For any body-related goal, your food habits will be the single biggest factor that you'll need to figure out. What you're putting into your body matters more than what you do with your body. A lot more. Yet changing how you eat, even for the better, is extremely difficult to do. It's hard enough on it's own, but we make it harder by how we try to do it: we call it dieting and it involves following strict rules for a time then breaking those rules when we can no longer keep it up. Dieting is the surest way to lose control of your body composition. Research has shown that obese people spend more time dieting and have significantly greater knowledge about nutrition than lean people. This shows us that raw knowledge and dieting don't work. You know this, don't you?
The missing link is habitual behavior. Most of our eating is habitual, as is most of our daily behavior in general. Habits form a web of interdependent needs. You can't eat 10 servings of vegetables a day unless they are prepped and ready to eat, which meant they had to be available in your fridge when you had the time to prep them, which required buying them earlier in the week, etc. An approach that tries to change something as fundamental as eating is doomed unless it addresses the habits you've formed around it.
This is what our Nutrition Coaching service is all about. We give ongoing accountability, guidance, and support for working through the process of changing habits one by one. It's not super fast, but consistent gradual improvement is going to get you further than wholesale changes which you don't stick to a year later.
This is something we've tried to price reasonably. Getting a coach shouldn't have to cost your firstborn child. We also give a huge discount if you get a partner to do this with you. Your success will be so much better with a partner that we're willing to basically add them for free if it helps you succeed.
The way it works is we'll send you a few questionnaires and a food log for you to fill out. That'll take about a week. Then we'll meet and go over the paperwork, take measurements, fat pinchers, pictures, and do a couple performance assessments (500m row and max pull-ups). Then we'll go back, look at the data and identify limiting factors with some preliminary strategies for dealing with them. We'll meet again, the trainer will share their thinking with you and then you'll work on establishing some goals. Based on everything, we'll set a daily goal behavior for the upcoming week. We'll meet again each week to follow-up. Every other week will include testing and measurements.
And that'll be the pattern going forward.
We don't start the clock on your time until that third meeting where we actually set behavior goals and tracking.
Here is a simple fact of life: if there is sugar in front of you, you will eventually eat it. One of the most successful strategies for eating healthy is to rid your home of the bad stuff. Let us help you with that. One of our staff (the least creepy ones, we promise) will come to your home and guide you through the process. This is often paired with the Buddy Shopper service.
Start your Kitchen Audit!You’ve made the decision, it’s time to dial this diet thing in. Maybe you just cleaned out your pantry. Now what? Let us take you through the grocery store, fill your basket with healthy kibbles, and we’ll even come back home and help you cook it. Holy crap, right? Did we mention that our go-to guy here is a professionally trained chef with over a decade of restaurant experience? It would be worth it just for the meal.
Schedule a Buddy Shopper!These happen from time to time as part of our regular events and education at the gym. Free to gym members. Past topics include “Crock Pot Recipes” “Paleo barbecue” and “Beginner Kimchi.”
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