Health Mistress
Diary of a Life CoachLosing it, the final hurdle
If you’ve ever lost a significant amount of weight you will know the sense of achievement and satisfaction that you experience. Everyone you see congratulates you (some girlfriends do so through gritted teeth, whilst willing you to eat cake) and generally you feel like the sacrifices you have had to make – like kidding yourself that fat free yoghurt is actually a tub of Ben and Jerry’s, was all worth it. I met up with a friend the other day who has lost a stone and a half over the last 6 months. She looks fab (but then I think she always has done), but with just a few pounds away from her holy grail on the scales her willpower is starting to wane. You might also be all too familiar with the feeling of the last hurdle – the last few pounds that no-one else genuinely thinks you need to lose, but is important to you. Your body may have reached a plateau – often because your metabolism has cleverly adjusted to your intake of calories (damn that ruddy metabolism) or you may have just remembered that you do actually love cake (1 nil to the girlfriends).
The worst part is that suddenly you’re scared that you will wake up fat one morning. You don’t want to hear people telling you how good you look because you are worried you can’t sustain the weight loss, and the pressure is just too much. You feel like you’ve lost all sense of control which just encourages you to reach for….more cake.
So how do you lose the last few pounds? Well the truth of it is that you probably don’t need to and it’s your body’s way of telling you this, but you don’t want to hear that, and I’m all for striving for personal goals as long as they are healthy and realistic. The first thing you need is to break that mental cycle you’ve entered of being scared of food, but cannot think of anything else. The likelihood is that you have forgotten what the carrot was in the first place, so it’s probably time to remind yourself of why you wanted to drop a couple of sizes. Was it to kick ass at your ex’s wedding, kick ass at your own wedding, or just have a kissable ass in those skinny jeans you bought o
n impulse 5 years ago that you have never managed to squeeze into. Give yourself a break and focus on maintaining the weight for at least a month, this way you won’t be restricting yourself so harshly, both physically and mentally and you can allow your metabolism some time to behave itself. You will stop being scared that you will grow an extra muffin top in your sleep and stop dreaming about eating muffins or anything that might have some kind 
of carbohydrate content at every waking moment. Concentrate on exercising, and up the amount you are doing – this new focus will help you to feel good about yourself and tame the insanity that has crept in. Then when you’re feeling ready again you can crack on with losing the final few pounds – if by then you actually believe you need to!
Stress Address
One thing I have realised this week is that no matter how much you are the master of your own time, if those around you are chasing their own behinds, your neatly
planned day is likely to be screwed. I will admit that this turbulence I have been experiencing in my meticulously scheduled days (yes the word anal may spring to mind) has really knocked my bubble of tranquility sideways. In plain old English (or American if I choose to use spell check) I have been feeling stressed this week, which has caused my concentration levels to drop to those of a gnat’s teenage son, my appetite for thigh growing food to rise, and I’ve even been struck with what I can only assume was a tension headache. Having coached many people with stress, I am well aware of what this gremlin can do to you if it’s allowed to take up residence so I knew my ‘episode’ was a 
loud and clear message that some hardcore strategising was called for and maybe some candles.
My habit is to plan each day, usually the night before, by writing a to do list, prioritising and then slotting times in for each task throughout the day – allowing for breaks of course. This has not been working, because I have been relying on other people I have delegated things to. Instead my day has been littered with nuisance phone calls, erroneous emails, and generally chasing other people’s tails. I DON’T LIKE NOT BEING IN CONTROL! Let’s face it, who does like being out of control, so I have found a way of finding an oasis of calm among the chaos.
My carefully planned day now allows 15 minutes distraction time for every task – to answer and deal with any incoming missiles. This way I am not gutted when I have not ticked off my entire list, but instead get to feel smug when I do extras.
I take a deep breath before answering the phone and close my eyes whilst talking so I can concentrate on what they are saying, therefore saving time and energy.
I have discovered the joys of using ‘flight mode’ on my phone when I have needed to concentrate on a particular task (if I switch the phone off I can’t access my notes and calendar, but if it’s only on ‘silent’ I am still aware of invasions). In fact, I have rather taken to ‘flight mode meals’ which is proving to be a digestive aid. This way I control when people feature in my day.
Possibly the most powerful of all though is drawing 10 deep breaths and stretching before I start each task, which gives me super powers enabling me to concentrate and put things into perspective (and see through clothes, but I’ll write about that another time). Breathing is so underrated – if you find yourself yawning, did you know it may be more because you are forgetting to breathe properly and therefore inviting stress into your body?
