Integrating Nutrition Science into Your Coaching Designs
by Mark Teahan Spencer Institute Director of Education
Trainers and coaches are often tasked with working toward one main client goal: improving health metrics. But we all know that once a goal is revealed, it reaches out into other areas of your client’s life. One area where this is especially true is nutrition. We all can agree that our food choices directly affect our health. We want to choose foods that are healthy for us. But that is only part of the story. To make everything more interesting, we are all different. We all know that each of us responds differently to the same foods. If you were to look at the topic of food from a higher vantage point or lens, you would see that we now have the ability to choose the foods that are right for us physically, by measuring our own personal responses to food and substances we eat and drink.
The overarching goals of your coaching plans are tethered to a belief of a certain reality, that the techniques we have been trying with clients have shown varying degrees of success. Some programs are referred to as “diets”. Others are simply given a name (Keto, Paleo) and there is enough common public knowledge of the topic that people still feel they understand on their own – essentially, we are talking about a shift in food intake.
Success with nutrition-based interventions seems more likely to work when we use words like “evidence-based”, or “clinically proven”; We go in search of something new that has not been tried because we want a shortcut or a “hack”. This has produced both positive and less-ideal results. The positive outcomes of the research and studies done by professionals on areas of interest like intermittent fasting, gut microbiome, and macronutrients, have increased our understanding of previously untested ideas and theories. Still, through all of the science and searching for answers, it seems to always come back to the same tried and true realities.
Factors that contribute to successful health outcomes include the legitimacy of the plans we use, and your client being compliant with them. But we also have to factor in the plasticity of clients and the results they get when working with us on an eating strategy. We have to have confidence and knowledge of the topic to help our clients. We also need the education and experience to inspire change when it is needed. But how accurate is the science we base our plans on? How effective will they be when paired with the strength of your coaching strategies (session work, client intervention types, etc.)? What socio-cultural factors are also in play?
Indeed, if we can avoid referring to our nutrition interventions as a “diet”, your client may have a better outlook – and outcome. Diet is simply a word with too many negative connotations associated with it. Of course, we use the word “dietary” in a very different manner, just to acknowledge the distinction in how the two terms are used.
Following Proven Nutrition Science and Research
Instead, we could use a legitimate form of science, one paired to zero in on macronutrient intake values. The client is managed in a way that the dominant feeling is educational, and not corrective. This may resolves compliance issues, even if it puts a bit of a qualifier on the type of client you may onboard. We only work with clients who are ready to explore changes to their dietary habits.
While coaching, we will encounter very different clients, in all shapes and sizes. This is not an athletic or sports-based group per se. It can be, but there are other specializations that serve that need in a more targeted way than these types of coaching or training.
Try envisioning a triad coaching model, whereby you consider helping a client with improving their gut microbiome, metabolic health, and personalized nutrition. As part of an integrative strategy, the coach can help clients manage their overall health, wellness, and fitness in the same spirit of any client-centered coaching experience. This will require the coach to always bring their best selves to each interaction.
Clients are looking for a coach that can build a bridge between where they are and where they want to be. They also want a coach who is confident but not arrogant; they want to see that you have a credential with a reputable organization and of course, they expect you to know the topics you are coaching to impact their health and wellness.
There is an undercurrent to this type of coaching, one based on how we integrate our coaching into our communities – where most often, we are very much needed. The time for a trainer or coach to impact a group or community is in alignment with a global need and should be one of the highest priority goals for nearly every person on the planet.
The gap between health and wealth inequity in the world is hardly more obvious when we look at group statistics. Maybe more so in the USA, calls for renewed focus and new strategies to improve health outcomes for all now include the poorest among us. A mission to address a lack of coaching in underserved communities has become a common focus within the coaching industry. At the same time, ongoing economic and financial constraints have burdened state and local public health departments (and community agencies) that aim to reduce health disparities among underserved populations. Some would argue that this portion of our population needs us more than any other group.
Designing Your Coaching Strategy
The primary goal of your coach planning and design strategy is to promote optimal health and wellness through applied nutrition science – this is where the gut microbiome and metabolic health can be specifically addressed. For fitness professionals, it’s virtually impossible to work toward this goal without considering the integration of nutrition and exercise. For the typical client that we work with or train, this could include determining the appropriate food, fluids, and supplements required for various training or environmental conditions, too.
For most clients, this likely means instruction will need to focus on the goal of eating to promote health, maintain (or lose) weight, and address metabolic or GM concerns that impact how they feel.
Like most coaching interventions, client success may depend on reaching other, related health goals. We also know, through research, that this combined approach (for example, a triad model) can also help reduce the risk of numerous chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, obesity, osteoporosis, and some cancers. These diseases then become part of the goals that most of our clients see as secondary. For the coach, they are all built into your coaching planning design and when powered up together, they create a powerful intervention for your client. Learn to integrate the coaching factors into your sessions and watch your clients thrive!
Where Can You Learn More?
The health and wellness of our world are changing, there is no disputing this fact. Coaches, trainers and healthcare professionals working to enhance lives are on the front lines and right now, Certified Integrative Health Coaches are positioned to help shape a future of shifting healthcare responsibilities.
Is your recertification coming up? Learn more about earning your CEU credits. You can find the full list of CEU courses here.
There is always something exciting about earning a new training or coaching certification and applying that new knowledge of how you train your clients. This also helps you hit the reset button.
NESTA and Spencer Institute coaching programs are open to anyone with a desire to learn and help others. There are no prerequisites.
That’s it for now.
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