238 – Catherine Steele

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[00:00:00] Intro

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Welcome to the Art of Living Proactively, episode 238 with Catherine Steele. And in this episode. I discussed with Dr. Catherine Steele about her background in psychology and occupational health, her current work in coaching, academic research and writing, and she provides an overview of what health coaching is as far as facilitating behaviour change and supporting clients in enacting sustainable habits. She emphasizes about empowering individuals to take charge of their health, regardless of workplace wellness programs. And she really advocates for a more proactive root cause approach to lifestyle medicine and stresses modeling, healthy living for children through education. And overall she conveys the importance of self-awareness, motivation, community support, and education in making incremental changes for longterm health. Catherine is also part of the Tree of Life. The Cancer Coach program. And we discuss many issues around that as well. So that’s this episode with Catherine Steele episode 238. I hope you enjoy this episode, if you do get some value from this please do share it with anyone who would really appreciate this. Remember the episode is also on youtube you can watch the actual video of Catherine and i discussing things Please do leave a review and hope you enjoy this episode.

[00:01:26] Tony Winyard: welcome to The Art of Living Proactively. My guest

today is Catherine Steele. How are you, Catherine?

[00:01:32] Catherine Steele: I’m good. Thanks, How are you?

[00:01:34] Tony Winyard: I’m good. Oh, actually, I, I guess, should I refer to

you as Dr. Catherine Steele?

[00:01:39] Catherine Steele: Yeah, I mean that’s the official, I suppose. I’m not particularly precious about it, but yeah. Won’t make you do it all the way through.

[00:01:46] Tony Winyard: Right. Okay. So, and, and Catherine and I know each other from, I did a course with the FMCA to Functional Medicine Coaching Academy a couple of years ago, and Catherine was my facilitator, wasn’t it? Yeah,

[00:01:59] Catherine Steele: facilitator.

[00:02:00] Tony Winyard: So that’s where we’ve, and then since then, we’ve sort of crossed paths a few different times and with the UK Health Coach Association and, and other, other ventures as well.

And you’ve got your, seems like you’ve got your hands in many pies what we’ve, what you’re doing in Leicester University and Cancer Coach and the UK Health Coach Association and so on. So do you, I was thinking, how do I introduce you because you do so many things, so I think it’s better you introduce yourself and what all the things you do.

[00:02:26] Catherine Steele: Yeah, I’ve got friends that describe, I’m a bit like a Jack Russell. You know, I kind of get, I’ve got sort of lots of enthusiasm for, for lots of different things. So my main role is I’m an associate professor of psychology at the University of Leicester and I lead their postgraduate program. So, That looks at sort of occupational psychology, general psychology, and also at coaching.

So that’s my main job, which is sort of teaching, research and practice. There, I’ve also got a role as behavioral sciences director and academic advisor for the cancer coach. And then, you know, again, I do sort of various things. So I’m currently the research lead for the division of coaching psychology.

So, yeah, lots of, lots of little bits and pieces. I run a small business called Turquoise Wellbeing, where I do my own coaching and coaching supervision. So it all falls under the remit really, of, workplace health, coaching and coaching psychology. So that’s the anything to do with those things I’m interested in.

[00:03:16] What led you to psychology?

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[00:03:16] Tony Winyard: Well, let’s start with psychology. So what. When did you, I’m presuming you did a like degree. Was that how you first got into psych? What? What was it that made you want to go into that in the first place?

[00:03:29] Catherine Steele: I think, you know, a long, long time ago, ’cause it was my, it was my first degree. I’ve always been really interested in people. I have a really curious nature in terms of strengths. You know, curiosity is a strength. I think. I’m very interested in who people are, how we interact together, what makes a world, what makes us all kind of tick.

So that really interests me. And then as I was doing my undergraduate degree, I think everyone goes into it wanting to be a clinical psychologist. That’s what we all want to do. Or at the time, ’cause it was sort of in the nineties, everyone wanted to be cracker for anyone that can remember that in, in the uk as in forensic psychologist working in the prison service.

But then I was introduced to occupational psychology, which is about psychology, applied to work. And that just really interested me ’cause I thought well work affects everybody. You know? Hopefully we’re not all gonna meet a forensic psychologist, we won’t all meet a clinical psychologist, but we all have something to do with work.

Even if that’s unemployment, volunteering, you know, we have a connection with the workplace. So, And I’d never really thought of that from a psychological perspective before. So that sparked my interest and sort of followed on from there really.

[00:04:32] Tony Winyard: And so where did you go from there? I mean, obviously, you know, I know all about the stuff. Of F M C A and UK Health Coach Association and so on. But what, what happened after you did that degree?

[00:04:42] Catherine Steele: So I did a master’s, in occupational psychology and I started working in human resources. So I was working in hr. Fairly quickly realized that wasn’t quite what I thought it was. ’cause I thought it was very much about supporting the employees in the workplace, and I think it is much better now, but obviously there’s an organizational element to it as well.

And that didn’t really interest me as much. I was much more interested in the individual aspects. At that point I was doing work in coaching as well, got introduced to coaching through that work. I then got offered a PhD, which was sponsored by a police service. And that was actually looking at careers, so looking at people’s career development and how organizations supported careers.

