I'm Really Hungry...

Guest Post by David Lin

Getting Help

It’s really wise to get help. When we were kids, we used to ask for help all the time - to pour milk from the jug without spilling, to open this jar, to get a ride after missing the bus… Even if you don’t strictly need it, a second pair of hands can hold something steady while you’re screwing it in. Help may not catch you falling off a ladder, but help might keep you from that situation to begin with.

“But, David, I can do it myself.”

Of course you can! But you can do it even better with … help.

“Ok, David, you’re just overselling it now.”


I’m Really Hungry

It’s been years since I first started a diet that was recommended to me by my doctor as a part of the frontline treatment plan for my diagnosis - the DASH diet. It’s mostly skinless chicken, salt-less vegetables, whole grains, and a lot of fat-free stuff. Needless to say after just a few weeks I was shedding an incredible amount of weight. But I had a significant and nagging problem: I was really, really hungry. I was literally starving all the time.

None of the literature my doctor gave me mentioned anything about this. I tried eating more of the food I was told to eat, but that gnawing feeling remained. I thought about eating other food constantly. It was a painful experience. Soon, I was eating so much skinless chicken and fat-free whole wheat bread that I was ingesting enough calories to stop losing weight. But I was still hungry. I even felt hungry while I was asleep.

What is a Health Coach?

Health coaches are evidence-based experts on human behavior, motivation, and health. Their practice focuses on behavior change and the transformation of their clients. So often people will leave their doctor’s office with more questions that they don’t even know they have yet, but not a lot of help. I call the journey to health “the climb” (more about that here) and you can think of a health coach as a guide that intimately knows the way, the pitfalls, whether or not you’re actually making progress, and the tricks that will really make you feel like you’re succeeding.

I’m Still Really Hungry

Eventually, my constant hunger wore me out. Instead of calling my doctor and scheduling another appointment, I went straight to my default go-to when faced with significant problems. I complained about it! At the time I was on this diet, I was actively working on my health and I had hired someone akin to a health coach (whom I think is actually practicing as a health coach now) - a personal trainer. While my workout with him was just starting, before I got winded, I complained to my trainer about how hungry I was all the time. It might not have done anything about feeling hungry, but complaining about it made me feel a little better about being hungry all the time.

James just looked at me and a lightbulb went off in his head. He had the perfect solution in his bag, from which he retrieved a veggie wrap and handed it to me. As I ate the wrap on the spot, we talked about diet and my constant hunger. James was an interactive source of knowledge that was more intelligently responsive than Google. He understood my questions and interpreted what I was really asking from what we were discussing. But James provided more than just relevant, helpful information. He validated my frustration, encouraged my choices, and helped me feel confident that the effort I was making was not in vain.

I was still really hungry. But I hadn’t had a highstreet fancy vegetable wrap on my DASH diet before. The wrap was a combination of a vinegar based sauce, fresh veggies, some atypical grains, and some hummus that totally worked for my diet that I had never thought to include in my meals! That stupid sandwich didn’t just feed me, it doubled the variety of my diet just because James wasn’t particularly hungry before my 2 pm workout. The excitement of adding options and ingredients to my diet brought back some of the satisfaction eating food used to have and I was able to keep going.

A Guide in New Territory

Every path to health is unique to each traveler, but a guide that understands the terrain means you don’t have to do it alone. It’s not about judgment or even holding you to account - unless, of course, that’s what you really need. It’s about having a partner that broadly understands both what’s ahead of and behind you, firmly based on the science of human behavior and health, and solid answers to the questions that you may not even know that you have yet. Even if you decide to blaze a trail all on your own - sit down, if you can, with a guide before you go. It’s what they do all day, every day, and I know they love doing it.

Maybe hungry right now but mostly ok with it,
David
https://www.mudkingdom.com