Can a Nutrition Counselor Aid You in Your Weight Loss Journey?
I finally took the plunge and reached out for the help I want/need.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not excessively overweight. I am not morbidly obese. I am not even moderately overweight by any general definition of the word. But . . . I am not at my “happy” weight. And I know a great many people reading this know exactly what I mean. For the majority of my life, my weight was never much of an issue. I was fairly sleek. I was fit. I was active enough to maintain a healthy and appealing weight. For the most part, I was perfectly content just being me and living in my own body.
Life has a way of taking control of you and your body in ways you never expect and certainly don’t encourage. Metabolism, lifestyle changes, the aging process, and fluctuating hormone levels all conspire to create a body that, eventually, looks much less like an idealistic image of youth we all desperately cling to.
Oh well, as the old cliché says, “Don’t cry over spilt milk.”
I won’t lie. I have tried various diets, portion controls, restricting assorted macro-nutrients, points, journaling, food tracking apps, carb control, and exercise programs. In the past, those efforts would produce effective results. I would pay attention to what my body was telling me and my body would reward me with the results I was seeking. That was then, this is now. The aforementioned metabolism, lifestyle, aging and hormone concerns seem to own the day when it comes to the battle of the bulge. My efforts stopped rewarding me with the results I expected and craved. I resorted to the tried and true methods of the past. Much to my chagrin, the results I used to experience were somehow just not the results I was seeing now. I’m not quite ready to throw in the towel just yet so, after a long period of contemplation and soul searching, I decided to try something new. I enlisted the aid of a nutrition counselor. Much like any counselor or psychologist you might enlist to help you past a speed bump in your life, a nutrition counselor is trained in the area of the concerns you have — in my case, what or how should I tailor my lifestyle choices to help me lose unwanted pounds that seemed to my taken over my body without my permission.
To be honest, the weight did not mysteriously appear overnight — and I can’t expect it to disappear any more quickly. I attribute most of the change in my metabolism to a round of medication I was on at one point. Okay, fine, the medication carried the explicit and stated side-effect of potential weight gain. I did the time, I gained the weight — my bad — but there were no real choices there. A year and a half after discontinuing the medication, while I stopped gaining weight, I did not lose any of the previously gained weight. My former self was left in the dust and my more-than-thirty pounds heavier self remained.
When I Turned the Corner In the two months that I have been working with a counselor, I have lost a little over six pounds. This is not a stellar accomplishment — I know that — it wasn’t meant as a brag statement, just a fact. But — it is an accomplishment — one that I apparently could not achieve on my own. If I continue at this rate, one year from now I should easily arrive at my “happy” weight once again. That’s a long time — yeah, I’m fully aware of that. But, as I said, a year and a half left to my own devices gave me nothing in return. I’ll play the long game if there’s any hope of an ultimate victory.
I can’t honestly give my nutrition counselor credit for telling me anything I didn’t already know. I am well informed as to what it takes to stay healthy and at my usual goal weight. What she did give me, however, was something I could only find from an outside source. She gave me — Accountability.
I am “aware” of what needs to be done. She holds my feet to the fire and makes me “accountable” for my actions and my achievements. Sure, I would keep track of what I ate and how many calories I consumed on a fitness app. She broke those numbers down into proteins and carbs and fats and told me where my efforts were failing me. She pointed out how I should be focusing on more proteins, fewer carbs and reducing my BMI (she gave me a formula to work with). She pointed out food choices in my daily consumption that would be better off eliminated from my diet altogether (sigh . . . I am doing a lot to follow those guidelines — a lot, but not everything — life is too short to skip the chocolate cake every time. This, sad to say, contributes a great deal to my struggles). Where I said I was following a sound exercise program, she would point out ways to push a little more, a little harder, a little longer — in other words, I wasn’t doing enough physically to reach my goals — I am accountable for my actions.
Getting back to the accountability aspect of using this lady to help me in my journey, I have a strong confession to make.
If I were to ever show up for an appointment with my nutrition counselor and report that I had either not lost any weight or — heaven forbid — had actually gained a few pounds, I would be embarrassed and mortified.
It’s that simple. I am paying for advice to improve my life. If I choose not to put her advice into practice, I am wasting my good, hard-earned money. If I’m not going to make the effort, well, I might as well just save my money on nutritional counseling and just buy another chocolate cake instead.
I understand when people tell me that life is too short to sacrifice the great enjoyments of living — good food and fine wine being among those enjoyments. I also understand that, if I spend too much time in despair over how those indulgences are affecting my life and my health, I am not truly enjoying those things. I am trying to learn (maybe to relearn) the benefits of moderation, control, and sacrifice in my health-related decisions. Thanks to my nutrition counselor, I believe I have found a way to take my awareness of what needs to be done and transform it by being accountable (to her/to myself) for the outcomes of my decisions.