And I think tangentially from that, I got interested in workplace health and workplace wellbeing. So, You know, when you start to look at how you manage somebody’s career, you inevitably, it’s a trajectory, isn’t it? So you start to look at, you know, why people would want to stay within one organization, why they might not wanna stay in an organization.

And then I think I was just at a stage in my life where relatives were starting to experience health challenges and it all kind of came. You know, came together and a lot of those were stress related. So then after the PhD, I worked in a consultancy for a while and then in about, probably about 2010, went back to academia and then started a full-time academic post.

[00:06:00] Tell me about the book you are writing?

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[00:06:00] Tony Winyard: Cool. And you mentioned before we started recording about how you and Penny Kechagioglou are in the process of writing a book. So do you wanna bring us up? Well let everyone know about that.

[00:06:09] Catherine Steele: Yeah, so a passion for both of us, I think is about the workplace

so we are both really passionate about health at work and also knowing that all the stats are showing us that, you know, sickness, absences are high, rates of chronic illness in the working age are going up.

So, you know, it’s a problem for organizations, but it’s a problem for individuals as well. So it’s affecting kind of both sides of, of that. There’s a lot when you talk about workplace wellbeing. My experience with that is a lot of people look at stress and burnout. That’s the, when you think about what wellbeing at work, it’s stress and it’s burnout or it’s mental health and you have fantastic schemes like Mental Health first Aid.

MIND has a great site around kind of workplace wellbeing, but taking our sort of functional medicine background, you mentioned that, that we sort of met at F M C A, the Coaching Academy. There’s that root cause piece that for me is really missing in workplace health. So much of how we work, if we use our kind of branches in terms of, you know, functional medicine and our pillars of health is toxic.

You know, a lot of people don’t have time to eat properly. They don’t sleep properly. Rest isn’t valued. There’s certainly no time for movement and that’s got worse. I think as as people are working from home, as you, you’re not even moving between offices, let alone moving how we are designed. As humans to move.

So we are kind of hoping to present a bit of a different approach, I think with the book in terms of really looking at root cause health and what individuals can do about it. You know, to try and empower individuals. I think quite often we think, well, we can’t do it because our workplace is toxic, or our managers are toxic.

But really from a coaching perspective, looking at, well, how do we empower individuals to, to take charge of their health regardless to a certain extent of what the workplace is. There are always little steps that, that you can take. But also, you know, the, another part of it will be aimed at sort of managers and senior leaders.

You know, how do you create a really healthy workplace? You know, people don’t want to recruit talent and have really good talent to have it fall over in, it’s in their forties and fifties, or even earlier as, as we’re seeing now. ’cause then you’re losing people and then the organization’s got sickness, rates. So what does a really healthy workplace look like? You know, and it’s not. Bringing in cakes for everyone’s birthday . It’s not the mild track around outside. It’s so much more than that. But I think it’s an area that isn’t really explored that much. So yeah, it’s a very, really, really early days, but a project we’re both really excited about

[00:08:29] So the book sounds like it’s about being proactive?

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[00:08:29] Tony Winyard: So in a way, from what you just said, is it a lot of it, well, some of it is about being more proactive.

[00:08:36] Catherine Steele: Yeah, absolutely. In terms of, of the podcast. Yeah. It’s about being proactive, but it’s also about knowledge, I think, isn’t it? Because I think, you know, we talk about this in health coaching. I think it’s insulting to say that people don’t know what to do to support their health. It’s, it’s actually putting in the structures and the support and the mechanisms to be able to put it into place.

It’s hard, you know, it, it’s hard to buck the trend. It’s hard to be the only person drinking water while everybody else is having wine. It’s hard to, you know, Be the person who’s made their own Tupperware salad when everyone else is going to the canteen and having fish and chips. You know, it, it, it’s quite difficult to be that person.

So how do you get that accountability? How do you get teams to work together and, and how do you really sell the benefits? You know, that you are going to feel so much better if you do this? You, are, you know, from a manager, your team are going to perform so much better if you enable this, if you have different food in the canteen, if you have different things available.

I mean, there’s been quite a lot of interesting stuff around this four day working week. In the UK at the minute, and I think that’ll be really interesting to see what happens. You know, just giving people another day of leisure time, a bit more autonomy because that’s a big one for health as well as having autonomy.

Yeah, I’m really interested to see what comes out of these little experiments around that.

[00:09:50] What demographic is it aimed at?

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[00:09:50] Tony Winyard: And so who is the book aimed at for a particular demographic or who, who is that aimed at?

[00:09:55] Catherine Steele: Well, we’ve kind of said anyone in work, you know, just to try and keep the audience nice and big. , but I think. There will definitely be a focus for managers and HR professionals within it. So looking at people that are responsible for workplace occupational health physicians as well. We’ve said gps ’cause obviously, you know, gps are at the front end of this.

They see the people that are, you know, really struggling and, and are, are suffering from those things and stress and burnout. But it’s then exploring a little bit more, you know, what’s actually causing that. What is it about the way that workplace or that work team is structured that’s causing that? And it’s often multifaceted, isn’t it?

It’s not one thing.

[00:10:31] Tony Winyard: And have either you or Penny written a book before.

