Overwhelm.

Many of my clients have experienced feelings of overwhelm when addressing their food and nutrition habits.

It’s a common issue that can often be generalized with catchy posts and blogs titled ‘how to avoid overwhelm‘ or something like that.

What I’ve found is that overwhelm is almost always contextual. Meaning it’s different for everyone and depends heavily on where you are now, and what life looks like for you.

 

No one-size-fits-all strategy

Addressing overwhelm as a feeling and a state being contextual means no real ‘avoiding overwhelm’ strategies or systems will work for everyone.

As a nutritionist and educator, one of the essential parts of my job is supporting people to make lasting food and dietary changes without being ‘too’ overwhelming.

Should we be aiming for not overwhelming at all? Maybe, depending on the person and the circumstances. But I know from over 25 years of coaching that change happens when we move beyond what is comfortable.

However, what is uncomfortable and how far to move into that is very individual.

Addressing overwhelm in practice

When working with clients, establishing what is overwhelming is critical. Knowing how much is enough to take on and how much is too much is an ongoing conversation. It applies not just to food and nutrition habits. It’s also about the entire process of working together.

Some questions to consider include:

  • What sort of lifestyle changes will support the food changes?
  • What do we need to set up to work together?
  • What kind of information do I need to gather from my client, and how do we get it?
  • What is going in their lives right now?
  • What are their current stress levels, and how to they view their capacity to take on more?

These are just a few examples.

In my experience

I don’t always get it right. All it can take is wanting to get all the official documents out of the way too quickly or requesting a food and mood journal too soon (or at all), and it can overwhelm a person before we have even gotten to making dietary changes.

How I manage this professionally is with ongoing communication. Technology is a great asset for this – my practice platform has a private messaging feature allowing clients to reach me directly and say, ‘hey, that’s too much‘ as it happens. It also allows me to change or modify the plan in real-time and not wait until our next appointment.

Doing this keeps our focus on if an individual task or habit is the right fit or not, instead of moving right into feelings of ‘I can’t do this‘ or ‘this whole process is wrong for me‘ which is a sign of feeling overwhelmed.

 Overwhelm is always individual

Avoiding, decreasing, or establishing a realistic amount of overwhelm is individual, and there is no standardized formula or a system that applies to everyone.

Mostly it’s about listening to clients and responding immediately when they say something is too much. It might not be too much for a previous client and not enough for the next one. That is no reflection on the person expressing their overwhelm, and it’s on the practitioner to make the appropriate changes.

This is why focusing too heavily on standardized systems can lose sight of the individual and cause overwhelm that didn’t need to be there.

 

Have you ever felt overwhelmed making changes? What did you find helped or hindered the process?

 

Do you like this topic? Would you like to hear more? If so, you might want to consider subscribing to my LinkedIn newsletter, The Food & Mood News. I publish weekly…ish 😉

 

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Hi! My name is Kristine Peter and I’m a Nutritionist (ANutr, NRN) and Nutrition Educator (MEd).

I help my clients improve their mood, energy & enhance their health and well-being. So they can regain their vitality, get back to exercise, reduce stress & be themselves again without spending countless hours in the kitchen or following restrictive diets & meal plans that don’t work or fit their lifestyle.

If you want to learn more about working with me, you can book a free 15 minute connection call.

Kristine Peter, Nutritionist, is a Registered Associate Nutritionist and Ordinary Member of the Nutrition Society of Australia (NSA), and a Senior Fellow and Accredited Natural Therapy Practitioner of the Society of Natural Therapists and Researchers (SNTR).

Kristine Peter (nee Poole), ANutr, NRN

BA(HONS), GCHumNutr, MEd

Nutritionist & Educator

Accredited Nutritionist and Natural Therapy Practitioner

www.kristinepeter.com

kris@kristinepeter.com

ABN 97 276 512 245

Perth, Australia

 

Kristine Peter
Kristine Peter