• First half of year 9 attendance 50%
• Sleep issues
• Only attending some afternoons
• Phone issues
• Getting into trouble out of school
• Older sister was EBSA and didn’t attend Year 11

• Student C is boy in Year 8 who has an ASD diagnosis and has had a tough time fitting in with secondary school life – he said he did not have any friends in his own year group.
• He claimed he was a fussy eater, consumed 4 or 5 Coke Zeros a day and did very little exercise.

• Initially he was very resistant to doing anything but he found he that he really enjoyed boxing.
• He became very interested in the gut microbiome and its impact on overall health and this led to him being willing to try to switch out his coke zero in the morning for a black coffee.
• He quite enjoyed this change and it gave him encouragement to make other changes.
• He got a punch bag for Christmas and added a 5 min boxing session to his day when he returned home from school.
• He also swapped another coke zero for a can of Hip Pop Kombucha.
• He became interested in ultra processed foods and wanted to know alternatives to Coco Pops! He decided to try eggs which he enjoyed. He also tried chopping fruit and adding some nuts.

• He now reports feeling much happier and is far more positive.

His mum commented that…

… C has improved immensely over the last few weeks. I can see he is starting to settle into school and his whole demeanour has shifted from anxious to being more confident. Long may it continue!

Reason on programme

:

• Academically below target.
• Really struggles with Anxiety and is borderline school refusing.
• Routine is a struggle and there has been difficulties at home.
• Attendance is at 56% so obvious place to start is improving this.
• 31% of which is unauthorised.
• Regular panic attacks, sick in car, threatened to leave home, difficulties with sleep, attempted to cut wrists.
• Has severe period pain.

Progress

• Implemented regular breath work throughout day
• Cut out snacking
• Used IFS to change way of thinking about certain situations
• Sleeping much better
• Joined gym
• Journaling
• She has cut out sugar and processed food
• Just starting an intermitted fasting regime to help with hormone levels and period pain/ establish regular cycle
• Hasn’t missed a day of school for 4 weeks (previous attendance 56%)
• Last period was significantly better and did not miss school
• I have now stopped seeing her formally every week – although still plan to stay in contact

Quotes from C

• I havent been stressed, my confidence has gone up that I can do it
• Breathing is really useful – helping a lot
• I was worried about PE but I thought about what you said and told myself it would be fine and it was
• I’m not waking up at night

Quotes from C’s mum!

• I wish you had come along a year ago, she really likes you
• Before she started seeing you I didnt know what I was going to do
• I dont know what yo have done but it is amazing
• She really listens to you
• Can’t believe it – I dont want to make your head big but it is all down to you
• She is totally different person
• Already feeling much better for cutting out sugar and processed foods
• She even went to play at school in the evening!
• I am so happy that my daughter is getting the help she needs. Thanks to you my daughter will get stronger. You are amazing people. A big thanks from me .
• I am really happy with what you have done for my daughter you have changed her life – thank you so much

M is a lovely lad but has no motivation to do anything at school. Outside of school he plays football and does martial arts but in school he just CBA to use his expression. He gets cautions most day for poor attitude to learning and lack of homework – he just cannot see the point of school and never has, he just cannot see the point. M looks unhappy most of the time.

His typical day.

• Very stressed
• Poor sleep
• Typical teenage diet (processed food, sugar, timing of food)
• High screen time / gaming
• Back pain

• Started with stress and back pain
• Breath work and some exercises and stretches to mobilize back
• Agreed to come off screens an hour before bed (9.30)
• Reframing thoughts around football (puts himself under pressure and focusses on negative)
• Added spices and herbs and more diversity of plants
• Reduced snacks and opt for real food, e.g. nuts
• Cut out breakfast cereal (UPF)
• Cut out sugary drinks
• Makes own ice tea!
• Link between his improvement in attitude to football to school
• Focus on positive – The work he does in lessons is for his future self
• Visualisation

Recent comments from Dad

• Seems happier, lot more talkative and engaged with family stuff
• He has more presence
• This week he is trying to reduce sugar even more!

• A Year 10 boy,
• Falling asleep in lessons,
• Unmotivated,
• No pride in his appearance,
• Spends most of time gaming,
• Often only gets 4 hours sleep,
• Drank 24 bottles of coke a wee

• Initially we did some boxing to get him engaged and brought his awareness to the importance of sleep!
• After several weeks he agreed to try going to bed at 10.30 for 2 nights in a row.
• He noticed how much better this made him feel and now starts his sleep routine at 9.30 and is asleep most nights by 10.30.
• He has cut out all coke but does have the odd sprite!
• He has also started cooking his own food for dinner and includes more fruit and veg and a range of herbs and spices, aiming for 30 different plants per week!

• He has joined a gym and now goes 3 times a week and is focussed on building up his strength.
• He gets up much easier in the mornings, is not falling asleep in lessons and finds it much easier to concentrate and is more motivated to do well.
• He now says, ‘I have loads more energy and can focus better in lessons!’
• He was awarded ‘student of the week’ because of the number of nominations he received

12 months ago Frazer did very little exercise, ate predominantly ultra processed foods, had very interrupted sleep patterns and rarely got more than 5 hours of sleep. He weighed 115Kg. Frazer was convinced it was too late to do anything about this and had resigned himself to being that way forever. He was open to trying to make some small changes which started with some simple breathing exercises and introducing a little real food into his diet. He called this ‘green s**t’! He also started to move a little bit more regularly during the day getting outside for short walks.