[00:10:35] Catherine Steele: Yes, both of us have. Yeah. . Yeah, I’ve written sort of academic text, so textbooks and also done some chapters in, in edited books. Penny’s written most recently a book on leadership in the n h s as well. So yeah, we’ve both got experience. We both love writing. So uh, yeah, a bit of, a bit of a passion project hopefully for us both.

[00:10:54] Tony Winyard: So have you got a plan a date? You hope you would get the book out by?

[00:10:58] Catherine Steele: Yesterday I think realistically it’s at least 12 months, isn’t it? Between sort of editing and, and things. So we’re just still negotiating and sort of coming up with the final structure at the minute. Working on things like sample chapters as well. But yeah, I it for, for me, and I know for her as well, it feels like a book that’s necessary and a book that’s needed and is quite timely.

So, yeah, it’s just fitting in the day job, isn’t it, you know, whilst also keeping ourselves healthy and well, is the challenge.

[00:11:23] What is your role at The Tree of Life?

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[00:11:23] Tony Winyard: A few months ago on this, or by the time this episode comes out, it will be a few months. Luke Luke Watts from the cancer coach was, was a guest on this podcast, and obviously you are involved with the cancer coach as well. So anyone, for anyone who didn’t catch the episode, could you briefly explain what is the cancer coach and what is your role in there?

[00:11:41] Catherine Steele: Yeah, I mean, so I’m involved with The Tree of Life, which is sort of part of the, of the Cancer coach sort of organization. So The Tree of Life is an online program designed at sort of preventative healthcare. So following the sort of four, you know, the main pillars of, of health. And, and it’s about, you know, again, being proactive and looking at what you can do to support your health.

So, My role with the organization as a is I’m the behavioral sciences director and academic advisor. So we are gonna be looking at things like engagement also working with a team of health coaches as well to look at how we actually enact that change so we can give people the knowledge. Design programs it gives people the knowledge.

But to that holy grail piece is, is the how, you know, how do you use behavioral science to actually enact change, to facilitate change, and also sustainable change. So trying to bring some of my knowledge from sort of psychology background and, and behavioral sciences background into the programs that they offer and also the evidence-based piece as well.

You know, we always wanna be really careful with what we’re doing in this area. ’cause it’s, you know, it is open to critique. That’s, that’s the nature of it. So, The more firmly attached to the evidence base we can be and really understanding what good evidence looks like. I think that’s really important with in this sort of commercial health space to have that, have that attachment.

[00:12:55] The Tree of Life could be helpful to so many people?

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[00:12:55] Tony Winyard: So the Tree of Life, when is there’s, a, as you said, it’s like an education aspect to it. It’s, I mean, it, could be, it could be really helpful to so many people if we, if, if the word, if the marketing works out well and it gets, gets out to many people, it could be, it could help a lot of people start to become more proactive in, in a way, I guess.

[00:13:19] Catherine Steele: Absolutely. I mean, the potential for, for programs like The Tree of Life, I think are, are huge. And I’m, I was actually in a meeting with somebody else, something else around coaching this morning, and I think the, there is, it’s so, so timely. There is such a need at the minute. People are struggling.

People have been struggling, I think for a long time. People are aware that, you know, chronic illness, I mean, I’m in my early forties and I’m already seeing a lot of my friends, you know, poly seeded, struggling, and you know, we, we’ve got young kids, you know, we don’t wanna be feeling like that at this stage of our life.

You know, Yeah. that’s how you might wanna, don’t really wanna feel like it in your sixties and seventies either, but you certainly don’t wanna be thinking like it in your late thirties and forties. That’s, that’s not okay.

And I think that’s really concerning when we look at this. I mean, I think the cancer diagnosis at the minute in working age adults is really high.

And and, and again, we’re seeing younger and younger diagnosis of things like autoimmune disease fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue. I think we do really need to look at what’s the cause, how are we living, how are we contributing to, to this? And that’s not a, it’s a really difficult conversation to have, isn’t it?

Because I think it can very easily stray into blame. And people almost taking them too much personal responsibility for it. ’cause it’s not about that. It’s about, this is the environment that we’re in. There are all kinds of reasons that we could talk about as to why we’re in the environment that we’re in.

And I’m far beyond, you know, my, my expertise. , it’s okay. So how do we recognize that? And then just take those little steps one by one to, to make it different. And also it’s a bit like osmosis, isn’t it? It’s how do we kind of filter it out to, to other people? So you know, you see somebody over there looking really shiny and well, what are they doing , and how can I get some of that, you know?

That’s how I like to see it sort of happening as part of communities really.

[00:15:01] Which countries have a better approach to health?

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[00:15:01] Tony Winyard: Are you aware of any countries that are doing this well, that are, do have a sort of a better approach, say than the UK and the US anyway?

[00:15:11] Catherine Steele: I mean, I’m sure you, you’ll know Tony about the Blue Zones. I’m reading Dr. Mark Hyman’s book, actually. They’re forever young at the minute. And he, he talks about the time that he’s spent in places like Sicily and there’s definitely other, other countries that do it better or do it differently.

