RE: Eat Like a Rabbit 🥕🥗🐰 {Building a Solid Salad}
I have a truly amazing client who is a well-respected local psychiatrist. He and I have had conversations before about how what we do is very similar in some ways, and that we both work in fields where a client sometimes needs to go through multiple practitioners before they find the right fit. It took me a while to realize that health and fitness can be a really personal thing, and that it is ok for me to not be the right fit for everyone. That's one of the reasons why I do really enjoy one-on-one work with clients--for the people I do work with, I get a chance to really impact their lives. I'm sure you get to enjoy many of the same successes with the people you work with.
Sounds like you have found your niche, which is totally awesome. There are people all along the journey with different paths to take. Hopefully all of us health coaches can do our part in our different areas to make the world a much healthier place overall!
On a side note, I actually feel less deprived as a vegan than when I first started in the fitness world and thought the only way to lose weight was to "restrict" calories or carbs. I can even fit "cookies" into my meal plan, though someone used to fast food and other highly processed food might not think they are that tasty, haha! 😜
My starting point for most people is to get them to reduce 10% of the "bad stuff" and increase 10% of the nutrition. I get them to tell me what they think is "bad" and I help them with alternatives. I do no calorie counting at all - I try to get then to the RDA (or above) for various essential nutrients and then the calories pretty much take care of themselves.
Then keep going - change after change. When someone drinks 3 2-liter bottles of Mountain Dew each day, just getting them to reduce that is a stretch. Water? What's that?
If I can get them to reduce the chemical additives, that's when things start to go better.
Yup - 8 years after losing half my size and I am a cookie eater too. It's hard to make people understand that the new food will be more satisfying that the old, but when it "takes" it's wonderful.