Client story: JP's own change
I was told I didn't need to change anything, and it felt like a relief. This is the story of where the change actually began, without numbers and without promises.
Where it started
I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. The nurse reassured me that I didn't need to change anything, this would be balanced with medication. I felt relief. I didn't yet realise that relief was a trap.
Before that there were years I couldn't read correctly. My energy ran out in the afternoons, and I explained it away with age and the rhythm of work. I'd stand at the fridge door at 11pm, not hungry, just because something was there. In the morning I couldn't remember what. It wasn't enjoyment. It was a habit I hadn't chosen.
I'd tried all sorts of things before. It always started well. It always ended. I drew the same conclusion most people draw: that something was wrong with me, and that I was missing something other people had.
The turning point
The turning point wasn't the scales or a blood test. It was my father.
He had a health emergency in hospital, right in front of me. I was led out of the room. A few hours later I was on stage entertaining an audience of hundreds, and it went well, because twenty years on stage teaches you to put hard things aside for a while.
On the way home, they didn't stay aside. I started counting backwards: his years in hospital, his daily life now. Then I counted forwards, for myself, and realised the same path wasn't twenty years away. It was a few.
I'd never thought about it that way before. I'd thought health either holds up or it doesn't, and that it sorts itself out in time. That evening it stopped being something that sorts itself out in time.
I didn't change that evening. But from that evening on, I could no longer not know.
What I changed
A little later, an invitation to a program landed in my inbox, promising something other than a ban list. I thought I'd spent money on worse things, and I joined.
The first thing I had to learn was not to take anything away. I added first. At first it felt wrong, because I was used to change starting with giving something up and continuing through gritted teeth.
Then I learned why I eat the way I eat. What part of it was hunger, what was habit, what was tiredness, and what was simply that food was close by and the evening was long. It was psychology, not willpower.
I changed things one at a time, in order, and let each one settle before the next. It took time. That's exactly why it also stuck.
Where I am now
This is usually where you'd expect numbers. I'm not writing them here.
Numbers are an easy way to sell and a poor way to tell the truth. They get the reader comparing themselves to a stranger, and that comparison has never yet helped anyone. My own state of health is something I go through with my own doctor, not on a website.
What I will say is that I eat differently now than I used to, and it has lasted. Afternoons are different from how they were. I no longer stand at the fridge door at 11pm. Food is no longer the thing that defines my day.
I still do gigs on stage. Alongside that, I coach people who recognise themselves in that old version of me.
What you can take from this
My story is one story. It's not a promise or a prediction about you.
Three things in it weren't chance, though. First: the problem wasn't willpower. You're not broken. The environment changed. The human didn't.
Second: understanding came before rules. As long as the rules came from outside, they held for exactly as long as I could keep resisting myself, and then they stopped holding.
Third: nothing was taken away on day one. Something was added first, and the rest followed in its own order.
If you recognise even one of these, that's enough to start. Your own path is built around your own daily life, and where health is concerned, with your own doctor, not according to my story.