And that Are just more, I think even in the UK there are probably different areas that are doing it differently and, and doing it better. So I live in quite a rural area, for example, and I know. That it’s much easier for me here to get out and go for a really long walk that’s kind of hilly. It’s outside. I’m getting, you know, all the fractals from nature and, and really getting a different experience to when I’ve lived more in a city center.

And it’s quite a different experience. I can still get out and go for a walk, but it might be by a main road. It’s just, it’s just different, isn’t it? But on the other hand here, from a community perspective, it’s probably more isolated than when I was living, you know, somewhere where there were literally people on the doorstep.

There were coffee shops on the doorstep, so it’s easy. It’s all about balance, isn’t it? And finding what works for you, I think, and, and knowing yourself well enough to know what works for you.

[00:16:08] What attracted you to health coaching?

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[00:16:08] Tony Winyard: So let’s talk about the coaching that you do. What was it that attracted you to coaching?

[00:16:14] Catherine Steele: Good. It was such a long time ago. That’s a really interesting question I think I’ve ever been asked that. I think it’s my curiosity again. I’ve got a very solution focused nature, which is both a blessing and a curse, I think. Really interested in sort of looking at what the problem is and looking what the potential solutions are.

And I think coaching, you know, appealed to that sign know very much goal driven, goal directed, looking at, you know, exploring solutions. It’s facilitative as well. So I think I was in a teaching role at the time and I think there’s a lot of coaching in, in teaching, particularly in, in higher education.

So I thinking about, you know, how do we get people to transfer their learning? How do we get people to change I think, you know, when I was in consultancy I was also working a lot in things like assessment centers and talent development centers and you know, again, there’s a lot of coaching in that, you know, how do you get people to be the best they can be?

And I guess gradually that’s just been translated into, okay, so how do we get people to feel the best that they can, you know? So from a organizational perspective in terms of talent and coaching people to, to really perform well, to, actually, there are other things underneath this as well and just not just about behaviors and competencies, it’s actually about lifestyle choices.

[00:17:18] What is a health coach?

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[00:17:18] Tony Winyard: I think a lot of people don’t really understand what, what a health coach is. Could, could you explain what, what is a health coach?

[00:17:26] Catherine Steele: I can try, I mean, It’s so many things, isn’t it? I mean, a health coach, you know, they’re not an expert. They’re not an expert in you. They’re not an expert in your condition. So you might have a diagnosis, you know, they’re not there to be the clinician that knows everything about your con condition, but they are there to help you facilitate change.

So to me a health coach is somebody who has a knowledge of health and an understanding of, of what it takes to be healthy. But then they are also an, but they are an expert in behavior change. To me, health coaches are behavior change experts. That’s where they’re, that’s, that’s this golden piece that they have is they know how to facilitate behavior change.

They know how to support you with behavior change. They’re not doing it for you. I think really skilled health coaches are also good at that challenge piece because change isn’t easy. We know change isn’t easy. You know, if it was, we’d all be doing it. You know, if it was really easy, we’d just be doing it.

And it’s not, and we’d be doing it consistently not like this, which is how for most of us, you know, change, change happens. So I think there’s a big thing about the way health coaches challenge us gently and in the right direction. But yeah, I think health coaching is about being a behavior change expert with a knowledge of health.

[00:18:36] What myths are there about behaviour change?

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[00:18:36] Tony Winyard: Is there anything that you would say any myths about behavior change? Things people think about behavior change that aren’t really true? I.

[00:18:47] Catherine Steele: Ooh, Things people think about behavior change that aren’t really true that it’s all about discipline. All about discipline and if we were just more disciplined and we were better people, then we’d be, we’d be, be better people. And I think that’s quite a, a negative way of looking at it. It’s sort of like the New Year’s Eve effect, isn’t it?

And I know we’ve spoken about this before, I’m sure at F M C A, you know, 31st of December, well, from tomorrow I’m gonna be a completely different person. I mean, it’s just not realistic, is it? And if I don’t, then I’ve failed. You know, I think we can be really hard on ourselves when it comes to, to behavior change.

And, and as soon as we feel or get that taste that we failed, then we just give up. So I think that’s a, a big, it’s not just about discipline, it’s about really understanding your motivation. It’s about really understanding why you want to do something you know, There are various sort of experts and the names escape me now, the guy that does a lot of work around reverse engineering.

So basically, you know, how do you wanna feel when you’re 90, therefore what do you need to do today? And I think that’s really important. And if that isn’t just about what I need to get on with it and be better, it’s about, what I need to really think about how do I wanna feel at that age and, and what do I want my life to look like and all.

If I want that, then I probably need to go to that yoga class today, and that’s probably the most important thing on my to-do list. Or I will skip that cake or I’ll save the bottle of wine till Friday rather than tonight. You know, it, it’s just those little things, isn’t it? That if we think about much further ahead and that actually needs to impact our day-to-day and, and yeah, that isn’t just about self-discipline or failing or not being good enough.

It’s so much deeper than that.

[00:20:23] Being kinder to our future selves

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[00:20:23] Tony Winyard: Mm. One thing about behavior changes that I sometimes think about is we, many people are not, not as kind to themselves as they could be. Now. We all probably need to be a lot kinder to ourselves than, than we are and, and in an aspect of that is, We also need to be kind to our future selves. And so how, you know, if our future selves in 20 years time, there’s certain things that if, that if we do, do now certain habits, behaviors is gonna be much kinder to our, our future self in 20 years time.

