'm hoping it will be very eye-opening.

There are other things I "talked" about during my health coaching session, such as drinking more water. I would like to do better with that, but for now the emphasis is on my marriage and on meditation. Even the dairy and the food journal are going to take a back burner to those if need be.

My next health coaching session is only 1 1/2 weeks away. I'm excited to see what these next few days bring.

Todays stats:

body fat: (I actually forgot to check this today)

weight: 152.6 lbs

P. S. I pulled my goals sheet out of my binder and hung it in my closet where I can read it every day. What's the point of setting goals if I can't even remember what they are?

Health Coaching - Session 1

Wow! What a powerful experience this is turning out to be! I am really working to delve into what I as a client need most instead of trying to follow some generic outline that tells me what to talk about and what to recommend. What I really need most right now is help decreasing my stress level and learning to enjoy life. So this session's recommendations for me are to make time for my top two priorities (God and myself) every single day and to increase fruit and vegetable intake since I know good nutrition is a natural mood enhancer. I didn't do any specifics for this one because I really think the focus needs to be on relieving stress.

I had also created goals for this session, but after analyzing my needs and desires, I completely rewrote them to reflect my priorities. 

I am so excited about doing this! I don't want to have to wait a whole two weeks to have another session! I know that sounds silly since the session is just with myself, but this experience is giving me the opportunity to step back and look at my life from an outside viewpoint, and it's already helped me gain so much insight into myself. I foresee great things resulting from this. I'm already seeing improvements in myself, and I am feeling more confident in my abilities as a health coach as well.

Health Coaching 101

Does this health coaching thing really work? Can people really be helped by meeting with someone twice a month for 6 months to talk about their health? Well, I'm going to find out. While in theory I believe this is a good program, I can't in all honesty say that I have a testimony of it because I've never tried it for myself. But now I find myself about 40 pounds heavier than I was a year ago and not exactly looking the part of a health coach. So now is the perfect opportunity for me to test this theory. I'm going to be my own health coach for the next 6 months as I work to get into shape again. I'm going to give myself recommendations and then "meet" with myself every 2 weeks to review how I'm doing with those recommendations. I'm going to see if this really works.

As I go through this process, I'm going to really examine what works and what doesn't work in my program and start tweaking it where necessary. I feel confident that by the end of the 6 months I will not only be a happier, healthier individual but also I will have a solid health coaching plan that I believe in and that I know will be effective for those who come to me for help.

Today I am going to do a health history consultation on myself. I will report back as I go through this process, recognizing that there will likely be backslides now and then and the occasional binge here and there. But that's life. And that's going to happen. And I'm still going to be successful, even with my imperfections.

Todays stats:

body fat: 38.3%

weight: 153.8 lbs

I actually don't care so much about weight, but since % body fat is more difficult to measure on a regular basis (at least with any accuracy), I will include my weight to help gauge progress.