Hiring a Health Coach

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A Health Coach has to get certified. Duke University has a program.

Some nutritionists like Stefanie Sacks charge close to a thousand dollars for their services.

My health coach cost $395 for one one-hour intake plus two follow-up sessions.

You talk via telephone.

It’s been close to two weeks since I changed my breakfast food.

Scrambling culinary sunshine in the form of 2 or 3 eggs with colorful diced pepper and sliced mushroom (all organic, by the way) has brightened my mood.

Seeing the fiesta of color on my plate in the morning cheers me.

I say: nix having white food and beige food. It has little nutritional value. And it can depress you looking at it.

The change was immediate as soon as I started having eggs and veggies for breakfast.

It takes longer to cook, eat, and clean up. I’m going to cut up the peppers on Sunday night and store them with the mushrooms in a tiffin.

You can buy a 3-tray tiffin on Amazon. If I remember it cost about $35 to buy two of the tiffins. I’m going to buy another one soon to use.

The health coach vetted that it’s okay to have 2 eggs every day for breakfast. 3 if you’re hungrier.

This sure beats boxed cereal. It beats having the granola.

Next Friday I’ll share the shake recipe the health coach gave me.

 

Fitness Fridays

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I’ve decided to plan and schedule my blog entries here.

Fitness Fridays will be the theme of the nutrition blog topics.

I’ll post on Fridays blog entries about fitness and nutrition.

The fact is:

Infirmity is not inevitable in old age.

Lifestyle habits are a significant factor in whether you remain healthy or progressively decline into ill health.

A while back in the blog I wrote about the book How to Be Well. After going on the book author’s website, I submitted a form to talk with a health coach.

For a customary fee you can get individual advice. An action plan is created for you to follow. Two weeks later there’s a follow-up talk to see how it’s going.

The fee is actually cheaper than other nutritionists charge. A 6-session package costs more. I opted for the 3-session package.

Folks: carbohydrates are my enemy. After talking with the health coach, I threw out all the grains and granola packages in my kitchen.

My plan involves scrambling eggs with veggies to have with avocado for breakfast. It’s entirely possible that having granola for breakfast had been one of the culprits in my mid-life fatigue.

You can go on the Dr. Frank Lipman (the author)’s website to research the options for talking with a health coach.

I have no guilt in having gotten rid of the grains. Bye-bye.

In one week, I will report back on how it’s been going.

6,666 Page Views – Merci

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The devil’s in the details as the expression goes:

Today I see I have reached 6,666 page views for the Flourish blog.

Thanks a million to everyone who stops by to read what I have to write.

In an era when the New York Times and other traditional news outlets and media fail to give innovative journalists a platform:

It’s great to see that in the blog world every one of us has the chance to make a difference.

The blogs and books are my platform for advancing my vision.

What is that vision you might ask?

The right to have a full and robust life living in recovery from whatever it is you’re in recovery from.

I’m not spooked that 6,666 has shown up as the number of page views.

It convinces me that there’s a market for my mission of spreading hope and healing in the world.

In a society where there’s a lot that’s not right:

It’s up to us bloggers to be part of the solution.

Learning from Green in BKLYN

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I want to talk about not giving up. About going after your goal(s) with gusto.

One scenario from the business world should convince you that taking a risk is well-worth the fear of having it not work out.

What’s the worst that could happen?

Not being successful is no cause for being upset. It’s better to try and have something not work out. Then to not try and wonder what might have been.

In 2009 Elissa Olin opened her business Green in BKLYN in the Clinton Hill neighborhood.

A mentor whose advice she valued told her not to do it because nobody wants anything to do with Brooklyn. That there’s no market for eco-friendly products. That in 10 years the business isn’t going to work.

Fast-forward to today: Olin signed a second 10-year lease on the shop. Her business is booming.

She was able to open up her shop in part because she won Brooklyn Public Library’s PowerUP! competition.

You submit to the yearly contest your business plan. The top business plans selected win cash prizes for the owner to start up their business.

You can go on Brooklyn Public Library’s website and type in PowerUP! in the search box to learn about the competition.

The moral of this story is:

Go after your goal(s) with gusto.

You don’t know unless you risk doing something what is possible.

If you don’t believe me take it from a sports great I’ll quote here to end the blog entry with:

Don’t be afraid to fail.

Be afraid not to try.

— Michael Jordan

Having 5 Commitments

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Easily over five years ago I read a Leo Babauta book where he told readers to list their 5 Commitments in life.