It’s trying to put that across sometimes to people and get ’em to under sort, understand that.

[00:21:04] Catherine Steele: Yeah, definitely. And it’s, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m a health coach. I try and, you know, I think we all do our best, don’t we? And we do the best we can, but it’s. I mean, there is an element, I suppose, of committing to practice it, isn’t there? So I journal quite a lot and I will very often journal about my future and, and, and, and that kind of, and if I do it first thing in the morning, that tends to help me keep on track.

But that’s just for me. That’s why I think this, this self-awareness is important, you know? And again, what we want in the future is very individual, isn’t it? It’s very, you know, unique to us. And it’s a conversation we don’t really have, we don’t even really have it necessarily with our partners or with our children or parents.

You know, it, it’s quite an intimate conversation to have, isn’t it? You know, what we want our future to look like and, and what we really, really want that to look like, and feel like. And it’s probably an, an important conversation to, to encourage people to, to have, isn’t it?

[00:21:55] Peter Attia and the Centenarian Olympics

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[00:21:55] Tony Winyard: Yeah, there’s, there’s a guy called Peter Attia. I dunno if you are, if

you’re aware of him

[00:21:59] Catherine Steele: That’s the one I was thinking of. Yes. With the reverse engineering

[00:22:02] Tony Winyard: And, and I love his, he, he often talks about the centenarian Olympics, or I think he calls it the centenarian, Decathlon. And it’s, yeah, it’s a. A concept that I often think about, and so I, he talks about, well, if you want to be competing in a centenarian in the Olympics, you need to be at a certain level of fitness and strength and flexibility and so on at the age of a hundred to be able to take part in that contest.

So therefore, to be at that level at a hundred, you need to be at this level at 90, at this level, at 80, and this level at 70 and so on. I think That’s a great concept.

[00:22:36] Catherine Steele: It is. And if we all thought like that, we’d probably live very differently. You know, if we all really thought about, you know, fundament and they say, don’t they? You know, a lot of people come to lifestyle medicine, functional medicine through some kind of trauma. I. And, that’s the bit that I wish, you know, I, I could do differently in, in the work that I do.

I wish I could reach people before that happened, before that diagnosis, before that trauma, before that loss. And, and I haven’t figured that one out yet. And and I, if you find anyone that does, please , please point me in their direction because wouldn’t it be great? And, and when we talk, you know, before we start because, you know, families and children is a, is a big one for me.

You know, my daughter’s 10 and, you know, we try and model. A certain way of living, but I do think it’s really hard for kids. There was a program recently talking about, you know, children are actually eating more ultra processed foods than adults in the UK than the percentages. And, And that’s terrifying. When you throw in hormones and, and everything else, and.

But again, it’s that environment, isn’t it? And that modeling. So, you know, let’s hope that we can try with the younger generation to get to this stuff, you know, before they’re in their forties or before they’ve had a diagnosis or before you know, something’s happened to them. That causes this sort of about turn that we see so often in, in clients.

I mean, that would be amazing. That’s my, like nirvana. That would be great.

[00:23:52] Sean Stevenson and junk food

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[00:23:52] Tony Winyard: There, there’s a guy called Sean Stevenson, and for a few years he’s been saying that he thinks that in . I forget what timeline it was. 10, 20, 30 years time. We’ll look back upon this period and think how could people be so barbaric in, in feeding children, like all this junk food that, that they’re given.

And, and for many years he was the only person I ever heard saying that. But recently I’ve heard other people saying sort of similar things.

[00:24:19] Catherine Steele: There does seem to be a bit of a movement, mean, obviously Jamie Oliver’s been talking about school dinners and, and things for, for a long time. It’s just the norm though. It’s the norm and, and in some ways, you know, when I send my daughter off with her packed lunch, and I know she’s probably looking at her friend’s packed lunch and thinking, Hmm, mine’s quite different.

You know, that feels cruel because I’m sort , of, you know, I’m not feeding her the same food as a lot of her friends, and that’s just personal choice. It’s just what we, what we choose to do. But I know she finds that hard. And, you know, and there must be times that, that, that’s difficult. And I mean, that’s the whole, you know, we, we, again, we’ve talked about Pilar Gerasimo and the healthy deviant approach, you know, but it’s the whole marketing around children’s food.

It’s huge, isn’t it? You know? When you go into a supermarket, that’s sort of section on packed lunches is, you dairy dunkers. It’s, it’s crisps, it’s bars But there are some people out there, I think more and more, that are doing a lot around home cooked children’s snacks and foods. But again, it’s that lifestyle piece, isn’t it?

If we’re all working and you know, and you know, it, it isn’t just time, it’s more than time. It’s habit as well, isn’t it? And it’s the habit of. You know, we made a sourdough starter a couple of years ago and I’d wanted to do it for years. And I, you know, I wish I’d done it years ago ’cause it was so easy.

now, you know, we can bake bread, we can make pizza bases and it’s really, and it genuinely is really easy if anyone ever is thinking about doing it, it’s so easy. And I wish I’d done it years ago. But things like that, it’s just lost knowledge, isn’t it? And, and, you know, our sort of generations before us, that knowledge has been lost and hopefully we can get some of that back and, and passed that on quickly.

