Lifestyle Coaching for Lifestyle Diseases - Why 1-1 Coaching is Key

"Dr Chan, what exactly do you do?"

I get asked this often. My answer: I help people unlock the power of their lifestyle and eating habits to better control and manage diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, and other lifestyle-related chronic diseases. I do that through coaching, whether in groups or one-to-one.

The usual response I get is surprise. "That is very different from what doctors normally do." And they are right. Most people think of doctors as the people who prescribe medications or perform surgeries. Lifestyle coaching for chronic diseases is not what most people expect from a medical doctor.

But let me explain why I do what I do, and why it matters.

Watch the short video below, or read on.

Why Lifestyle and Eating Habits Must Be the Cornerstone

The logic is simple. And it is solid.

Diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, fatty liver. These are all lifestyle-related chronic conditions. Which means our lifestyle and eating habits impact them. Directly or indirectly. To a small degree or a very significant degree. But always.

Our lifestyle and eating habits are never neutral when it comes to these conditions. They will either make things better or worse. Never neutral. There is no standing still.

So if a person's poor sleep habits are contributing to high blood pressure, no medication can eliminate the need to improve those sleep habits. If a person's diet is driving high blood sugar, no pill can make the need to change that diet go away. The medication helps. But it does not substitute for the lifestyle and eating habits change that is also necessary.

No running away from it.

Lifestyle and eating habits change and optimisation must always be the cornerstone of managing lifestyle-related chronic diseases. There is no room to disagree with that.

Why One-to-One Lifestyle Coaching Is Different

Many people ask: why do I need coaching? There is no shortage of information online. I can just search for what to eat for diabetes, or what to do for high blood pressure, and I will get hundreds of answers.

That is true. But from my experience coaching people with diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, and other lifestyle-related chronic diseases over the past ten years, easy access to piecemeal and uncurated information on the internet is often not the solution. It frequently becomes part of the problem.

The noise and the confusion. The contradictory advice. The one-size-fits-all recommendations that do not account for who you actually are, what your actual diet looks like, what your work environment is, what your family food culture is, what you are actually able to change and what you are not.

No two people with diabetes are the same. Two people can have the same diagnosis, similar HbA1c readings, similar medication, and completely different underlying drivers and completely different lifestyle and eating habit patterns. What one person needs to change is not what the other person needs to change. A personalised, one-to-one approach to lifestyle coaching addresses this in a way that no generic internet search ever can.

That is what lifestyle coaching for chronic diseases actually does. It cuts through the noise. It identifies what specifically matters for that specific individual. And it supports them through the process of making those changes over weeks and months, not just telling them what to do once and hoping for the best.

Even If You Have Already Started

Some people reading this have already made changes on their own. They have done the research, changed their diet, started walking, seen some results. Good. That is a real achievement.

But in almost every case, there is still room for further improvement. Blind spots that are hard to see from the inside. Habits that feel improved but are still holding things back. Areas that have not been addressed because the person did not know they needed to be.

One-to-one lifestyle coaching adds value at every stage, not only at the beginning. It is useful for the person who has no idea where to start. And it is equally useful for the person who has started but wants to fully maximise what they can achieve through lifestyle and eating habits change.

If you are serious about using lifestyle and eating habits to optimally manage your diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, or other lifestyle-related chronic condition, personalised coaching will always be helpful. Always.

Learning About Reversing Type 2 Diabetes

If you have Type 2 diabetes and are not as equipped with the essential foundational knowledge about reversing Type 2 diabetes as you should be, I have a structured online learning programme that you might find very useful. You can find out more through the link below.

Find out more about the Reversing Type 2 Diabetes: Essential Basics - Structured Online Learning Programme Here

Interested in 1-1 Lifestyle Coaching with Dr Chan?

If you are living with diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, fatty liver, or other lifestyle-related chronic conditions and would like to explore personalised one-to-one lifestyle coaching with Dr Chan, find out more through the link below.

Find out more about 1-1 Personalised Lifestyle Coaching with Dr Chan Here

Related Posts

• Can Type 2 Diabetes Be Reversed? Dr Chan Answers
• Lifestyle and Eating Habits: Your Most Powerful Weapon Against Diabetes
• How Work Affects Diabetes Control

About Dr Chan Tat Hon

Dr Chan graduated from the National University of Singapore medical school in 1992. For the last ten years, his work has focused on lifestyle medicine. He works with healthcare and corporate organisations to design and deliver lifestyle behaviour change programmes, train health coaches and build communities engaged in cultivating healthy behaviours to combat diseases.

He also provides training and coaching to individuals with diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, cardiovascular diseases and other lifestyle-related chronic diseases through 1-1 personalised coaching, live webinars, and online courses.

• 1-1 Personalised Coaching with Dr Chan
• Online Courses and Programmes by Dr Chan
• Reversing Type 2 Diabetes: Essential Basics Online Programme
• LinkedIn Profile of Dr Chan Tat Hon

About This Podcast Episode

In this episode of The Habits Pharmacy Podcast, I explain what I do as a lifestyle medicine doctor and why one-to-one lifestyle coaching for chronic diseases is different from generic internet advice. I cover why lifestyle and eating habits must be the cornerstone of managing diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, cardiovascular disease and other lifestyle-related chronic conditions, and why personalised coaching adds value even for people who have already started making changes on their own.

Full Transcript

The following is the full transcript of the podcast episode above.

"Dr Chan, what exactly do you do?" is a question I get asked often. My answer to them: I help people to unlock the power of their lifestyle and eating habits to improve their control and management of diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, what people commonly call the three highs, or in Chinese, sam ko, as well as cardiovascular disease and other lifestyle related chronic diseases. And I do that through training and coaching, whether in groups or one-to-one coaching.