This approach made great sense to me. In the spirit of talking about recovery I want to riff on choosing and committing to 5 areas.

Do this for the sake of your mental health and physical well-being first of all.

As I head into my fifties and go through changes at mid-life the benefit of having 5 Commitments resonates with me more than ever.

It’s called a routine: adopting healthy habits that you engage in every day or every week.

This isn’t to say that the focus of your life won’t ever change. As you get older, you’ll need to improvise as you go along.

I find myself at 53 engaging in a form of woodshedding, which I talked about in one of the first blog entries in this Flourish blog.

While isolating inside because you’re afraid to go out your front door isn’t healthy I say:

Enjoying your own company when you’re alone in your apartment or house is imperative.

As I’ve started journeying through mid-life I can vouch for the positive health benefit of needing more time for yourself to rest and engage in recreation.

You need to rest after going out socially or having a long, hard day at your job.

The key to maximum productivity in your personal life lies in the beauty of honoring your 5 Commitments.

My 5 Commitments are art, music, fashion, books and writing, and exercise.

Making time each week to do something involving these 5 things I love has been the way to feel healthy and be happy at mid-life.

What are your 5 Commitments?

In coming blog entries I will continue with the focus on careers.

Yet I will apply this wisdom to everyday life.

Living in recovery doesn’t have to be so hard. Even if you’re in pain that’s when doing the things you love can help you feel better.

That’s it exactly: focusing on the 5 Commitments that bring you joy.

 

Making Changes for the Better

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Leo Babauta on his Zen Habits website invokes readers to see:

“The uncertainty and discomfort are a necessary component for us to do anything meaningful.”

Making changes–even when they’re for the better–isn’t always easy. It can be downright hard to try doing something new that has the potential to transform your life and elevate your confidence.

I say: Just Do It. The more you take action the easier it will get to keep taking action.

“A body in motion stays in motion” is the old cliche.

There’s a great lyric in a Vampire Weekend song that is so generic I dare repeat it here because it’s not the exact lyric.

The idea is that a person doesn’t want to live the way they’re living yet they don’t want to die either.

It can be scary to change in any kind of way. Yet I urge you to consider that there’s a way out of the pain by going through it and figuring out what the pain has to teach you.

You can use your pain as the catalyst to figure out your life’s purpose.

My contention is that I was able to heal in part because I placed Service Above Self.

After you have a setback and you’re in recovery from whatever happened you have the choice: to roll over and passively accept a life of pain. Or to do what it takes to heal and be well.

For some of us it will take longer to get to where we want to be. Recovery is not a race nor is it a competition.

Yet the point is you can change for the better at any point along the road of recovery.

To change the world you first have to change yourself–as Michael Jackson so beautifully sang in his song “Man in the Mirror.”

In a coming blog entry I’m going to talk about something Leo Babauta wrote in one of his books years ago.

His theory of focusing on your 5 Commitments I want to apply to recovery.

As hard as it can be living in recovery there’s always hope that you can change your life for the better.

I maintain that focusing on your 5 Commitments in life can be a way to heal and be well.

Having an Attitude of Gratitude

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The concept of “having an attitude of gratitude” shouldn’t be dismissed or pooh-poohed as a foolish thing.

In an earlier blog entry I revealed that everyone wants to know “What’s in it for me?” when you or I come calling for their time, money, expertise or whatever it is they have that we need to get.

In return you are justified and it is within your right to wonder: “How can I benefit?” when another person asks you for help.

Getting endlessly clobbered for help is all too common when you’re employed.

You simply can’t say yes to every request.

My experience proves that having an attitude of gratitude is the way to go.

It comes down to having good manners. I own a refrigerator magnet that proclaims:

I Hope Manners Are The Next Cool Trend.

You might get what you want initially without thanking a person. Yet you won’t get what you need a second time from that person.

Here’s my experience (fictionalized to protect the person):

A young teen volunteer came back six months after the position ended to ask me to fill out an application for a prestigious intern job in Paris.

(You get the idea even though the details have been changed.)

A year after that this person happened to be where I was working. I asked them: “Did you get the Paris intern position?”

“Yes,” the teen answered then left. Not even a Thank You after the word yes. Not ever a Thank You at the point where they were given the Paris internship.

The sense of entitlement that a lot of young people have and that some people of any age have is astounding. It’s regrettable that good manners have gone the way of roller rinks: etiquette of any kind seems to be non-existent today.