To, to the, to the future generation.

[00:25:50] A country which banned jumk food advertising

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[00:25:50] Tony Winyard: It is when you were saying that, I dunno where it just reminded me of I can’t remember which country. It’s, I think it’s Peru or Chile, where a couple of years ago they banned all advertising for sort of fast food, processed food to children on tv any media. And I’ve been meaning to. It’s just reminding me actually that I need to go and check what, what’s, how, what has happened since then.

And you know, what, ha has their health started improving? Have you, have you heard about that?

[00:26:19] Catherine Steele: I dunno, but I’d love to. Yeah, I’d love to know more about, I mean, there must be pockets of society where people live differently and, and do things differently. And I think we’re all just trying to do the best, aren’t we? We’re all trying to do the best when it comes to our own. You know, I fundamentally believe that we are all trying to do our best when it comes to our own health and certainly to our kids’ health.

No one’s trying to, to not do that. I just think the environment makes it really difficult. And that’s why I say it’s not about discipline. It’s not, you know, not about those sort of things. It’s, it’s a much bigger conversation than that, isn’t it? Around, you know, how we live and, and what we’re doing and, and I think that’s why going, right, going in my circle back to, to the workplace, that’s part of our environment, isn’t it?

For most of us, you know, work forms some part of our environment and if that isn’t a healthy place to be and there aren’t, Really, you know, ground roots for healthy practices there, then it’s really difficult to put ’em in everywhere else. You know, if you’re working crazy hours, if your expectations of your organization, you know, just at the minute with the cost of living crisis as well, just to get enough money to live, then actually asking people to do a load of other things is, is really difficult.

So it’s, all of these things need, need to be sort of considered together, don’t they?

[00:27:28] What changes would you like to see regarding children and processed foods?

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[00:27:28] Tony Winyard: you talked about that families and children is a, is a big area for you. What, what changes would you like to see in, in that area?

[00:27:39] Catherine Steele: There is some really big ones, which it, but I, I think. I think it’s knowledge. I think it’s knowledge. And I think that’s starting to come. So I think a lot of people were quite shocked. I think it was, was it a Panorama program? It was about ultra processed foods. And I, and I’ve seen some of the sort of conversations around that and I think people were quite surprised.

You know, I know Tim Specter’s done some things when, you know, what is ultraprocessed food? How did we recognize it? Because certainly, you know, some children’s snacks that we think are healthy. You know, he’s, I seen him identify on his social media. That’s his ultra process. And if it’s got a number of ingredients that you don’t recognize, then that is a, an ultra processed food.

Even, you know, as healthy as it looks, there might be a fruit bar or, or something. It’s, it’s still full of different things that, that aren’t great. So I think there’s a big education piece. There. I mean, I’d love to see it on curriculums for schools when I used to do, showing, my age. We know we did cooking at school when we cooked.

And you know, I, I just don’t think that happens very much anymore in terms of children learning about nutrition and learning about, I mean, they learn about some aspects of nutrition, but really learning about health because once you’ve got that knowledge, I heard it described, it was actually Dorian Yates that the bodybuilder on a podcast ages ago, and he described this as the crack in the dam.

And actually once you’ve got this knowledge, you can’t go back. You know, the water just keeps coming and you can’t go backwards. So once you understand and you really understand more about health, and I’m. 20 years on, still learning all the time about different things that we can do, different practices, things that I might have done originally.

I’m like, oh, maybe that, maybe that wasn’t the best change, maybe I need to look at at something else. So it’s an ongoing, lifelong process, I think. But I do think that once you start looking at it, you can’t sort of put the blinkers on and go backwards. It’s there, you know, and, and you have to make changes from, from that point.

So I guess education is, is a big one, isn’t it? For, for kids?

[00:29:26] How education might change because of AI

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[00:29:26] Tony Winyard: On about education. One, I listen to quite a few podcasts around sort of AI and AI in health and AI in education, and I’ve heard a few discussions recently with various people sort of quite high in education in the uk, in Europe, in in America, and so on. And I think the common theme that it seems to be from all of these sort of different conversations is with AI and tools like Chat G P T and all the other sort of similar tools, the education is gonna have to change quite drastically in the next couple of years.

And it’s, I think it’s fascinating what those changes may be.

[00:30:09] Catherine Steele: Yeah, I mean, in my sort of main role university arts is something that’s being, being talked about a lot in terms of, you know, it’s not just about, I think initially we’ve been talking about, you know, how do we assess people, and how do we make assessments in education? But much bigger than that is, well, what even is education now, you know, , the knowledge is, is out there. What does education look like? What are we teaching people to do? And maybe it’s gonna be about teaching people to look after themselves and to to care for themselves, and to be kind to themselves and kind to other people, because isn’t that the bit that’s innately human? You know, I wonder, I wonder whether that is the bit that is actually human.

And a lot of these other stuff can be generated in, in different ways. And maybe there’s something about that connection as human beings, that connection to ourselves, that connection to other people and valuing that,

[00:30:59] Tony Winyard: Hmm.

