or: Adventures in Client Compliance
Someone once asked me if I got frustrated with people who had health problems who refused to acknowledge the connection between their diet and lifestyle and their health. “Don’t you want to try and ‘fix’ them?” they asked. Well, the short answer was yes. The truth is that I spent my early career doling out free advice to anyone who would listen. Even before I’d qualified I could see where some people could make changes to improve their health, and I was determined to help. These days my answer to that question would be somewhat different.
I recently ‘fired’ a client. Now that might sound a bit harsh, the old me would never have given up on anyone. However, experience has taught me that some clichés carry weight with good reason. In many cases you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. The client in question had been to numerous nutritional professionals before me, including some well-known in the industry. Each one, he insisted, had been unable to help. I already had my suspicions as to why their treatments had been unsuccessful. But ignoring my better judgement, I decided to persevere.
The client’s goal was to lose weight, specifically around the midriff. Now, although I deal with weight management, my absolute focus is health first and foremost, and my client knew this. After a brief chat I could see exactly from where his problems originated. Over-adrenalised: he worked in the city, he over-trained, liked a glass of wine or two, took cholesterol and blood pressure medication, had terrible sleep patterns, and never took time to rest. He had that ‘sleep when you’re dead’ mentality. As a former adrenaline junkie, I could completely understand where he was coming from. However, I knew that unless he took things down a notch (or ten!) he simply wasn’t going to shift the weight.
Experience has taught me that some clichés carry weight with good reason. In many cases you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
I went to great pains to explain how poorly managed blood sugar levels meant that weight (specifically around the midriff) would always be an issue. He listened intently, said he understood, then went straight back to the patterns that were keeping him riding his blood sugar roller coaster. He was fixated on supplements that would help to ‘shift the belly’, as if there was some magic pill that could balance out the complete imbalance in his life. It was a frustrating experience, not least because of his allopathic expectations in terms of treatment but also because sadly I could see him heading towards some sort of health ‘episode’. Still, he wouldn’t listen so I wished him well, said there was nothing else I could do for him and we parted ways.
I have had to accept that some clients do not want to make the changes that will improve their lives. My dear friend Beata Bishop calls this ‘suicide’. A bit dramatic you might think, but this response was from a 95 year-old who, in her 50s, was given 6 months to live after a second melanoma diagnosis. She turned her back on conventional treatment (which obviously hadn’t worked the first time around) and sought out nutritional protocols to help heal. Heck, with a 6 month prognosis, what did she have to lose? Her illness caused her to examine every aspect of her life and she realised that her lifestyle was killing her. She made the necessary radical changes to her existence, and she survived.
To me, this attitude is a no-brainer but to many, this is simply not the case. I have come to accept that, for whatever reason, not everybody is ready to make those changes, regardless of the positive outcomes that would benefit them. In some cases people are downright unwilling to take responsibility for their bodies, worse still, they expect an ‘expert’ to do it for them. Like Beata, I suppose I always understood that the buck stopped with me.
Many people are horrified to learn that I’ve avoided dairy for over half of my life, such is the love affair that so many have with cheese. Yet when I discovered that it was dairy (more specifically, the casein in dairy) that was causing my faint-inducing stomach cramps, bleeding gut, eczema and asthma, I had absolutely no problem eliminating it from my diet. After enduring a life of misery, and so many stolen young years it was no hardship to make that decision. Now, as a nutritionist I understand the negative health implications of dairy consumption, but prior to this it was a question of improving my quality of life. A no-brainer really.
If I had a pound for each person who looked at reducing their sugar or alcohol intake as a form of deprivation, well, I’d be a wealthy person.
There are numerous reasons why people aren’t prepared to make life-changing decisions where their health is concerned. The most obvious is that, as creatures of habit, we don’t take well to change. And yet, change is a necessary part of life. The human psyche can be a major stumbling block in this respect. If I had a pound for each person who looked at reducing their sugar or alcohol intake as a form of deprivation, well, I’d be a wealthy person. And yet, we don’t really need more scientific data to inform us on the detrimental effect that both of these substances have on both mind and body. Foods can cause chemical triggers that can lead to addiction.
Sugar, for example, is known to help release dopamine, the ‘feel-good’ hormone. Is it any wonder that people become hooked on it? And then there’s the ‘comfort association’ as I like to call it. ‘I grew up eating this with every meal so it must be good for me.’ ‘My grandmother used to buy me these.’ ‘We used to eat this every Sunday.’ We find it hard to part ways with foods that we associate with good times, even if those foods might be causing us actual harm. Like the alcoholic who after a hard day of work convinces themselves that they ‘deserve this’, it’s often easier to stick to familiar patterns than opt for life-enhancing changes. As a nutritionist, I can be as logically prescriptive as I like when putting together a brilliant protocol. The success of this though is entirely down to the individual. I am here to help, that is my role. But I’ve finally learned that not everyone is ready to receive help, and that’s fine. In fact, it brings to mind another wise cliché which would have served me had I taken heed of it sooner: ‘you can lead a horse to water…’
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