My late 50s client came to me stressed, chronically tired and gaining weight. She is in a high level executive role which is stressful and demanding on a number of levels, particularly as they are in the middle of a major project on top of the day job. She was sleeping very badly, unable to switch off out of work, experiencing mid-morning, mid-afternoon and mid-evening energy slumps accompanied by carb cravings, not finding time for regular exercise and gaining weight.
She didn’t know where to start and came to me for help.
We worked together over 3 months. We worked on her nutrition to start with, to help her to regulate her blood sugar, in a way that was sustainable for her and didn’t require immense time or effort, as the objective was to reduce her stress levels, not add to them. This by itself started to move the dial on her energy levels and her sleep.
Next up we addressed her morning and evening routines to optimise her sleep protocols, alongside mindset work around nervous system regulation and self-care, both in and out of work. The objective here was to help her to regulate her cortisol levels during the day, improve melatonin production in the evening and start to improve her sleep in a meaningful way.
At this point it was time to build back in some regular exercise, to further improve energy levels across the week and regain some lost fitness. Again, we did this in a way that worked for her with her schedule, is the kind of exercise that she enjoys and will maintain, and we devised an easy visual way for her to plan her weekly out-of-work activities.
After exploring whether she definitely wanted to stay in her current job role (she does), we did some mindset work around perspective alongside practical steps to organise her finances into sensible retirement preparation mode, which gives her a concrete plan to work towards, and an exit plan to fall back on if she really needs it. This really started to move the dial for her on her chronic stress.
A little bit of further nutrition optimisation and she was all set to carry it forward herself.
By the end of the 3 months, she was –
Going to bed at a regular time and generally sleeping at least 7 hours a night
Eating 3 enjoyable, nutrient-dense meals a day, including some healthy desserts, and not snacking in between
Enjoying reliable steady energy levels across the day
Maintaining a healthy perspective on her work challenges and feeling confident about her ability to deliver on her work objectives
Enjoying relaxed downtime out of work, including a healthy level of movement and exercise
Finding time outside of work to just be, rather than be constantly working through a task list
Able to engage spontaneously with social invitations
Reading more for enjoyment and bingeing mindless TV a lot less
Starting to see the dial move on her weight back to her usual healthy baseline
What’s important to point out is that, aside from specific education around healthy nutrition to regulate blood sugar and energy levels, input around how to optimise sleep protocols and some specific input around exercise for her stage of life, my client already knew a lot of what she wanted to change or put in place, but she just felt overwhelmed and didn’t know where to start.
This is essentially what health coaching is – cheesy as it sounds, helping your client to tap into their own inner wisdom and work towards optimising their health and wellbeing by getting the right foundations in place for them, in a way that works for them as a unique individual, and introducing them in an order that works, and is sustainable.
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