My Approach to Weight Loss
I’ve been helping people lose and manage their weight for almost a decade. I have had a lot of success in helping individuals adopt a new attitude about eating but it is not always easy. It can be the hardest part of my job, and one that I have the least control over. Good thing is, we have we can work with. Using Google Drive, the platform that I use to share workout programs for clients, I can do a lot for clients trying to lose weight. I can share recipes, food plans, the client can keep a food diary, track weight, make notes and more. Keeping consistent contact outside of sessions is important as well and having Google Drive helps with that too!
Custom Weight Loss Approach for Each Individual
Each person is different and I treat each person on an individual basis. I do not have a cookie cutter outline for how I do things, although I do find starting a food journal for most people can be beneficial. Having the client go out for one, or two weeks, recording they’re meals either on a notepad or in their Google Drive folder for us to go over can bring a little clarity in what may be the downfalls in their eating habits. Sometimes a person doesn’t have a clear understanding of constitutes a healthy diet. Most the time, I find the person knows what they should and should not eat, its an issue of self control. Much like someone with an addiction. I believe with some its no different
Adopting Cooking to Lose Weight
What else can we do! Obviously starting on a fitness program will kickstart weight loss and add motivation to eat healthy. I’ll be here to help you with that 100 percent, through 1 on 1 personal training sessions and by providing prescribed workout routines to follow on your own. But the biggest thing that I can do is push you to cook! What a crazy concept! Cook healthy! Meal prep! Especially if you are not a good cook. If you want to eat healthy consistently, you gotta learn to cook. And get good at it. If you want to enjoy the food you are eating, its gotta taste good. Have fun sticking to a bland boring but healthy diet for that long. I don’t think so!
Did you hear me just say meal prep a second ago? That is the ticket when you want to lose weight. Meal prep is cooking multiple days of healthy food, all in one push in the kitchen. By doing that, you’ve solidified the next few days of eating healthy! If you can stick to it! Meal prep has helped me so much in the past. My theory is this, if you have all your food for the day cooked and ready to go in containers with you wherever you go, it makes it kinda hard to go out and buy something you shouldn’t be eating. If you don’t have anything healthy cooked and you have to go out into the world 3 times a day to locate and chose to eat healthy food, your setting yourself to have a harder time.
My Protocol
- I start with the clients making a food journal of what they eat. I have them write down each meal they eat and the size of the portion every day. During each personal training session, we go over the journal and discuss the different foods, what foods are ok and what foods to leave out. We talk about what led up to them eating the unhealthy meals and how they felt and what they could do differently in the future. This can be very effective. Breaking down habits and understanding why we do what we do can open up a new understanding.
- Weekly, bi-monthly, or monthly weigh-ins, to track the client’s weight loss can also be effective. How effective this can be, varies on a client to client basis. Some want to be pushed this way and it motivates them to do better while others only become demotivated. Finding who this method works with is apart of what I do.
- Creating effective workouts that we perform in our training sessions, and for them to follow on their own helps speed up the process and creates confidence that often transfers into them working harder to adopt healthy eating patterns. Fitness can be very empowering. Having confident, empowered clients helps create the right environment for success.
If you have struggled with eating healthy in the past, finding a gradual, sustainable plan for losing weight is important. Not coming at it 100 percent with huge goals. The number one goal I can have a client achieve in the beginning is just adherence. Sticking to the plan, and when you fall off, don’t kick yourself too hard, and get the ball rolling again. There is no finish line in all this and know one is perfect. This is a process and we are not trying to be perfect, we are trying to be better than we were the day before!