And the response from most people when they hear about what I do is one of surprise or bewilderment, often saying something like, "That's unusual. That's very atypical. That's very different from what I think of as the main role of doctors," which is usually mainly about prescribing drugs or performing surgeries. And to that, my response would be to tell them that the role of medical doctors is really about helping people get better in terms of health and disease management through evidence-based intervention. And in my case, it is about coaching people to make targeted and personalized changes and improvements to their lifestyle and eating habits to better control and combat their diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, and other lifestyle diseases where lifestyle and eating habits play significant roles.

Hi, I'm Dr Chan, and in this episode of the Habits Pharmacy, I want to just briefly talk about the role of one-to-one lifestyle habits coaching in the management of chronic diseases, because that is often not well understood by most people and often neglected. Let's start with the why. Why lifestyle eating habits modification must be the cornerstone in the management of conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and other lifestyle-related chronic diseases.

The logic behind this statement is simple yet solid, and that is lifestyle-related chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease are all impacted by our lifestyle and eating habits in some way to some degree, whether directly or indirectly, whether to a small degree or to a very significant degree. Because the fact remains this: our lifestyle and eating habits will impact the control and the overall outcome of diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and other lifestyle-related chronic diseases, whether positively or negatively. The inescapable fact remains that our lifestyle and eating habits will always impact the control and the outcome of these chronic diseases.

Our lifestyle and eating habits are never neutral. They will either make these chronic diseases worse or better, but never neutral. So therefore, if we truly want to have a good outcome in managing diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and other lifestyle-related chronic diseases, changing and optimizing all aspects of our lifestyle and eating habits must therefore be the cornerstone of our endeavors. There's no running away from that. Like the Hokkiens will say, "Zao bu ke."

No pills, regardless of whether they are pharmaceutical drugs or supplements, will ever take away the need to change and improve lifestyle and eating habits. Because if a person's poor sleep habits are contributing to his or her high blood pressure, no pills can eliminate the need to improve that person's sleep habits. If a person's poor diet is contributing to his or her high blood sugar, no pills can magically make the need to improve that person's diet go away. Lifestyle and eating habits changes and optimization must always be the cornerstone of management of lifestyle-related chronic diseases. There is no running away from that. There is no room to disagree with that.

So that is what I do. I help people to identify areas of their lifestyle and eating habits that are impacting their condition or conditions, be it diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, or other lifestyle-related chronic diseases, and then coach and support them to make those necessary changes over a period of weeks or months through regular, usually fortnightly or monthly coaching sessions.

Many people wonder why the need for such one-to-one personalized coaching. Surely there's no lack of information on the internet, including using AI chats on what to eat or what to do in terms of lifestyle and eating habits to improve blood sugar or to improve blood pressure. But from my experience this past ten-plus years in coaching people with diabetes or other lifestyle related chronic diseases, this easy access to piecemeal and uncurated information on the internet is often not only not the solution, but actually becomes part of the problem.

So the role of one-to-one coaching is to help people cut through all that noise and confusion to identify what really matters to that specific individual. Because no two persons is the same, and what they need to do and are able to do in terms of lifestyle and eating habits change is different and would benefit from and often need personalization, individualization.

For example, two persons may similarly have type 2 diabetes and the severity may be similar, but their underlying severity of the different pathophysiology of type 2 diabetes may be different. The problematic areas in their lifestyle and eating habits may also be different. Their home and work environment, food culture, and their ability to make changes to their lifestyle and eating habits are also different.

So if one is truly serious about improving their lifestyle and use that to improve their blood sugar or their blood pressure or whatever lifestyle related disease metrics they are targeting to improve, then there is great need and tremendous value to do that in a personalized manner because there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

I'm not saying that it is impossible to simply do self-research and DIY one's endeavor to make changes to their lifestyle and eating habits to improve their chronic conditions. But it is not easy, and most people would fail or would make mistakes when doing so. And everybody would benefit from getting some help in the form of one-to-one coaching when doing so if they have access to that.

Lifestyle and eating habits optimization is a critical must-do for people with diabetes, heart diseases, and other lifestyle-related chronic diseases. But it is clearly not easy. Any form of help and support is always going to be helpful to increase one's chances of success, to avoid making mistakes when doing so.

And even for people who have seen some results from their own DIY lifestyle and eating habits improvements and changes, they would also still definitely benefit from additional one-to-one coaching because in almost all cases, there will always still be room for further improvement that can be achieved through one-to-one coaching, or have areas of blind spots highlighted or addressed through one-to-one coaching.

So to me, if one is serious about fully maximizing what they can potentially achieve through lifestyle and eating habits change and improvements in managing chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, fatty liver, cardiovascular disease, and other lifestyle-related chronic diseases, then one-to-one coaching support would always be helpful and useful.

And as I always do, I would like to take this chance to highlight something very important to every person with type 2 diabetes, and that is that type 2 diabetes is potentially reversible if lifestyle eating habits changes are made early enough, appropriately, adequately, and sustainably. The window to reverse type 2 diabetes does not remain open forever. The earlier one attempts to do so, the better one's chances of success.

Most people do not have a comprehensive understanding of diabetes reversal. I have a structured online learning program called Reversing Type 2 Diabetes: The Essential Basics, that I developed to help people with type 2 diabetes equip themselves with the must-know foundational knowledge of reversing type 2 diabetes. If you are keen to find out more, the link is in the description of this episode.

I hope you have found this episode of The Habits Pharmacy Podcast useful. I'm Dr Chan. Let your habits be your medicine to combat lifestyle-related chronic diseases. Eat well and be well.

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