My Bio
Throughout our time together, I’ll support you by teaching you this step-by-step, systematic approach to learning the skills of behavior change, helping you overcome common obstacles, and building your self-confidence, so you can ultimately fire me as your coach.
I do this by:
Providing a space to listen without judgement,
Asking questions to understand,
Sharing real examples of healthy habits from:
Leveraging my experience in health, nutrition, and exercise,
My 40+ years as a type 1 diabetic.
My education from earning a bachelor’s degree in Nutritional Science from Rutgers University.
Learning how to maintain my health while working as a traveling software engineer for more than 10 years, and running a successful IT consulting business for 20+ years.
My experience from actively participating for more than a year in Brooke Castillo’s The Life Coach School Self-Coaching Scholars program.
Graduating from the Primal Health and Tiny Habits coaching programs.
My Story
At the age of 7, I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.
I was admitted into the hospital with a blood glucose level of over 700 (the normal range is 70-120).
After 3 days of hell, where vomiting and being poked and prodded with wires, IV’s, needles, and razor blade slices on my fingers (that’s how they checked your blood glucose in the early 1980s) happened on the hour, every hour, my blood glucose value finally returned to normal.
I learned that Type 1 is the diabetes where your pancreas fails to make enough insulin for the body to take the glucose out of the blood for your cells to use for energy (or store as fat). And was subsequently educated by the nurses that every day, multiple times each day, I needed to take injections of insulin.
Oh, and I had to make sure I ate a certain amount of these things called “carbohydrates”, and only at specific times of the day. If I ate too many, my blood sugar would go too high, and I’d get really tired and thirsty and pee a lot. Or if I didn’t eat enough, I’d get shaky, sweat, and possibly die.
So after less than a week, I was given a picture book of all the foods and their carb amounts, instructions to take this much insulin and when, and check my blood sugar a few times throughout the day, including in school at the nurse’s office every day, and try to fit in and be “normal” like everyone else.
But “no pressure, kid”, right?
According to my dad (because I was in and out of consciousness), he said at some point in the hospital, he was at crying at my bedside. He understood how this disease would rock my world. I’m not sure where this came from, but I wasn’t concerned. I looked up at him and said “It’s ok dad, I’ll be ok”.
I don’t remember that (maybe because I was 7, or maybe because I was out of it), but I do remember feeling like this was just something new to learn – not much different than writing cursive or memorizing my “times tables” – but I also knew it was important - I didn’t like the idea of the whole death thing, and if you’ve ever had a really low blood sugar, you know it can feel like you’re dying well before you’re actually dead.
So because of this daily life-or-death situation, I had to learn about not only how different kinds of foods affected my glucose levels, but how many other things such as exercise, sleep, and as I got older – stress, alcohol, other medications and supplements also changed it.
This has been a mixed blessing for me – while it can be a lot to handle on a daily basis, it’s also forced me to be keenly aware of how I physically feel moment by moment, and driven me to find ways to optimize my health by making everything I have to do as easy, simple, and consistently effective as possible.
Living the results of my choices drove my interest in health and nutrition. I quickly learned that controlling my blood sugar directly impacted my energy level, mood, and therefore my relationships too.
I had to start making changes and adjusting my behaviors to handle my diabetes and control my blood sugar so I could do all the things “normal” kids did without any issues (or much less of them).
I tried lots of different programs for eating and exercising and most were short-term wins, but fell off the wagon, and weight fluctuate.
It wasn’t until I got consistent with healthy habits that I was able to increase my awareness of what I wanted to do and what my body was “telling me” it wanted – so I found ways to make better choices when eating and be more consistent with exercise to help me lose fat and build muscle – and maintain it easily.
I still drink alcohol occasionally and have decadent desserts and treats for special occasions like birthdays and holidays and when traveling – because my habits – my systems – that I do every day, support my health and don’t stress me out, so I don’t ever feel the need to binge on treats or booze.
A few years ago I got interested in why us humans do the things we do, and got involved in many areas of personal development, including psychology, ancestral (primal) health, and behavior design programs, and found that there were simple and easy (but not obvious) factors that contribute to the habits we make or break.
I’ve put together everything I’ve learned from the thousands of hours of study and years of personal trial-and-error experience into a program to help you cut through the clutter and confusion of the myths that are out there like it takes 21 days to create a habit, or you need to repeat a behavior 30 times to make it stick, so you can learn what actually works to create long-term behavior changes, which we call habits.
Creating healthy habits saved my life, and continues to let me enjoy a fulfilling, quality life. I’m grateful to the doctors, teachers, and family members that showed me the way through their love and support, and it thrills me that I can pay it forward through coaching.
With love and health,
Dan
Start with the Heathy Habit Designer program today.
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