By Brendan Reid, PreKure Certified Health Coach

How did the journey to becoming a Health Coach start for me? I found that I had learned so much along the course of my own weight loss journey over the last few years. It very much mirrored what I had done with IT when I first started getting into it. I taught myself HTML years ago and then got into web development. I started studying it and then, basically, got this piece of paper to say, ‘hey, I do actually know this at some official capacity’.

And the same thing has happened for me now with health. I’ve learned so much. I’ve read so many books. I thought, I’ve learned so much along the way, let’s make this official as well, like it did with the coding years ago. And that’s what led me to PreKure.

I’m not 100% sure what the next steps are. Will I go into business for myself? I don’t know. Until now, it’s really just been a case of people hearing about my story and wanting some advice. If I’m going to help people, I’m really just concerned with what works. I was speaking to a lady the other night who just wanted to know what she should be eating. She rattled off a list of things. ‘Can I eat this? Can I eat that?’ And I replied yes, no or maybe, and that was all the help she needed.

To be able to help other people in that way, there’s no downside to that, whatsoever. And I think there’s a certain something with the background that I have. Because you can imagine a lot of people who work in the field of health have always been healthy themselves. They’ve never been where these people currently are. At some level, I can relate to a lot of those people because I lived like that for 30+ years. It was all I’d ever known. Fat was my normal. So I can very, very easily relate to a lot of people out there who still have weight issues.

“I wasn’t expecting to see retirement, and now I’ve got to figure out what to do with the rest of my life, now that I’ve got the rest of my life to live.”

If I can help one other person, it’s all worth it. One lady I helped out a while back, she wasn’t in a very good way. She was seeing her doctor regularly. There were a few compounding issues so I said to her, whatever we’re doing, make sure you’re doing it with the support of your doctor. And if your doc doesn’t agree with it, we’ll find another one who does. Thankfully her doctor did agree and now she is doing better. Everything’s just grand. We hear these success stories coming out from all corners of the woodwork and they all count.

Sometimes, people are so concerned about evidence and quality of evidence and the importance of that discussion in academia. But out there in the real world, on the front lines, all people want is something that works.

I didn’t believe that it would work because of what I’d always been told. I’ve been completely turned around. I’m fully on board with it and would encourage anybody else who still is where I used to be, to give it a shot. Give it an honest shot and get the support you need.