I write this because we humans are clever things and we can start to get used to a certain state and adapt accordingly, but there is a roof to how much stress your body will cope with. If you allow stress to start nesting, before long it will have you by the goolies and then it can be very difficult to find who you once were.
The flaw of attraction
As a life coach I am a big one for positivity and pushing out negativity. I’d like to think I am not of the happy clappy ilk, nor the perma-smile-take-your-money type exposed by the likes of Louis Theroux, so when I was first introduced to The Secret, I was a little sceptical, but of course interested. I will be honest and say that the film grated a little, but the essence of both the film and book excited me. I have experienced in my career and personal life the power of self belief and anything that inspires people to look for the silver lining is good by me, but I have a bit of beef with The Secret. Recently I have had clients come to me and say ‘The Secret says if you focus, everything will come to you’ and this is where I take issue with the law of attraction. Yes things may just come to you if you keep yourself in the right frame of mind – my friend lost her favourite cardigan once and typed it into some website which asked the cosmos for it to be returned. Lo and behold she found it underneath her sofa cushion. I don’t mind saying that the thought crossed my mind that in the time she had tapped her request into said website she might have looked properly around her flat, actually lifting things, but I like to keep my friends so didn’t put my thought out there.
For the sake of providing evidence for this blog I did think of locking myself in a room for 2 days and focus
sing on one of my short term goals to see if it came knocking on my door, but the fear of only being able to think about Noel Edmonds was too much, so I will draw conclusion from my professional experience instead (just for the record, Noel Edmonds is NOT one of my short term goals). Yes, the power of focus is phenominal, and so focussing on the positive is common sense in my mind. However, there is not much point in focussing if you’re not taking action – that’s called coasting rather than living. To put a health slant on this, if you’re dreaming of slender thighs, sure you should stop looking critically at your tree stumps in the mirror, and start 
focussing your attention on fitting into those skinny jeans. However, if you sit on your derriere eating cake whilst ‘focussing’ on your slim pins, the only thing knocking on your door will be an extra serving of cellulite. However, put yourself into a positive frame of mind and get excited about the gap between your legs being around the corner, whilst actually executing your sensible eating and fitness plan and motivation will be on your mind. Of course if something is completely out of your circle of control (and I mean there is really nothing you can do to influence the outcome) then listen to Noel and go open that box!
Guts
Don’t worry, despite its title, this post will not gross you out! According to research out today by Yakult, us Brits are going with our gut instinct in spite of being in an information overloaded society. It’s an interesting thought, as the fundamental law of life coaching is not to actually tell someone what to do, but facilitate them to tap into ideas deep down within them that they might not have accessed before. A big part of that will come from their gut instinct.
These statistics may be due to the fact that as a society we have bigger guts (particularly prevalent 
in the summer when those I’m referring to are always the first to remove their T – shirts), but actually I think we are just bombarded with so much information that it actually makes it harder to make decisions, so we resort to basic instincts and our super internal computer. I genuinely believe that when I make a decision that has come from my gut instinct I am more likely to see it through and not stress about it - which leaves me with a more settled feeling in my tummy…which brings me back to Yakult!
App-rehensive…
They say an apple a day keeps the doctor away, but I have to say that I would tend to disagree. Of course I am cleverly playing on words, and am referring to the non crunchy version which we seem to have become addicted to. I am in Barcelona this week and having been at the Mobile World Congress (which is basically a playground for kids in suits) researching health apps, I feel I have reached mobile overload already.
Don’t get me wrong I love, and I mean ‘Love’ with a ca
pital L my iPhone, and quite irrationally have no idea how I lived without one. I get minor panic attacks every time I mislay it (in the bottom of my magic handbag), I have now wrapped it up in cotton wool (or at least a hard black, makeup covered case) in case I break it again, and I will defend it’s honour to the hilt (even when for some bizarre reason it keeps losing 2 minutes in time). Let’s face it, some women who don’t have kids get cats, I’m practising on baby ‘I’.
I knew it wasn’t good for me, because news reports told me so, but I have been in denial for quite some time as to how much daily stress it probably causes me. My concentration span is pretty much limited to about 1 and half minutes. I answer emails from 6am to 11pm. I look up 
everything I feel I don’t know, even if it interrupts something important I’m doing. I feel guilty if I don’t reply to text messages within 2 nano seconds – and think ill thoughts of those who don’t reply to mine immediately. I even follow yoga moves from my inflexible friend.
