How to Incorporate Nutrition and Lifestyle Changes Into Your Personal Training Program

Many personal trainers are good at exercise selection, program design yet they are not able to see as much progress with their clients as they want to.One of the major reasons is your client’s lifestyle and food habits. You can have the best training plan for your clientbut your client will not see any significant progress in their performance or physique if they follow “one size fit all” nutritional plan or if their overall lifestyle is not healthy. So as a coach, lifestyle and nutrition guidance become an essential part of any successful transformation. There are a few things that can help you incorporate nutrition and lifestyle changes into your personal training program

The very first step is not for your clients but for you as a coach. It is important to learn about lifestyle management before you start coaching people. This can be done with the help of a good personal training certification. Personal training courses teach you about lifestyle modification techniques, tools and how to individualize the recommendations for your and clients’ success.

Once you have all the knowledge that is needed for your role as a personal trainer you can now apply those skills to your clients. Here is an important thing to keep in mind, your clientsdo not need to be a master in every aspect of fitness from the very first day. They do not need to be consistent from day one. Instead, you must help them set realistic goals for frequency of physical activity routine. Lifestyle modifications take time. So, start with some basic changes that your client can easily make and be rewarded for. Here is a small example:

A client, who wants to improve health markers or body composition but has always failed to follow a nutrition plan in the past, must not be suggested to make so many changes in the diet, counting calories and calculating macros. Just tell your client to replace one of their meals with a high protein salad bowl, walk 20 minutes 2 times a day and go to the gym 3 times a week. This is much more sustainable option. With these tiny changes, you increased their protein intake, you increased their vegetable intake, fiber intake while reducing their overall calories, reducing their hunger without making it much stressful for the client. Once client has followed this for 2-4 weeks you can add more small changes to their plan but do not rush for it.

Another example could be, a client who has never been to gym and is hesitant to start resistance training, just ask them to start cycling for 20-30 minutes at low intensity for 3 days a week. Once client follows that for 3-4 weeks just add 1 or 2 exercises like elbow plank, bodyweight squats etc. In just 5-6 weeks client started from a typical unhealthy lifestyle and now is performing 60-90 minutes of cycling per week, along with 2 bone strengthening exercises per week. That is a huge progress, combine this with nutrition guidelines from the above example and there you have 6-week lifestyle transformation without any significant mental stress about it and your client will see a difference in their energy levels, sleep quality, work productivity, health markers and many other aspects of life.

Suggest foods that your client likes. Following a meal plan with foods that you hate is never going to be sustainable and as you have learned in your personal training certification, sustainability is the requirement of every successful plan. Lifestyle management must be sustainable in the longer run. Following healthier options that are sustainable for the client are recommended.

Haveregular communication with your client. Ask your client about the challenges that they are facing and then collaborate with them to work on these challenges. Online personal training often lacks communication but this can be very easily managed via weekly check-ins through video calls and daily check-ins using WhatsApp messages to ensure that your clients are following your recommendations and you can solve any challenges that your client faces.