Finding Deep Health After Falling Apart
My journey to becoming a Nutrition Coach!
It’s too bad that so many of us don’t respond to our body’s needs until we realize we need to move our belt out a notch (or two!). We have come to see good nutrition and exercise as the ingredients of a weight loss plan rather than as nourishment and prevention. Our body, when provided with what it needs, is a most astounding machine.
We accept that a car requires gas to run; we don’t bawk at an oil change. When the engine sputters, we never hesitate to take it into a professional. Why, then, do we treat our bodies differently when they are much more precious than an automobile? We don’t provide the nutrient-dense food it needs as gas for energy to run. An oil change is just regular maintenance and so is exercise. And so often, out of fear disguised as “I am too busy”, we don’t take our bodies to the professionals when we feel something is out of whack. Physicians, massage therapists, chiropractors, dentists, optometrists and acupuncturists are all terrific mechanics but we often let our visits to them slide down our priority list.
But when we need bodywork ‘cause the outside is not looking pretty and the favourite outfit doesn’t fit anymore, we start paying attention… for a while...until we get our weight down or give up trying.
I recently had a vicarious health scare. By vicarious, I mean my Mom suddenly was really, really sick and, along with coming to terms that I might lose her, I fell into a deep anxiety, realizing that her illness might be heredity. These two facts, combined with some real pressure at work, led me to my first-ever panic attack. And then another. And then, perpetual fear, being on the edge of another. I have always prided myself in being the extra calm one in emergency situations; in fact, people have often commented on my abilities to think and act well under pressure. After six weeks of suffering, I finally made an appointment to see my “mechanic”, even though I was “too busy”. I sat in the waiting room of my doctor’s office, shaking with my tail between my legs. I was scared to report my new family health history to her and my pride was bruised because Kelly Judge, who is the one everyone else goes to for help, needed help herself. I was embarrassed because tears were falling down my face in anticipation (That’s another thing. I rarely cry in front of others).
My doctor, who I also consider a long time friend, listened patiently as I described how my body was responding to Mom’s illness (“She’s only 75”, I sobbed), to pressure at work, to my own fears of mortality, to perimenopause problems right through to, “I am getting so fat”. At the conclusion of my rant, I confessed that I felt so embarrassed to ask for help. She smiled and said, “It’s often the Super Women that come to me… the go-getters who have hit a wall. I think it takes a very strong woman to know when she needs to get help”.
I left the doctor’s office, prescription in hand, with the hope that with the pharmaceutical support, I could start to piece together my new reality. And that medicine was the scaffold I needed to slowly pull back together. It was definitely a process of respecting that my body required time to assimilate and heal. And a holistic approach was the route that worked for me.
Patience is not my virtue.
I found it difficult to trust that the medication would have an effect. I was told it would take up to four weeks to kick in. I knew I had to stay consistent with my exercise classes to keep my mood up. I felt I had good eating habits but was able to identify some areas to clean up. And of, course, there was my mind to deal with. I have a vivid imagination and while it comes in handy for all my creative endeavours, it is detrimental when I envision every possible negative outcome in each situation. I should qualify that I am extremely patient and positive when it comes to other people but am very stringent with myself.
Trying everything to cool my engines, I made an acupuncture appointment. It was ethereal. I left the clinic feeling calm, almost floating, when a voice in my head said, “I am not the enemy”. This was a new concept to me. My body is not the enemy. I had been treating it as such. My body had been working overtime, sustaining me, repairing me, functioning in miraculous ways and I was seeing it as the foe. I would be frustrated whenever I gained unwanted pounds. That was not my body’s fault. It was mine. I was angry when it let me down and caused me panic attacks. That was not my body’s fault. It was mine. A flood of similar correlations flooded my mind and suddenly I was realizing my body does epic things for me everyday, even when I don’t give it what it needs to function well. It occurred to me that everything my body does is designed for survival. This may seem obvious but it was a revelation to me because I was behaving as if I was dying. It’s difficult to explain, but my mom’s terminal prognosis caused me to fear that I was doomed to the same outcome. It felt empowering to realize that all the cells in my body, all the systems and functions were calibrated for survival. And I would survive.
Soon after this avowal, I saw an ad come across Facebook for a Nutrition Certification course. It appealed to me because I was starting to realize that my body not only needs nutrient-rich fuel to execute its daily missions, it needs it preemptively to equip my body for the future. Simply put, actions I do now can determine a healthy future. That promise made me feel in control again. I was not doomed.
I clicked on the notice and was pleased with the course curriculum. I saw the tuition and it was a bit daunting. Yet, it was less than many of the other fees I paid for the credits I accrued to my post secondary programs. I decided to invest in my health. Would I pay that much to be functioning well, free of disease and mentally healthy? Absolutely. A large portion of the course would teach me how the body functions, the role of nutrition to effective performance of its systems along with coaching methods. Even though I found the coaching part interesting, that was not my goal. I wanted to more deeply understand how to use nutrition to serve my goals of being healthy now and for a long time.
I signed up to begin the course in October of that year. The teacher in me loved learning new stuff. I completed a chapter and test a week until my Mom’s health dictated that I needed to help Dad more. I live two hours from my parent’s town so a lot of time was spent going back and forth, and as needs became more intense, I found myself sleeping in my childhood bed for many days in a row. It became difficult to continue the course, which was thankfully on-line, as time progressed so I pressed pause. Mom, right then, was most important.
Turning 52 on my next birthday — determined to be healthier than my 51st.
Less than a year later, I am thrilled to report that I have graduated! The program was what all I had hoped it would be and more. I was surprised to find it tested me on a lot more biology than I anticipated! The science chapters were really challenging and I was nervous to write each exam. The coaching chapters were in my comfort zone because of my 25 years of teaching teens as well as my years of coaching figure skating and gymnastics. In fact, I started envisioning how rewarding it would feel to use what I learned to not only help myself but help others too. I foresee moving toward nutrition and lifestyle coaching in my future.
In the meantime, I am having fun trying out on myself what I have learned. The changes I have made in my macronutrient and micronutrient ratios in tandem with my “move-it” strategies of exercise are making a difference in how I look, feel and function.
I am also looking forward to kicking some butt at my 90th birthday 5km run!
Kelly Judge BA, MEd, PN1
Addendum
Interested in having a nutrition coach? Here’s my philosophy and prices.
The course I took is called “Precision Nutrition” and PN1 stands for Precision Nutrition Level 1.
The creators of the course are:
Krisa Scott-Dixon, PhD
John Beradrdi, PhD, CSCS
Brian St. Pierre, MS, RD, CSCS
Helen Kollias, PhD, CSCS
Camille DePutter
Eating Slowly is one of the pinnacles of healthy eating.
Check out my post, Dining Well.