I AM A LIFE COACH AND THIS IS NOT HOW I AM SUPPOSED TO BEHAVE!
The thing is, I’m not sure if I am even able to wean myself off it, I think it’s going to have to be a cold turkey jobby with support from fri
ends and family. So the first step will be to take a weekend day off, preferably when the whole world won’t come crashing down around me without my unwaning attention. As ‘app’- rehensive (another fabulous play on words there, in case you didn’t spot it) as I am about this experiment, I’m really excited about the prospect of really switching off for the day, for the first time in ages – don’t want to end up looking like this dude after all…
Like quitting smack…really?
Coffee has always been a big part of my life. When I was a child I used to look forward our weekly food shopping trip as this always resulted in a coffee and cake at the cafe in Sainsburys. This was in the days before Starbucks and Cafe Nero existed, we hadn’t even heard of a cappuccino and certainly wouldn’t know if we wanted it skinny, dry or with sprinkles on top, it was just wet and usually whitened with uht milk – we didn’t know any better. Coffee was only for takeaway if you were a truck driver stopping at a roadside van, and even then it was probably drunk sitting down (I can only assume this as I have never been a truck driver). I still say “let’s meet for coffee”, and actually I really mean let’s meet for a chat. You get the message, coffee brings childhood memories with it and associations with having a natter with a friend, so it has been a bit of a comfort blanket for me.
In the last year though, I would say that coffee has started to become a bit of an enemy of mine. I still love the smell, taste and spooning the froth off the top of my cappuccino, but I feel like it has become a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I started realising that if I didn’t have coffee in the morning, my eyes wouldn’t open properly for hours, and quite frankly I was grumpy and agitated. Now when something has such a hold over you it’s a clear indication that you’re having too much of it. So I have gone through periods of cutting it out, or at least switching to decaffeinated. They say it’s like quitting smack, but I’ve never been on smack, so I can’t agree. I can say though that it was never a walk in the park and I would always experience lethargy and chronic headaches, and yet when I felt I was over this I would let it creep back into my life.
The thing is everything I used to love about having a coffee – sitting in a peaceful cafe having a chat, comfort, taste – have been bastardised. Cafes are now as stressful and unappealing as MacDonalds. Unless you have a small child to plonk on an empty table the minute you enter, by the time you get to the end of the queue you are forced to take your coffee away, which always ends up burning your tongue as you suck it through the hamster size outlet in the lid. Quite frankly, even though you are paying what feels like the equivalent of rising petrol prices, it never tastes as good as you want it to. Yet still, I was drinking it!
I was told by a Vega food intolerence testing man that I needed to quit tea and coffee, and that wasn’t enough for me to do it (although if I ate what he told me I was allowed to, I would be living off the sun and supping the morning dew from the leaves of organic dandelions). What did it was when I started to get incredibly painful stomach cramps every time I had coffee, too painful to ignore.
This time I found it easy, because the alternative was so awful to bear it just wasn’t worth it. I had every temptation going – our new Nespresso coffee machine (which is real coffee), plenty of early morning starts, including working in the Middle East where I was getting up at 3am UK time, and of course the cleverly designed evil paper coffee cups saying ‘drink me’ were still marching the streets, masters of the hands carrying them, and Friends was still on TV every day, which I am sure was the invention of a coffee manufacturer.
I have my moments, but generally I have been able to cut this fiend from my life. In fact I now ask for a soya capuccino without coffee in it 
(come on, that’s less embarrassing than asking for a dry, double shot, tall, supercalifragilistic latte) and enjoy it just as much, I just don’t get the jitters or the downs later.
The moral of this story is that if you want to quit something, stop telling yourself you love it, see it for what it is and concentrate on the benefits of cutting it out of your life, or if you like being miserable, concentrate on what will happen if you continue to let it control you. When people tell you it’s like quitting smack – remember they have probably never had smack, and have probably never tried giving up coffee, so let it be their excuse.
The journey to ultimate health begins…
Well here it is. I’ve been threatening for a while to share my obsession with health with the rest of the world (rather than just ear bashing friends and family). Finally the Health Mistress is here to give you your fix of do’s and don’ts where peace of mind and body is concerned. Join me on my journey to eternal wellbeing, and I promise we will share tears and laughter together, and hopefully learn a little along the way. I may be an incredibly wise life coach, but I don’t know all there is to know…yet. I promise to be honest when I am struggling (although they will be ‘challenges’ as opposed to ‘problems’ of course), but most of all I vow to share a lifetime’s supply of tips and guidance, so that we can find the holy grail of health together.