[00:31:00] Catherine Steele: know, maybe, maybe that’s the, the education of the future. Wouldn’t that be great?

That’d be amazing.

[00:31:07] The UK & International Health Coach Association

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[00:31:07] Tony Winyard: Are you still involved in the UK Health Coach Association?

[00:31:11] Catherine Steele: Yeah, I’m still, I’m still a member of of the UK International Health Coaches Association. I mean, they just do, do so much, don’t they? They do all their C p d, all of their events and things. So, yeah, they’ve done some stuff recently, I think at the I P M conference. I wasn’t able, To go unfortunately because I some other commitments.

But yeah, I mean they’re really championing I think the role of, of health coaches in the uk, which is, which is great. You know, they’re, they’re the only organization I know of that’s specifically focused on, on health coaching, so, yeah.

that, that they’re.

[00:31:36] Is the number of health coaches increasing in the UK?

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[00:31:36] Tony Winyard: So, is, is the number of health coaches in increasing quite a bit in the uk?

[00:31:41] Catherine Steele: Again, I think so. I don’t know for certain. But I think they are I mean certainly the number of people training, the number of training programs in health coaching seems to be increasing. The n h s obviously they’ve sort of just published their future workforce plans and health coaching is part of that.

So to be increasing the number of health coaches working within the, in the UK over the next sort of 10 to 15 years I think the n h s just recognizing health coaching is important as well. So certainly in areas like diabetes they’re, they’re being used a lot more. But there’s so much potential for, for health coaches.

And I did hear Luke’s podcast that you did with, with him and you know, very much talking about, you know, we have business coaches, we have mentors, we have life coaches, we have executive coaches, and hopefully, you know, health coaches is the new tranche of those kind of things because. It is a different skill.

You know, the coaching is, is sort of fundamental, isn’t it, in terms of the, the coaching models that we might use or the, or the type of conversation. But that health focus, I think is, is quite unique when it comes to health coaching and that real understanding of sort of what mental, physical, and spiritual wellbeing actually looks like and, and what it takes to, to get there is, is no different to other, other types of coaching I think.

[00:32:52] Which book has really moved you?

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[00:32:52] Tony Winyard: Hmm. We are, we are flying through as far as time is concerned. Catherine, what is there is there a book that comes to mind that has really moved you for any reason? It doesn’t have to be recent. It could be any time in your life, but something that sort of stays in your memory that’s moved you.

[00:33:07] Catherine Steele: There are probably two or three because I did, I did have a think about this actually. There was a gentleman called, he’s passed away now, unfortunately, called David Shreiber, I dunno if you’ve come across his work. And he wrote a book called The Anti-Cancer Lifestyle, and I think I came across that probably in the early two thousands.

And then his second book was called Healing Without Freud or Prozac. So very much about natural approaches to health and the anti-cancer lifestyle struck me at a time when some family members had had cancer diagnosis and it was really like, okay, I need to look at this and, and really understand it. And then obviously the book on mental health, just because I was working in psychology at the time.

So they were the first ever I’d ever seen really around sort of, I don’t even like the word alternative, but you know, . Lifestyle medicine approaches, approaches to health. And then the other, that was a big game changer for me was Kelly Brogan’s first book in Mind of Her Own. Again, you know, really focusing on mental health and really understanding that there are different approaches to mental health.

And, and again, that’s just sort of my, my psychology background, I think, as to why I was attracted to to those because that had just never been thought of. You know, if you were depressed, you had Prozac. If you were anxious, she had beta blockers that you, that was sort very much what, what the model was. So to suddenly see that, oh, it might be about what you’re eating, it might be about how you’re living.

It might be a perfectly normal response to the environment that you’re in, and therefore it’s the environment that that needs to change. They were real game changers. I might say. They were the cracks in the dam, I guess for me.

[00:34:31] Tony Winyard: If is there any, any questions? About what you do and your thoughts around coaching and psychology and so on that I haven’t asked that you think would be useful for the listeners to know.

[00:34:44] Catherine Steele: Gosh, I can’t think of anything. Um, no, I don’t think so. I think we’ve had a really rounded, um, No, I don’t think so. I think we’ve had a really rounded rounded conversation. I mean, I think the coaching market is a little bit confusing and I hope that will change. It’s not really a question as such, but, you know, I think, I think for the end user, what we do can be tricky to, to access it.

Access and, and I. think. It would be good for people to be able to navigate that a bit more clearly. And I guess that’s, that’s role for, for people like the U K I H C A, the UK International Health Coaches Association is really to market health coaching to the end user, which very much I think is what they’re about.

So people can understand, you know, why they might need a health coach, why they might want one , why they might need one. And then once they’ve identified that they need one and committed to that, how do they find a good one? What are they looking for? ’cause you know, coaching’s a big marketplace.

There’s a lot of people offering coaching out there, and, and we need, the research certainly suggests that, you know, part of the effectiveness is coaching is about the relationship between the coach and the coachee. So yeah, I think it’s also about, you know, doing a few sessions with different, you know, because most coaches will offer a trial session, so, you know, do a, have a few conversations with coaches and see where you feel the best fit.