Frazer absorbed a lot of the evolutionary science explaining our wellbeing. He started intermittent fasting as he never felt like eating breakfast and was soon including 24 hour fasts as a regular part of his week. He still enjoyed meeting up with his friends on a Saturday for a ‘few’ pints but the weight was starting to come off.

He signed up to Gousto and started to actually enjoy some of the real food he was preparing. It became good fun to choose the meals for the week and he got his family involved in the process. His sleep improved and he found he was able to build a couple of longer fasts in and energy levels were good.

He built a few strengthening exercises into his day and started eating sauerkraut to build up his microbiome. After a few months he found he no longer felt like eating the processed foods he had lived off. He also started making his own kefir which he loved! There have been ups and downs over the past year but Fraser is now in the gym 3 times a week and has lost over 20Kg. The best thing of all is that it all feels very sustainable for him and he is looking forward to hitting his target weight of 80Kg in the next year or so. Check out the video to find out how he reflects on the past year.

I was referred to Dan and the lifestyle first Medicine after I was struggling with my mental health. I was finding that I was so anxious, that I couldn’t actually manage myself, or see the bark from the trees – a really challenging time. Sadly, I was bringing it home, and Meg was struggling with managing me too.

So I was referred to Dan by our leadership team.

I would have a weekly meeting with Dan, and we spoke about the 5 pillars of health… I cant remember what they were, but we established from a questionnaire and some experience from him that I probably needed to look after my health better in terms of fitness and activity, eating, and then managing my own expectations of myself.

The first thing that we looked at was managing anxiety. He encouraged me to keep a daily journal or when I was feeling overwhelmed, and what was triggering it etc so I could recognise it happening in the moment… and then he taught me a bunch of breathing techniques to activate my parasympathetic nervous system when I was feeling very anxious. Just someone who would suggest a technique, and then follow up with me about whether it worked was really impactful – kind of the coaching approach but to make me not feel like the sky was going to fall on my head the whole time!

Afterwards, we started with diet an exercise. I was up for changing some of my priorities and got out and did a bit more exercise and tracked it, as well as eating a healthy diet – all ‘normal’ things, but it was nice to have someone to reflect on whether it had been a good or a bad week with. Dan was really keen to get me into fermented foods, but I still haven’t really managed to do this! but he was never disappointed in me, or made me feel bad – he just explained the science and encouraged me to try it!

Eventually, when we had an established trust etc and Dan knew me really well, we began to explore some meditation and he encouraged me to take a deeper look at what some of the main causes of the anxiety were – and I won’t go into the details, as I will start crying here and now, but we did a meditation thing on a Thursday morning last summer, and afterwards, I felt 30kg lighter, and it might sound like a clique, but i really did feel like I was seeing the world in HD afterwards!

All this time, Dan was suggesting and signposting me to podcasts, books, articles and the like to make sure that I was able to keep up, and one for the best recommendations that he has suggested is a book called ‘No Bad Parts’.

So, I cant tell you how much I have learned and gained from this intervention, and I am thankful to Dan for everything he did for me, as well as our SLT for recognising that I needed it.

It is fair to say that 18 months ago Ted was not functioning at his optimum! His sleep was erratic, he spent many hours gaming, would vape nearly every minute when he was not teaching and surviving mainly off of beige food.

Ted found it hard to get up in the morning and his time management was something he recognised as a problem. We discussed the role stress might be playing in Ted’s life and how it could be affecting his sleep but also his need to use vaping and gaming as a way to cope.

Ted decided to use some breathing techniques to lower his sympathetic tone and do some journalling before he went to sleep. We also discussed the role of the microbiome in regulating the nervous system and so he made a plan to add a few different plants into his meals. He decided to set a bedtime of 10pm and to try and stay off screens from 9pm which prompted him to start playing his guitar again and to do some stretching.

Over the next few months he found he was gaming and vaping less and starting to understand the cause of his stress more clearly. He also started going to the gym regularly and found his quality of sleep improved. The breathing was really helping him to feel more chilled and he started to listen to a few podcasts around mindset. He made more and more changes to his food, making home cooked meals, bringing in his own lunches and generally increasing his plant intake and reducing his UPF.

He developed more compassion for himself, managing his time more effectively and noticed that he had more energy and felt more productive. A year on Ted has maintained these habits!

Dan’s Lifestyle First programme has had a profound effect on our students and staff at St Peter’s. In 1:1 referrals, Dan builds brilliant relationships with students and families, walking with them on a journey that looks at the causes of their challenges, rather than starting with symptoms alone. He has been relentless in his positivity and hard work, which has lead to huge gains for students with attendance, demeanour, attitude to school, and their health. But Dan has also had a significant impact on our staff, both in a 1:1 capacity, but also with educating us in larger groups so that we can embed some of the principles of Lifestyle Medicine into our day-to-day work with young people. We cannot recommend Dan’s work highly enough’

Sam

My son worked closely with Mr Newman throughout his time in Year 11. George was struggling to attend and cope with the school environment due to his anxiety and ADHD.

Mr Newman took him through the lifestyle Programme step by step, gently opening up conversation and discussion around the topics. George found the topics engaging, often discussing with me when he got home. Mr Newman had a great way of gaining rapport with George and making him feel safe, which was a huge part of gaining his trust and engagement in the process.

Each week George was encouraged to take action, which he did, and these incremental steps resulted in a shift which allowed George to complete Year 11 with excellent grades.

I highly recommend Mr Newman and his Lifestyle Programme, he is incredibly patient, encouraging and motivating in his approach and I am very grateful for his commitment in supporting George through Year 11.

Many thanks again for all of your help!