This week’s focus: At 52 years old, my brain and body need readily available fuel starting first thing in the morning; no more going without food until the afternoon.
It's what's for breakfast!
A couple weeks ago, Canary Report contributor Keith Carlson, aka Nurse Keith, left a message on our network asking for a volunteer to coach during his life coach training.
I am doing a 5-week life coach training, and I need a willing person to be my first “client” for three free coaching sessions. Would anyone out there be potentially interested in participating as my “coachee”?
Following this preliminary training, my wife Mary and I will be “hanging a virtual shingle” as health and wellness coaches, and our first clients of 2009 will receive the benefits of our many years of experience and expertise at a very reasonable rate!
I jumped at the chance to work with Keith! He’s making some major life and career changes right now, and I welcome the opportunity to support him in his time of transition. Plus, I’d get some coaching that would be of great benefit. It’s a win-win!
So I’ve just completed my first week into the coaching. During our first phone consultation last week Wednesday, we decided that we’d work on my eating habits. One of my worst habits is not eating at all in the morning but instead filling up on huge mugs of tea and soy milk. I don’t usually eat until about one o’clock in the afternoon. While I’ve been able to get away with this my whole life, I am discovering that my 52-year-old body is no longer truly happy with the arrangement.
Previously, I’ve had no motivation whatsoever to change this habit. I’m not really that interested in food, and to be honest, except for dinner each evening with my husband, I am slightly annoyed that I have to take time out from whatever I am doing to eat. I usually shove something in my mouth while standing up, eating just enough to keep from getting hypoglycemic, and rushing back to whatever task is at hand whether it be work in the office or out in the gardens. In my mind, my adherence to mostly whole organic food seems to justify this behavior.
Well, it simply must stop. My brain and body now need readily available fuel starting first thing in the morning, with subsequent meals and snacks sustaining me throughout the day. It was interesting having the discussion with Keith about motivation, because I am in no way motivated to change this habit merely for my own benefit. But when Keith pointed out that if I had better fuel in me all morning, the people with whom I come in contact would benefit– that’s what sparked my interest. If my brain and body had better fuel, I could work faster and with more clarity during those morning hours, and then slide into the afternoon without the jarring realization that I was running on empty.
I truly enjoyed our hour-long talk and look forward to our next weekly coaching session this afternoon. Keith is caring, compassionate and knowledgeable about health and well being, and as a registered nurse, he has years of experience under his belt on health issues. And because he also has Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, as do I, he relates to the added burden that someone like myself endures.
I think the most important concept I came away with during out first talk is about being “intentional” in changing the habit. Keith explained that you have to do a new habit for at least 21 days before it starts to dislodge the old routine. I thought, “Yeah, I can intentionally do this for three weeks!” So we came up with a new routine, which I put in place (mostly) this past week. The new routine also encompasses the surrounding activities to my morning meal, setting me up to intentionally ease into my day, rather than bolting out of bed and going straight to the computer.
1. Get up out of bed, put my feet on the floor, raise my arms up above my head, fingers laced, stretch up and and take a deep breath. Connect with earth and sky and signal my body that we are up!
2. Go to the bathroom, brush teeth, wash face.
3. Change clothes.
4. Make the bed.
5. Go make my tea, then sit down and have something to eat! I’ve been having these types of things: English muffins, yogurt, banana, and/or oatmeal with fruit, photo above.
6. Go outside and feed the chickens.
7. Come back in and go into the office.
The whole routine takes less than 20 minutes. I will admit that I messed up on a couple of days and discovered late morning that I had not eaten. But I will also freely admit that on the mornings when I remembered to do the routine, I felt great! I never reached the stress level in early afternoon of my body being completely depleted of fuel. And that’s such a good thing!
Thanks, Keith!
Keith Carlson, RN, blogs at Digital Doorway.
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