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Almost everyone knows what to do to get fitter and healthier. (For most people it starts with: Move more and eat fewer processed foods.) But when life’s already full, how can I expect you to actually do those things? With these 6 coaching strategies, of course. I’ll help you make more time for exercise and nutrition, even in the context of your busy life.
You see, all of my clients are unique.
And yes, each coaching scenario is a bit different.
But when it comes to nutrition coaching, there are some high-impact fundamentals that are pretty universally beneficial for everyone.
I call these fundamentals my “Game Changers.”
Today, I want to give you an overview of my best nutrition coaching strategies and the top skills that I integrate into my coaching practice.
MY Best Nutrition Coaching Strategies
SKILL #1: PLAN, PRIORITIZE, AND PREPARE
If you have planned to take action, you can't do anything—or you can't do it for very long.
For instance, you can't eat more protein if you haven't shopped for and cooked it. And you can't shop for and cook it if you didn't purposely prioritize those activities.
HOW I CAN HELP
I help my clients learn how to make time for strategic tasks, and take small actions to complete them.
SKILL #2: REGULATE EATING BEHAVIORS
Healthy eating is eating governed by true, physical hunger and thoughtful choices that align with your goals and values.
But healthy eating (the way we define it), often means slowing down, paying attention, and managing sometimes difficult emotions or impulses—in other words, it requires
self-regulation.
HOW I CAN HELP
One way to do this is to help my clients practice eating slowly and mindfully, or work on tuning into their hunger and fullness cues.
SKILL #3: MATCH ENERGY INTAKE TO NEEDS AND GOALS
Having an appropriate energy balance is important for overall health, body composition, performance, and recovery.
Slow eating and mindfulness can help regulate energy intake, but some clients may have to be more deliberate and structured in their approach—especially if they’re looking for major changes to body composition.
HOW I CAN HELP
By calculating my clients’ personal details, physical activity levels, metabolism, and goals I can provide a comprehensive nutrition plan (not a meal plan) to hit their nutritional targets.
SKILL #4: CHOOSE HIGHER-QUALITY FOODS MORE OFTEN
Instead of rigid “eat this, not that” lists, clients benefit from learning about overall food quality (determined by nutrient density, level of processing, personal tolerability, and more), and choosing foods along a continuum from “worse” to “better.”
HOW I CAN HELP
Here is where I use a continuum-based approach to coach my clients out of “good” or “bad” thinking. Instead, they learn to ask themselves: ‘How could I make this choice or meal slightly better?'
SKILL #5: MOVE OFTEN AND WELL
Many clients I work with in the beginning of their journey are largely sedentary. In addition to having a reduced energy expenditure, they may also be uncomfortable with exercise.
For example, they might not know how, where, or when to get active—and just feel intimidated or overwhelmed overall.
HOW I CAN HELP
I can help my clients build the skill of movement. This may include helping them schedule deliberate physical activity (such as workouts), find opportunities to add daily-life movement, and adopt an athlete/exerciser mindset.
SKILL #6: REST AND RECOVER
Recovery skills help my clients process and re-group from challenging events—and get even stronger afterward. This includes recovering well from training loads, as well as life’s general stressors.
HOW I CAN HELP
Encouraging my clients to deliberately seek out rest and recovery time by working on sleep behaviors and environment for better rest, purposeful recovery through breathing exercises or nutrient-dense eating, and leveraging social support gives them the tools to start each day with the mental and physical energy to accomplish their daily goals.
Do you need to implement these strategies into your nutrition program to get the best results for you and your goals?
Do you want more strategies to to help you make lasting change?
If you're ready to have the body you deserve and get control of your health and fitness once and for all, I'm ready to help you. No restrictive dieting. No all-or-nothing workouts. Just a science-proven program that fits seamlessly into your lifestyle-and the support you need, every step of the way.
I've dedicated my professional life to helping people transform their bodies through nutrition and fitness.
This is your limited opportunity to look, feel, and perform better than you ever thought possible and build the habits you need to stay that way for life.
