“Squeeze-Between” Syndrome: Signs, Symptoms & Solutions by Joan Kent, PhD
So what is this Syndrome? Well, it happens when a client tries to force my nutrition coaching in and around every other food plan she’s already following. I say “she” because, in my experience, women are the ones who do this. Many of them have several nutrition plans going at once. That doesn’t leave much room for mine.
The most obvious sign of Squeeze-Between is poor results — or none.
Also resistance. I’ll get lots of push-back when one of my recommendations conflicts with the advice given to the client by her chiropractor, her next-door neighbor, her bridge partner, her manicurist, the guy who cleans the pool.
Somehow, though, when things don’t work, the nutritionist — me — gets blamed. Clients don’t seem to recognize that they hired me because those other things weren’t working.
But perhaps I digress.
Let’s Zoom in on One Client
This client wanted to lose weight.
She had a thyroid problem, and her M.D. gave her nutrition advice. I’m not allowed to contradict that, so his guidelines became part of the project.
Her chiropractor wanted her to fast one day a week. It may have had to do with autophagy, but let’s not go there now.
The food logs she started keeping for me revealed that she always ate extra food before her weekly fast began. After the fast, she’d go a little nuts and make up for the fasting.
She wasn’t losing weight. Surprised? Neither was I. The fasting had to end.
So What Happened?
Things started moving in the right direction. But one night at 1 am, she woke up “starving.” Her word.
Chances are she wasn’t starving. Maybe she felt hungry and wasn’t used to that in the middle of the night.
Unfortunately, instead of eating just enough food to take away the hunger and going back to bed, she had a large meal.
But so horrified of hunger was she, she started eating a large meal every night at 10:30. After 5 days of that, she had gained 4 pounds.
She blamed me. That was before I reviewed her food logs and reported back to her what she had done.
Wish I could tell you we got things on track. We started to, yes, but before we made substantial progress, she announced she was pregnant and no longer interested in a weight-loss plan.
This “Too Many Cooks” Thing is Called “Diffusion of Responsibility”
My most obvious take-away was to start screening clients in a pre-program interview.
• To ask about other nutrition plans the client’s following.
• To develop an agreement with the client to follow my plan.
• To fire a client who won’t put our work front and center. Otherwise, she’ll quit and tell her friends my program doesn’t work.
Next time I ran into a client following a nutrition plan from her gynecologist, I said, “I get my worst results with clients who squeeze my plan in and around other people’s advice.”
She stopped the OB/GYN’s plan and switched to mine. Her results were fantastic, but that’s a separate story!
What if you could redefine your relationship with food? What if you could potentially reverse diabetes, hypertension, and other metabolic conditions? Or mood swings? Or binge eating? What would it be worth to you to regain control and enjoy your life without stressing about food? I’ll show you how to get there. It’s easy, it works, and you can do it. Just visit LastResortNutrition.com and grab your free Empower Me Consult today.
Brought to you by Dr. Joan Kent, best-selling author of Stronger Than Sugar.