Off The Couch – Nutrition & Health Coaching with Clare McAfee

Welcome.

Clare McAfee
Nutrition & Health Coach
Chronic Illness Advocate
Certified Endocannabinology Trainer
Medical Cannabis Activist

“The best doctors give the least medicine.”

“There is one consolation in being sick; and that is the possibility that you may recover to a better state than you were ever in before.”

“Live long and prosper.”

“Prevention is better than cure.”

“Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food.”

Clare McAfee – Nutrition & Health Couch

A Little About Me

I’m Clare, a Nutrition & Health Coach.

I live on the Dublin coastline, am the owner of a 4-legged tyrant, and am not good at cooking. I believe cannabis can do so much for chronic pain sufferers (I was once a sceptic), and my next big goal is to qualify as a Nutritional Therapist.

During the last 5 years I’ve experienced adult-onset Hydrocephalus (I have a VP Shunt), Lyme disease (yikes), Interstitial Cystitis (in remission) and Visual Snow Syndrome (work in progress!), so I fully understand what chronic illness is like – including the devastation of a diagnosis. It’s very easy to feel like your life will never be the same again. While that can be true, it is actually possible to learn to live with your condition and often even to live well. Maybe you can be healthier than you ever were before!

Having experienced the above conditions, I wanted to learn as much as possible about health and lifestyle management for both chronic illness and chronic illness prevention in order to help myself. Now, I would like to pass on what I’ve learnt to you.

At the moment I’m just working with medical card holders, free of charge. If you’d like to apply, please contact me to arrange a 20 min. chat, and we can see if we’re a good coach/client fit as well as discuss how I can help you to achieve better health.

My Approach

Nutrition and Health Coaching.

During the last 5 years I’ve seen various doctors, consultants and coaches, and often I found that judgement radiated off them and “tact” was not a word in their dictionary. It neither encouraged me to acknowledge areas of my health that I needed to improve, nor to do anything about them. In fact, it often left me feeling pretty darn awful and I suspect in the end just made things worse.

I’m a coach, but I’m also a human being. Like you might, sometimes I struggle to always do the best thing for my health. Eating the whole pack of biscuits in front of the telly? Check. Binge watching Good Girls on Netflix for 5 hours straight until 2am? Check. Not managing my stress well and getting ratty with an inanimate object for not working fast enough? Check!

As your coach, there is zero judgement here – just a requirement for accountability. I don’t expect you to do everything I suggest, perfectly, all the time. All I ask is that you approach this with a view to recognising what areas of your health and wellbeing you could improve on, and to try your best to implement recommendations to improve it, one step at a time.

One way I manage stress – but don’t worry, I won’t make you sea swim!

I’ll give you some easy recipes to choose from – no hard-to-find ingredients here…

The Process

What Coaching With Me Looks Like.

Our first session will be a chat about what your current health habits are. This will cover areas such as nutrition, sleep hygiene, stress and exercise status, taking between 1.5 – 2 hrs. I’ll then send you on some recommendations within 48 hours of our first session. We’ll have at least two follow-up sessions to see how you’re getting on, lasting up to an hour each.

Personally, I’ve found having someone to be accountable to incredibly helpful, and as a coach, I’m that person for you. If you’d like me to check in with you every week or every month I can. It doesn’t matter how long it takes to improve so long as you’re moving in the right direction (for the majority of the time!)

Remember I’ve been there too when it comes to both chronic illness and bad habits, and I’ve likely heard everything! This is an entirely non-judgemental environment, all I ask is that you come to sessions ready to fully engage with the process.