NUTRITION COACHING
YEP. THERE’S THAT WORD AGAIN, NUTRITION.
Then followed by all the words associated with nutrition that brings about the confusion, apprehension and the eventual surrendering of your health to fad diets and impulse food choices that lead to nowhere good.
Effective nutrition coaching is based on a client-centered approach because everyone has their own abilities and reasons for change. We all have our own limits, beliefs, preferences, backstories, and motivations that is impossible to have standard advice to use with everyone across the board. In doing so, we actually uncover your unique abilities, reasons, and motivations. These will become our secret weapons that can help me coach you to identify your own individual limiting factors. And then—more excitingly…
WE WILL BE ABLE TO HELP YOU PROPOSE YOUR OWN SOLUTIONS TO YOUR OWN PROBLEMS.
We believe what we hear ourselves say.
So, if we help you produce and describe your own solutions, you’ll feel empowered, and embrace the solutions without me having to nag or boss you around.
This is a foolproof recipe for sustainable, long-term change.
Client-centered coaching is about collaborating with you and creating action plans based on what you feel you can do, not what I think you should be doing.
PEOPLE CHANGE BY DOING AND EXPERIENCING.
These days, there’s a lot of emphasis on setting goals (e.g. lose 20 pounds) and then following a program (e.g. a diet plan or workout DVD set) to achieve those goals.
And I wonder how’s that working?
On the goals side of the equation, we’re taught to think about what we want to accomplish. Then we’re supposed to make the goal specific, measurable, attainable, etc.
What happens once we’ve done all that? When we’ve set the ultimate goal?
For most people, not much. That’s because goals aren’t achieved through the mere act of setting them. And goals aren’t achieved through sheer force of will.
On the program side of the equation, we’re taught to seek out a “Do this, don’t do that” program, summon up our motivation, and then turn our lives into “achieve that goal at all costs” projects.
We’re to become single-minded, unthinking, obedient little goal-chasing machines.
As you’ve probably seen…
THIS GOAL-FOCUSED APPROACH FAILS MOST OF THE TIME.
Particularly when competing priorities come up and we haven’t built the necessary skills to be flexible and adaptable.
Then, since we haven’t “met our goal”, we feel bad.
We think we’ve failed. We get frustrated and ashamed. We might even give up. Or put that goal on the back burner till next January 1st, when we vow to take a crack at it again.
BASED ON MY EXPERIENCE, SUCCESS ACTUALLY FOLLOWS A DIFFERENT PROCESS.
1. First, you break down the things you want to do into specific skills.
2. Next, you develop those skills through intentional daily actions.
The formula pretty much looks like this:
Practice daily to build skills.
Build skills to achieve goals.
Some people call this approach habit-based, others call it practice-based. They’re one and the same, and are based on current research around skill acquisition and change psychology.
Good, sustainable nutrition is simple.
How to execute good nutrition is the difficult part.
And that is where I come in.
Precision Nutrition Coaching is a total health transformation program that guides you through important—yet sustainable—changes in your eating and lifestyle.
I help you bring health and fitness into your life in a way that works for your life and your body.
Bottom line: Nutrition Coaching enables you to make fitness and nutrition a part of your life—without it taking over.
My program is designed to work on your absolute worst days, not just your best days.
The key program I use is called the Macro, Portion and Calorie Calculation Blueprint which determines the appropriate daily calories for your body, based on:
• Your personal details (height, age, weight, sex, body fat and lean muscle)
• Physical activity levels (both daily movement and purposeful exercise)
• The date you want to reach your goal by (within reason!)
• The changing and adaptive nature of human metabolism
… Reset Your Normal.
If you’re ready to have the body you deserve and get control of your health and fitness once and for all, I’m ready to help you.
No restrictive dieting.
No all-or-nothing workouts.
Just a science-proven program that fits seamlessly into your lifestyle—and the support you need, every step of the way.
I'm ready to help you experience everything a healthy lifestyle has to offer.
But the next step is up to you.
JON "JB" BROWN