I’ve been trying to put some of my learning into practice with my fellow inmates. Here’s a story about the maxim ‘you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink’.
Yo Horse! There’s the water. Do what you want.
My mate Adam lost a stone in 5 weeks. He shifted 6.5kg through diet alone – no gym, no exercise – just through changing eating habits. It had been a long process leading up to the 5 weeks though.
Over my years in prison I had found quite a lot of weight. I was sedentary and ate way too much of the wrong food. But eventually I decided to do something about it and over a year I shed just over 27 KG – that’s four stones in Brexit speak.
I studied to become a personal trainer and subsequently became a qualified nutritionist (I’m a sucker for a certificate). Thus, freshly qualified and with a surfeit of personal experience I set about changing the world – one waistline at a time. I was militantly enthusiastic and offered my services to everybody. I would happily answer questions and explain how different foods affected our bodies. While most people were kind of interested, nobody wanted to really get involved.
I had a couple of false starts with my mate Adam. He started a food diary where he recorded everything that he ate. When he showed it to me periodically I would scold him about the mayonnaise or chocolate. So Adam would omit things from his diary rather than face a scolding – so I would scold him about his omissions and explain that it wouldn’t work if he wasn’t completely honest. He would agree, and then decide to sack the diary off altogether. A month later we would try again and the same thing would happen. After the third attempt I realised I was being ‘that guy’ again. I realised that people can get very defensive when their views or beliefs are challenged.
I can be a stubborn man. If I set out to do something a particular way I will stick to it. Even if somebody recommends an easier way I am slow to take their advice – in fact I will double down on the technique I have chosen just to prove a point. Tell me what to do and I can easily become defensive.
I suddenly understood why I hadn’t been able to help Adam – I had been scolding him and telling him what to do. Adam might have been on step 8 of the 10 steps needed to improve his diet – but when I started to criticise him it caused him to react defensively. He became entrenched and stepped backwards. So my enthusiasm to help him was actually causing him setbacks. I devised a new plan.
The next time we started the food diary I explained what the foods did and what they contained in terms of macro-nutrients – Fat, Carbohydrate, Protein and Fibre – I never said any were good or bad. I just helped him to calculate the foods calorific values and breakdowns.
Over the week Adam began to look at the breakdown of the actual macro-nutrients he was eating compared to what a balanced diet should look like. Adam is a clever bloke – he could see where he was high on some and low on others and he began to make changes. At the end of the first week Adam had lost 1.4kg merely by sticking to a 2,000 calorie a day diet. We reviewed the week over a coffee (black – no milk or sugar) and he asked me a series of questions. I answered them scientifically – we made food the fuel that was needed to operate a machine optimally. I only answered the questions he asked and didn’t try to push.
A week later he had lost another 1.2kg. Furthermore, the macro-nutrient breakdowns were much improved. He asked more questions – I answered them. During week 3 he had apple crumble and custard one evening and was waiting for a bollocking. I didn’t say a word. At the end of that week he had still lost 800g. Adam had made taken ownership of his own diet at that point. I didn’t need to bollock him – he was a bit pissed off at his weekly weigh in. Other people were less than supportive. Many offered chocolate and fizzy drinks but Adam stuck to his programme.
But we got back on the programme and carried on for the next two weeks until he achieved his target – he had wanted to lose a stone in 8 weeks and actually did it in five. Furthermore, he was eating a greater volume of food over those 5 weeks – just smarter choices. I was chuffed for Adam – not only did he get where he wanted to, but he was enjoying his food and had adopted long term changes. They were evidenced in weeks 6.
Adam got great news. He was approved for a move to open conditions. One of the lads on the wing gave him a bar of chocolate as congratulations. The following morning Adam came down with his diet sheet and before he showed it to me he told me about the chocolate he had been given. But he also explained how he had looked at his calorific values and macro-nutrient breakdown for that day. He had reasoned therefore that he could actually eat 9 squares of chocolate while still remaining within his daily calorific and macro-nutrient allowances. He then revealed his diet sheet and the remaining 11 squares of chocolate.
Since I stopped pushing my views on people I have actually generated far more interest. I now have three lads that do the food diary on the wing with me, one lad whose wife does the food diary at home and posts it in each week and I teach a weekly nutrition class to a group of 10 learners – both prisoners and staff.
Abraham Lincoln once said – “Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.” Similarly, it turns out that people will only make a change when they are good and ready.
