Nourish with Primary Food

>> Hi, welcome back. Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? The poet Mary Oliver ended one of her most famous poems The Summer Day with this. So what do you plan to do? How can you help your clients figure out how to make the most of their lives? Perhaps, you believe in reincarnation or something similar that this is one of many lives you live or maybe you believe that you get one shot. Either way, your clients will bring a wide variety of beliefs, and all you really know for sure is that they want to feel better now, right? As Joshua says, "Life is a long time, it's not a rehearsal." We all want to feel better, and most of us probably want to live long and healthy lives. And yes, food is an important part of the equation. But as you know, connecting with values and primary food helps clients nourish themselves beyond secondary food. What do you think is the secret to living longer? Is it nutrition, exercise, positive thinking, all or none of the above? According to the Blue Zone study, the people who live the longest all over the world share nine habits. They move naturally, have a sense of purpose, take time to downshift or relax during the day, eat until about 80% full, eat a mostly plant-based diet, enjoy one to two glasses of alcohol per day, participate in a faith-based community, put their families first, and belong to social tribes that support healthy behaviors. Do any of these sound familiar? Probably. Notice that only three of them have to do with secondary food. The rest focus on primary food, physical activity, spirituality, relationships. What do you think primary food has to do with emotional eating? The short answer, everything. For many clients who come to you for help, the answers to questions like, "How are you spending your time" and "How are you investing your energy" are often something food related or perhaps weight or body image related. As we discussed earlier, when food becomes the center of life, it pushes everything else out. And as we also discussed, we often use food to fulfill us when we feel some sort of hunger or lack in other areas of life. As an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, you can help clients recognize that secondary food is just that: secondary. It's just another part of life, an important part, true, but not the only part. Connecting with primary food is key to helping them feel better in body, mind, and spirit. Now before we go over a few coaching strategies, a quick disclaimer if you will. This second part of the course focuses on how to coach emotional eating, yet, understanding possible mechanisms and how to see the big picture is often all you need. For example, the importance of focusing on basic guideposts like primary food might be all that you need when you feel unsure of how to proceed with a client. Does that make sense? So yes, we'll give you specific tools but we'll also continue to emphasize key pieces of material so that you always have basic strategies to fall back on if needed. For today, here are three basic ways that you can help clients nourish with primary food. Number one, use the Integrative Nutrition Plate. Many clients might be familiar with the Food Pyramid or MyPlate which provides a visual of basic portions of foods to aim for. The Integrative Nutrition Plate is a little different in several regards. For example, it replaces dairy with water, includes good fat, and specifies whole grains. However, the most important difference is that this plate goes beyond food itself. It's surrounded by primary food. This is a helpful tool for using a wide angle lens with clients and redirecting them to where they're really struggling and how their food relationship might reflect that. Number two, use the Circle of Life. We discussed this in part one of the course. This is a valuable exercise from your Health Coach Training Program that you can use to examine each area of primary food with your client, relationships, career, movement, and spirituality, but also things like education, joy, and creativity. After guiding clients through connecting the dots in their circles, you can explore high-mileage questions such as how is primary food affected by your food relationship? Which areas of life take a backseat to other areas that consume more of your time? How do current primary and secondary food habits crowd out other habits? You can help clients explore options for how to feel more fulfilled in multiple areas of life. It might be a good opportunity to use the triple-why exercise that you practiced earlier in the course. Sometimes, the simple act of asking why three times can help you get to the real struggles that keep clients stuck. Like the Integrative Nutrition Plate, one benefit of the Circle of Life is that you can use it with both audio and visual learners and with both more intuitive and more analytical thinkers. We included handouts of both in you're Learning Center. Number three, return to the metaphor of food. Helping clients nourish with primary food means supporting them and deciphering the underlying or real nonfood lack. Emotional hunger isn't really about food itself. It's about some other perceived need or want. This may not always be obvious, and it's usually done on autopilot. So you'll likely need to help your clients approach their habits with curiosity while paying attention to their food language. To review some high-mileage questions, what emotion, self-perception, or area of life wants them to feed it? Where is the disconnect? What coping function does food serve? What are they trying to comfort, control, distract from, or fit into or connect with? What is the food language? What do they associate food with? Connection? Success? Luxury? So as an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, three basic ways to help support clients around primary food are use the Integrative Nutrition Plate, use the Circle of Life, and return to the metaphor of food. Before we end today, we want to highlight one particular area of primary food, physical activity. In the wellness world, nutrition and physical activity often go hand in hand. Remember that how clients approach eating can mirror how they approach other areas. When it comes to physical activity, like food, you can explore the metaphor. In other words, what does exercise represent? Is it an enjoyable pastime? Is it empowering? Is it punishment for eating too much? You might use the three lenses we've been using as a guide. One, what is the mindset, or intention, behind exercise? Is this client exercising to feel better physically or mentally? For energy or improve mood? Or is it another version of shoulding. For instance, a form of self-punishment for an eating behavior or because they're trying to fit into some form of an objective ideal. Two, is this client exercising mindfully with attention on movement, or do they completely zone out? Is that helpful or not? And three, is this client using exercise to connect or to disconnect? Think about connection to the body, values, power, and other people. Of course, many clients might ask you for exercise advice. Remember, scope of practice here. Unless you also happen to be certified as a personal trainer, it's not your job to prescribe particular exercise plans. That said, here are a few very broad considerations. Number one, help clients find their own bio-individual middle ground. One example of this is flexibility. Have you ever seen people struggling while stretching? They're stretching so hard that they can barely breathe. In other words, they're pushing their bodies too far. There's a helpful saying in the fitness world, if you can't breathe normally, take it back a notch. Everybody is different, and that's okay. Some people are more flexible than others. As an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, you can help clients develop a flexible mindset and apply that to exercise. It's a great opportunity for self-connection. Number two, include some form of strength exercise. Not only is strength important for bones and muscles, and, you know, daily pain-free functioning, it can also be very empowering. Strength for one person might mean adding bodyweight squats or lunges. Well, for another, it might mean rowing or even yoga. It doesn't have to mean lifting weights. Number three, leave plenty of room for pleasure. Remember the Blue Zones, none of those longest living communities focused on gym exercise, they focused on moving naturally throughout the day. One client might love going to the gym, while another client loves walking, gardening, or playing in a community sports league. To each his own. Clients are much more likely to move consistently and develop healthful relationships with exercise if they move in ways that they enjoy. Plus exercise reduces stress and can even boost creative thinking. So moving is yet one more helpful coping strategy. And finally, number four, emphasize energy. Clients might exercise so that they can eat certain foods or eat more food. You can help them experiment with flipping that mindset and eat to exercise. In other words, nourish themselves with foods that they have more energy for exercise. Now that's a helpful habit loop, isn't it? As an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, it's important to continually return to the goals that you and your clients set together in order to achieve them. When it comes to physical activity, you can help clients focus on exercise goals rather than weight or body related goals. Again, not all clients will feel as motivated in this realm. There are many versions of healthful exercise relationships. For clients more focused on tangible goals, play around with exercise habits, and even performance. For example, exercise four times this week, create an exercise schedule, increase my leg strength a little bit each time, and increase my endurance by running an extra half mile. These can all be positive opportunities for self-empowerment. As an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, you're kind of a jack of all trades. Other health professionals dive very deeply into one area of expertise. Using the idea of primary food, you can touch on many areas of life and help clients make connections in order to see the bigger picture. In doing so, you can help them find nourishment beyond food. Your Skill Building Activities this week include exploring the Blue Zones, so have fun with that. And check out the handouts in your Learning Center. Until next time.