And don’t be worried if you, the first one doesn’t seem to fit, you know, don’t be. You don’t think you’re gonna offend anybody. You know It’s much better to find someone that you kind of have a connection with. ’cause then you’ll have a much better result.

[00:36:14] How can people find out more about you?

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[00:36:14] Tony Winyard: Absolutely. So if people wanna find out more, more about you and what you do, where would they go?

[00:36:19] Catherine Steele: So, the, the official bio would be on the University of Leicester webpages under the sort of school of psychology and vision sciences. I’m probably most active on LinkedIn or Instagram. So I’m just under Dr. Catherine Steele. On, on those two. Probably most active on Instagram then LinkedIn, then Twitter.

So yeah, any of those, they could, they could find me.

[00:36:37] What is your favourite quote

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[00:36:37] Tony Winyard: Is there a quotation you particularly like?

[00:36:41] Catherine Steele: Victor Frankl, and I’m gonna say it wrong now, aren’t I? Victor Frankl’s between stimulus and response, you know, between stimulus and response, there’s a space and it’s actually on the bottom of my email, so there’s no reason for me to get it wrong. So between stimulus and response, there’s a space, and in that space lies our growth and freedom.

So, you know, really to me, that’s about choice. And having choice and having agency and obviously for people that dunno, Victor Frankl was a, a concentration camp survivor and a psychiatrist and created something called a logos therapy. The book Man Search for Meaning I’ve read probably three or four times in the last few years trying to just make sense of everything that’s been going on.

It’s quite a small paperback and it’s fantastic, but yeah, that, that idea of choice, you know, there’s a stimulus and there’s a response, but there is a gap in between and we all. Making thousands and thousands of choices every day. And it’s that gap where we really need to focus in terms of what we do, how we respond.

[00:37:31] Tony Winyard: I. Coincidentally my, my favorite quotation as well. It’s something that I’ve, I, I think I first came across it, I dunno, seven, eight years ago. And, and since then it’s, I think almost, I wouldn’t say every day, but I regularly think about it and I try and I, I certainly have succeeded in changing what was always my default response when to the stimulus.

And I no longer in, I wouldn’t say in every situation, but in many situations I don’t have that default response necessarily. And I’ve changed the, the default. In many cases.

[00:38:04] Catherine Steele: It’s having it on the wall somewhere, isn’t it? It’s like a constant reminder.

[00:38:07] Tony Winyard: Yeah,

[00:38:08] Catherine Steele: yeah, I’ve got a sort of board with it on. Yeah, because I think, I think it’s powerful. I think there’s power in those words.

[00:38:13] Quote investigator and the origin of that quote

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[00:38:13] Tony Winyard: yeah, absolutely. And I I mean, I’ll put the, well, it’s funny, I was gonna say, I’ll put the actual wording in the show notes. but I dunno if you’re aware. There’s, there’s a, a website called quote Investigator, and they assert that. The words that are commonly attributed to that quote were never actually said in man’s search for meaning.

He said something around that. But the wording that you normally find on Google and whatever, he never said it in, in that word. In that order,

[00:38:43] Catherine Steele: I’m gonna read it again now.

[00:38:45] Tony Winyard: I’ll send you, I’ll send you a link from quote investigator, ’cause it’s a fascinating article. He goes into real quote investigator. What they tend to do is, They examined, well-known quotes like for Einstein and many other people, and well, did he really say what everyone thinks he said, and, and then they, he goes really deep into all these other sort of books and places and to trying to find out well, where, what was the origin of these words?

And it often, it wasn’t Einstein, it wasn’t whoever

[00:39:15] Catherine Steele: I have to send it, I have to change my email. Tony . Yeah. I’d love, to be really interested to see that. Yeah.

[00:39:20] Tony Winyard: Yeah, and I’ll, I’ll put the, a link to that particular article in the show notes as well. But, but Vitor Frankl did say something around that. He just didn’t say it in the actual way that it’s commonly attributed to

him.

[00:39:32] Catherine Steele: Perhaps we can claim it then.

[00:39:34] Tony Winyard: Exactly. Yeah. Well, Catherine, it’s been an absolute pleasure. So thank you very much. And yeah, best of luck with all the tons of things that you’re

doing.

[00:39:44] Catherine Steele: thank you very much. I’ve really enjoyed the conversation Tony, as always, thank you.

[00:39:49] Episode 239 next week with Steven Borden

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[00:39:49] Tony Winyard: Next week is episode 239 with Steven Borden. And Steven explains how blood flow restriction or BFR training works and its benefits. He outlines how BFR uses inflatable cuffs to restrict blood flow. Which allows people to gain muscle and endurance at lower training intensities. He talks about how BFR can aid in rehabilitation in traveling athletes. And also in cognition through lactate exposure and a lot more around those areas. He emphasizes about using it proactively when unable to train at higher intensities. And he advises starting with lighter loads and going close to failure for muscle growth. And overall he conveys that BFR, blood flow restriction training allows you to maintain momentum despite circumstances that may limit training such as injury or older age and so on. That’s next week Stephen Borden Episode 239. If you enjoyed this week’s episode with Catherine Steele, please do share with anyone who may get some value from it. It would be fantastic if you could leave a review for us on one of the podcast platforms and hope you have an amazing week.