I call myself a health coach. yet my health has not been the best lately and appears to have been going in the wrong direction. I’ve struggled with weight for a while; it’s something I can’t guite get under control. Then a few weeks back, I began having trouble with my right knee. At one point, I could barely walk. Then, just when the knee was nearly resolved, I developed what turned out to be viral gastroenteritis. This resulted in dehydration and then emergency room and hospital visits.

There’s a whole other post or two that could be written about these visits in light of the current ebola crisis. I’ll save those for another day. For now I’ll just say that “No, I haven’t been to Africa lately.”

I hang out online with a variety of health coaches and holistic practitioners. They range from the very much down-to-earth types to the self-described “woo woo” types. And pretty much everything in between. At times it can be both interesting and confusing. Any issue you may have, you’ll get a full range of explanations for your problem. Here are examples I might get for my current health issues.

PLEASE NOTE: I am not discounting any of the explanations. I believe that there is validity in most of them. I present them here because I find the different theories and approaches fascinating. And many of them seem to work! So also, please forgive the occasionally snarky attitude. You have to have fun and laugh at life, right?

• Gaining weight, or the inability to lose it, suggests that you are carrying or taking on other people’s issues.
• On weight – You are retaining weight because you are holding on to old issues that are holding you back. This keeps you from moving forward.
• A problem with the knee indicates not wanting to move forward on something. Apparently, you can extrapolate this too because each knee means something different. WAIT! Isn’t this the same as retaining weight? So I’m holding on to stuff that is holding me back. Then I try to move forward but I can’t so my knee hurts?
• The virus: Many practitioners suggest that anytime you have a purge of your system it is because there are things that need to be released. WAIT! AGAIN! Follow this with me carefully: I was holding on to old issues that were causing me to retain weight and were also not allowing me to move forward. And my knee hurt when I was trying to move forward because all those issues were holding me back. So, I had a total system purge to get out all that old stuff. Letting go of all that stuff that I’m holding on to. If I’m right, then I should be in a very good place now, right? I should stop holding on to weight and should now be able to move forward. I like this idea so I’m sticking with it!
• SIDE NOTE: The last time I was sick anything like this was in 2001, two weeks after my sister, Conni, lost her battle with lung cancer. There was definitely a lot of stuff I needed to release back then. So, there seems to be something to this theory!
• Another credible explanation is that problems arise because the energy is the body is out of balance. That’s largely what acupuncture works on.
• Still other explanations would point the finger at my diet as the culprit. The vegetarian would talk about not eating meat. The vegan would remove all animal products. Those that believe gluten is evil would have me go gluten free. Or I might need to be dairy free. Or paleo. Or you name it.
• There are also people I know who, in my shoes, would adopt a “poor me” attitude. “Bad things always happen to me.” I’m not sure I ever subscribed to that type of thinking. I doubt it. I know for sure that since my apartment fire in 1987, I absolutely forbid that kind of thinking in my life.

Now the scientist – which is my original training and the only theory I believed in for many years – would say this:

• The weight issues – Move more and watch what you eat.
• The knee – move more. This based on the belief that the knee issue came about because of inactivity and improper movements.
• The virus – I’m pretty sure that I picked it up at a local restaurant where some employee failed to fully follow hygiene protocols. I say this because my hubby also fell ill; although, thankfully, not quite as bad. And perhaps had I been taking better care of myself, it would not have been quite so serious.

Oh, if only life were that simple!

Anymore, I think it’s a matter of perspective. Clearly, no all of the theories can be the right answer since some are in conflict.

So, what am I going to do different going forward?

1. The virus, with a bit of self-TLC, is going away. None too soon!
2. I’m working with acupuncture and physical therapy to get the knee back in shape.
3. As for the weight and overall health? I’m working on those. I’ll reveal at a later date the changes I make in that area.

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Barbara

I love to cook. I’m also a health coach, a path I chose after going through a health crisis which taught me the importance of eating healthy meals. Now, I want to combine the two — health coaching and cooking — to help people learn to cook healthy meals. To plan healthy meals. And to eat healthy meals. For more, please visit Your Cooking Coach.

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