No Carrier's Comments

Getting help. - Giving Help.

Recently I have become aware of the beauty of personal consultation. Over the past 2 months the direct and indirect lessons I have learned I hope to be able to share.

My experience started with a normal trip to my Gym (the downtown Los Angeles YMCA) Of the many services they offer to the members and community at large (most of which I must admit I don't participate in) One of the services is free sessions with a dietitian.
Talking with Katie Chapmon (the dietitian ) was everything I could have hoped for, and nothing I was expecting. I was expecting pre printed pretty charts with pictures of Vegi's Milk and Grain products and some idea of how much you are suppose to eat each day to achieve optimum heath.
As it turns out her approach had nothing to do with flip charts or counting calories, or even the new fad of just counting carbs. Her method was to listen to me talk about whatever food issues I thought I had. Slowly she would make suggestions to alter one aspect of my eating and seeing if I could make that change for a week.
We both agreed that I was create of habit, and trying to make mass / quick changes which didn't include the time it took to make it a habit would end in non successful outcome. I would be back to my old habits just as soon as I could.
This was the really interesting part.
Habits - while we tend to think of the word with the prefix of "BAD" has a entirely new and better meaning.
Humans (most of us are creature of habit) and knowing this gives us the ability to create habits we want. For me I find that If I do something for 2 weeks, it pretty much habit ! That goes for smoking, or eating whole grain breads. Your inner habit system does not know that you didn't want to create a smoking habit, nor does it know that you want to take vitamins every day if you only take them once a week.
For me I am now quite a bit stronger seeing that creating good eating habits are not hard. Not at all. All it takes is for me to eat as I should for 2 weeks.. and somehow like magic.. its programmed and my old eating habits just no longer seem to fit in my life.
On a related issue I have a close friend who has been dealing with some emotional and short temper anger issues for quite some time. He also fell into some professional help and after just a few sessions he is now seeing a happier life forward. Issues are still there, but working them out with professionals who have the combined years of knowledge of many lifetimes does seem to have a positive effect.
The personal message I am trying to relate here is that recently I have had a few good experiences with consultations, and that if you find yourself unclear about an issue, maybe a family member or close friend who knows you and wants to help is not the best person to actually give you advise that you can use. You might find like me that the better advise comes from people who do this for a living.

-Shames Plug time.
As I mentioned above this all started on seeming random trip to my Gym (the downtown YMCA)
The Y in my area not only swimming/ Basketball and workout machines personal trainers etc. They also offer discounts to Students and people who would like to benefit from a club but cant afford the normal 50$ per month dues. In addition I have come to learn they are very active in the community by sponsoring after school - preschool, and summer camp options for hundreds of kids here.

I see the youth groups running around the gym , in the summers, playing basketball on the nice courts, using the workout equipment. This sort of community activism does not come free, but some of the counselors volunteer supplies still need to be purchased. - here comes the plug..
If you feel that the Federal Governments stimulus package which should be coming to you the first week of may in the form of check in the amount of 500.00 would be better spent by a community project - (which does help the economy by the way) Please, give Bethany a call At Stuart M. Ketchum Downtown YMCA
401 S. Hope St.
Los Angeles, CA 90071
213-624-2348
She would be happy to see your check - or any part of it you deem worthy put to good use.

Bob Lee

posted by Bob Lee @ 10:00 PM