It was back when Preston James was working as a fitness coach that he noticed that some clients devotedly followed all the nutrition and exercise routines and still did not lose weight.

“This was the defining moment for me,” said Mr James. “One particular client and I were involved in three to four sessions a week. She was exercising hard and seeing a nutritionist to eat right. If you are engaged in spinning and cardio and have your meals sorted, something should happen.”

But, it wasn’t happening. The client’s weight wasn’t going down.

“She came to me really disheartened and upset,” he said. “We had a talk. It came up that she was really unhappy with her life. What I learned from that is no matter how much you eat or what you eat, and no matter how much you exercise, if you aren’t happy, your physical body won’t change. It is almost as though you have mental or emotional weight that needs to be addressed at the emotion and thought level.”

The discovery led Mr James to change his career course. For the last five or six years he has been working with Dr Kyjuan Brown, at Northshore Medical & Aesthetics Center, as a nutrition and life coach.

That means that he looks at diet and exercise, but he also helps people solve the emotional problems in their lives. His clients range from 12 years old to 80 years old.

He said, lately he has been seeing a lot of couples, particularly couples who have just entered retirement. He also sees a lot of other people who are in crisis because of events such as job loss due to the economy.

“People should take this time and see it as a potential opportunity,” he said. “Ask yourself was there something you always wanted to do when you were younger, but never got the time because you were working? While you are out searching for a job, see if you can realise some of those old dreams.”

He said the connection between weight gain and unhappiness may lie in anxious eating.

“If someone is experiencing a sense of unhappiness or worry and anxiety, the more likely they will eat in alignment with that,” he said. “Anxious eating shows up in different ways, maybe by eating a lot of popcorn and chips. There can be a lot of grazing throughout the day. When it comes to liquids, they might be drinking a lot of stimulants like coffee and energy drinks. Sometimes though, there is no tangible reason why people gain weight when they are unhappy.”

But he said not everyone gains weight when they are anxious. Some people lose weight, or experience physical symptoms in other ways such as chest pains or their arm hurts.

He works with clients to create nutritional and lifestyle adjustments.

“It is not necessarily focused on the calories,” he said. “It is about figuring out where you are at and moving you to a more harmonious place.”

“I want people to know that ultimate health, or whatever people are looking for, is an inside job. Sometimes it is not always about exercise, although that is a huge component. Let’s go deeper than that and look at how we are feeling and whether we are doing some activities that are counter-productive to that.

“All of us have gone through some type of adversity in our lives, but are we going to see it as adversity or are we going to see it as a platform to step up and see the opportunity that comes out of it?”