My RD-to-be journey: Perspective

What clinical nutrition is teaching me about sports… and life!

It’s ironic how working in an environment with extremely sick people – worlds away from the sports fields and gyms where I spend so much of my time – is teaching me valuable lessons, not just about life in general, but also about sports (and of course, sports nutrition).

Let me explain. In the past 2 weeks, a lot has happened both in the area of my studies and of my running. First off, one of my “future colleagues” (as we refer to our fellow dietetics classmates) and I got my first “official” hospital patient that we had to assess and provide guidelines for treatment for one of our practical subjects in clinical nutrition. It was an amazing, yet eye-opening and emotional learning experience to me.

Around the same time I also got an injury that, sadly, ended my athletics season for this year. To give you some background, I have really been stuck in a bit of an injury cycle 3, 4 years, with this being my 7th injury. Needless to say, I was feeling a bit discouraged (and maybe a bit sorry for myself) as I strapped on my moonboot the morning of the hospital assessment. However, upon walking into that hospital ward (it was a TB and HIV ward), I looked around me and something in me just shifted. Because looking back at me were people with greater pain, suffering and sorrows than I will ever begin to understand. And after meeting our very first patient and doing the assessment, as well as the hours of interpretation thereof afterwards, I reflected about the lessons I had learnt:

How important nutrients really are

I think nutrients sometimes seem like an abstract concept, probably because you can’t really see them with the naked eye, and their effects may not be immediate. “Will eating that broccoli/spinach/apple REALLY make such an impact on my health as the dietitian/doctor says it would?” you may ask.

You only have to spend a little time with people who really are malnourished, who can’t afford food or critically ill and see the clinical signs of malnourishment (visible in nails, problems with skin and hair, the eyes and many more) to realize that what you put into your body affects how it looks on the outside and how well it functions. In a culture obsessed with weight loss, quick fixes and detoxes, we forget about the fact that food is nourishment. Eating healthy is not some punishment that you have to endure or sacrifice you have to make to reach a certain goal or weight. Food and nutrients have physiological functions, and if we do not have those nutrients, the body simply can’t function as it is supposed to. It is actually a pretty big privilege to be able to give our bodies the quality fuel it needs to function at its best.

• The human body is amazing

As I learn more about science, the more I become in awe of the human body. It has amazingly complex mechanisms, enzymes, neurotransmitters, and other biological events that work together to facilitate healing. Your body is one heck of a fighter. Whether it is laying in critical care or crushing it on the sports field.

• Empathy and kindness changes everything

Oh, boy. I can’t even begin to explain how important this one is. Treating people with kindness not only lifts them up, but also allows you to do your job much better.

What is empathy? Empathy doesn’t just mean feeling sorry for someone else. It means putting yourself in their shoes, and treating them from that point of view. The thing is, I am fortunate enough that I can’t possibly understand what the patient we assessed was going through. But I do know what pain feels like. And I can treat her, and the people around me with compassion and kindness because of it.

See, we often mistakenly feel that pain alienates us. For example, being injured or sick as an athlete means not being able to compete and having to watch from the sidelines. And a lot of the time when we are going through rough patches, we feel lonely, like we are the only ones going through it. Maybe it’s because we are so focused on ourselves, and not looking at the person next to us and seeing that pain or suffering or going through bad times is one of the few things we as humans really have in common.

It connects us. And that is a powerful thing.

• Sometimes life just is not fair, plans fail, we make mistakes and things don’t work out. That is life.

To be honest with you, this sometimes is a bitter pill for me to swallow. I like it when things work according to this amazing plan I have in my head. But the truth is, life doesn’t work like that, and it is unpleasant. It can be said that it is unfair for a lot of the patients in the hospital to be as sick as they are. It is simply not fair that some people live in poverty.

During our assessment and feedback as well as those of my peers, there were unforeseen circumstances andwe did make mistakes. And I’m pretty sure I will be making a lot more mistakes as we continue to learn how to apply our knowledge in practise.

In a sport setting, our perfect race or game plan just doesn’t go according to what we had in mind. Seasons can be disappointing. We encounter obstacles and challenges. We may not like it, but we need to deal with it. And in the process, we learn something about ourselves and about the situation. Maybe that is what growth is all about.

• Gratitude, gratitude and more gratitude

Last but not least, there is always something to be grateful for. After that day, instead of pitying myself for not being able to run for a while, I realized how lucky I am. To be healthy. To have a family. To have access to food and clean water. To be able to study in the area of nutritional science and be extremely passionate about it.

Being able to participate in sports is an incredible privilege, one not all people have. In times where things get hard, find things you can be grateful for – and trust me, if you are reading this post from a smartphone or computer, and if you are able to hear, smell, and breathe normally while doing so – you have blessings to count.

I really hope that you found these lessons as profound and applicable to your life and sport/active life as I did. I still have SO much to learn. About running. About nutrition and dietetics. About myself. About life. But every experience in this journey towards becoming a dietitian is helping me to do just that.