I tell you if you want to succeed: Be the person who says please and thank you.

You might think that having an attitude of gratitude will set you up to be easy prey in the business world.

Yet trust me when I say: nobody you meet will be keen to be used and then discarded like an old shoe.

If you’re working at a job where everything’s cutthroat and people are out for their own gain with no regard for their coworkers:

Is that really where you want to hang your career hat?

Who You Are Versus the Pills You Pop

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I’ve been thinking long and hard about the topic of personality.

About how a person’s soul is animated in their body and embedded in their brain in this particular lifetime.

We cannot confuse a person’s symptoms and illness with their identity and individuality.

That is the root of what’s called “stigma”–stereotyping everyone with a mental illness based on one person’s behavior.

In fact, stigma isn’t often linked to observed actual behavior. Just to popular opinion of what it’s like to have an illness. Which is fueled by the media.

I’ve been an Activist–a Mental Health Advocate first of all–for over 17 years so far.

My stance is this: anyone who chooses not to see another person as an individual is blind.

I’ll quote from an e-mail I received:

“Those who judge don’t matter and those who matter don’t judge.”

I say: “Break bread” with others to get to know them at their soul level.

The sad fact is for too many people those of us with a mental health diagnosis are seen as an interchangeable homogeneous entity.

It’s why I refuse to divide people–either along color lines or the line of having a mental illness or not having one.

In the end, it’s simply lazy and ignorant to stereotype a person, as if they are not worth getting to know for who they are on the inside.

The truth is: our personalities are as individual as our thumbprints.

Which is the root of why I wanted to write and publish a memoir that told a good story about real people living lives apart from their illnesses.

There’s no other first-person narrative like my book Left of the Dial.

As said I’ve been thinking long and hard about how the individuality of a person diverges from their symptoms.

Who You Are Is Not the Pills You Pop.

Add the chemical cocktails we imbibe to the mix and this doesn’t alter our personality.

I want to shake the haters and ask:

“What’s up? Can’t you see that everyone is beautiful? Why are you labeling people you haven’t even met?

Why are you closed off to opening your eyes to the diversity of human beings at the soul level?”

I tell you:

Imitation isn’t the sincerest form of flattery. It’s the quickest route to ill health.

Be brave. Be yourself.

That’s the foolproof  recipe for success in recovery.

 

The Wheel of Wellness

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Years ago I was the board member of a non-profit. I was given a handout on The Wheel of Wellness.

Always I will focus in here on fitness and nutrition and careers and other things linked to having a full and robust life.

For the coming weeks I want to shift gears and talk about the Wheel of Wellness and my own Wheel of Fitness.

The Wheel of Wellness is comprised of occupational, social, physical, environmental, emotional, financial, spiritual, and intellectual slices going around.

The goal is for everyone to have optimal health, happiness, and recovery. What I call having a full and robust life doing what you love.

Each aspect of wellness acts in harmony with each other. I call this devotion to healing from illness living life Left of the Dial after the title of my memoir.

The VU meter of a disc jockey’s mixing board measures the intensity of the sound of a record. When the needle veers into the red on the right there’s an imbalance. Adjusting the meter so the needle is on the left balances out the intensity of the sound.

That’s the roundabout way to talk about Living in Health Happiness Harmony, what I’ve used as the subtitle of my Left of the Dial blog.

I will list the key factors of the Eight Dimensions of Wellness in the coming blog entry.

Going forward I will circle around the Wheel of Wellness starting with the Occupational.

In the future I will return to topics like nutrition and fitness more strictly. For today I feel I’ve detailed these topics as best I can right now.

Carrot Soup Recipe

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carrot soup

This is a photo of the carrot soup I made from scratch using a food52 recipe.

The recipe is rather long so I’ll give a link to it at the bottom of this blog entry.

The egg muffins I believe I posted the recipe for in my Recipes category in the cloud.

Here it is again:

Beat three eggs fluffy.

Add mix-ins: sliced mushrooms, diced red pepper, diced onions, cut tiny broccoli florets, or whatever you’d like.

Pour egg mixture into muffin tin baking pan. You’ll get about 2 to 3 egg muffins.

Heat at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes or possibly only 10 minutes depending on your oven.

Voila: a breakfast food on its own or part of a hearty winter lunch or dinner with the addition of a soup

The carrot soup took me 35 minutes total to create.

Here’s the carrot soup recipe.