The Show Up Fitness Podcast

Mastering Macro Math: A Trainer's Guide to Becoming A Nutrition Coach

• Chris Hitchko, CEO Show Up Fitness • Season 2 • Episode 227

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Become a Nutrition Coach with Show Up Fitness info@showupfitness.com

Transforming your clients' nutrition habits requires more than just telling them to "eat more protein" or "cut the carbs." As fitness professionals, we need to understand the science behind macro calculations while recognizing the psychological factors that make or break dietary adherence.

This episode dives deep into a practical case study of a 191-pound male consuming 3,600 calories daily—walking you through exactly how to calculate macronutrients, create sustainable deficits, and present this information to clients in ways that drive consistent results. You'll learn why dramatic calorie restrictions often backfire and how to structure gradual, psychologically manageable changes that lead to long-term success.

Beyond the science, we tackle the business side of nutrition coaching. Most trainers make the critical mistake of bundling nutrition advice with their training sessions, diluting both services and leaving thousands of dollars on the table. By establishing nutrition coaching as a separate premium service ($200-500 monthly), you create an additional revenue stream that could generate $30,000+ annually while delivering superior client outcomes.

The key to standing out as a nutrition coach lies in building a professional ecosystem. Rather than positioning yourself as a nutrition expert who knows everything, we show you how partnering with registered dietitians creates a powerful client support system that handles everything from macro calculations to restaurant menu guidance.

Whether you're already offering nutrition services or looking to expand your coaching toolkit, this episode provides the calculations, client psychology insights, and business framework to elevate your practice. Email info@showupfitness.com with subject line SUF-NC to sit in on one of our nutrition certification classes and see firsthand how you can transform both your clients' resul

Want to ask us a question? Email email info@showupfitness.com with the subject line PODCAST QUESTION to get your question answered live on the show!

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Speaker 1:

Howdy y'all. Welcome back to the Show Up Fitness Podcast. Today we're going to take you through a case example in macro breakdown calculations for a client who's consuming 3,600 calories per day, male weighing 191 pounds. Give you a little introduction on nutrition and then get into the calculations which we teach part of the Show Up Fitness Nutrition Coach Program. Welcome to the Show Up Fitness Podcast, where great personal trainers are made. We are changing the fitness industry one qualified trainer at a time with our in-person and online personal training certification. If you want to become an elite personal trainer, head on over to showupfitnesscom. Also, make sure to check out my book how to Become a Successful Personal Trainer. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. Have a great day and keep showing up.

Speaker 1:

If you want to learn how you should be making money as a personal trainer when it comes to nutrition coaching, you're going to want to watch this video. The first step and the most important step is to have a registered dietitian on your team. That's what separates you from all the certified trainers out there who are trying to be a jack of all trades. Step two is to have a qualified certification Our certification show up fitness NC nutrition coach. In two months You're going to be working alongside a nutritionist or registered dietitians also a nutritionist, but remember, all nutritionists are not our D's. So you have that medical professional and then we go through a lot of these role playing scenarios, teaching you the macros how to add value as a coach and set up systems so you can drive more streams of revenue. We have live calls where you get to ask questions and then go do what you need to do to build that book of business, how to network with registered dietitians and reach out and how to offer this service for your clients. So many trainers include this within their packages and I think that's a wrong approach. You're missing out on a potential 30,000 plus per year by having a 200 to $500 per month additional service for nutrition coaching. That's going to help your clients get results significantly faster.

Speaker 1:

So typically what I do when I sign a client up, I give them the workout portion first. In my professional opinion, I'm going to suggest that you start with two sessions per week. Four sessions per week whatever you feel is right for the individual in front of you Times that by four weeks, x amount of sessions doesn't cost X amount. How do you want to pay for it? You're going to learn how to overcome all those objections things I talk about in my book to build that confidence. Competence is the most important thing. So once they sign up, I then will let them know at the end of 30 days. We can then entertain doing nutrition coaching.

Speaker 1:

For now, I just want you to consume a little bit more protein, focus on your water and have more fruits and vegetables. That's all we're going to talk about, because showing up is the most important part. I'm a trainer first, a nutrition expert second. I let my clients know that let's just do a quick breakdown of the nutrients and then we're going to get into this calculation, helping your client lose fat. There are six nutrients of the human body Carbs, fats and protein, micronutrients being vitamins and minerals, and then water. Technically, alcohol would be a macronutrient because one gram is seven calories, but it's not a nutrient that we need to sustain life. You'll also hear people argue carbs are not essential. Having two eyes is also not essential. Having two kidneys or two lungs is not essential, but I prefer to have that. So these are the nutrients that we should be consuming on a regular basis, and as nutrition coaches, we don't talk about the micronutrients. We cannot have clients go below 1200 calories and we cannot give food plans. That's the difference between a qualified nutrition expert knowing your lane and when to refer out. We don't mess with any type of metabolic disease. I love working with clients who have thyroid issues or diabetes because I refer out to the medical professional and you work with that medical professional to determine any contraindications or what we can and cannot do as the personal trainer.

Speaker 1:

So we have our protein. One gram is four calories. Amino acids are the basic unit. There's roughly 20, 22. If you consider when we're born and an infant, we should be getting roughly 10 to 35% of our diet from protein.

Speaker 1:

When we look at carbohydrates, monosaccharides are the basic unit. We have glucose, fructose and galactose. Each one of those is a monosaccharide. When you pair them together, you create a disaccharide. When you have a bunch of them lined up, they're called polysaccharides. One gram is four calories. We should be consuming roughly 45 to 65% of our diet in carbohydrates. And last, we have fat. Fatty acids are the basic unit. One gram is nine calories. 20 to 35% should be what we're consuming on a daily basis, with no more than 10% being saturated. The average American today, in 2025, is consuming roughly 10% of their diet in protein, 55% in carbohydrates, 35% in fat. 3,600 calories the average American is consuming. That's nuts, but that's probably not you and I.

Speaker 1:

As coaches, we understand what our body needs for success and we use it for fuel. Because we are athletes. We can do 10 pull-ups, we can bench press a good amount of weight, squat, deadlift, bulgarians, whatever it is. We are competent machines. Our clients aren't. They will earn that right. Later on and when we get into other calculations, you'll see you can move up the intensity factor, but for now our clients are consuming significantly too much. It's calories in, calories out. But there are other factors that go into it Hydration, sleep, stress, environmental factors, hormones, metabolic disease, how you handle being in a deficit, hunger, energy and cravings all things that review in our certification.

Speaker 1:

But let's just address this real quickly because some of y'all might be saying that's too much from a percentage standpoint. That's just the general American Dietetic Association. That's their recommendation. So that's what we're going to go off of. I like what Lane Norton says don't go below 10% in any of the macronutrients. Then you're going to be playing around with potential for deficiencies and we don't want to mess with that. So, as nutrition coaches. That's my suggestion.

Speaker 1:

Additionally, I want to address fiber, which is part of carbohydrates. Essentially, carbs are broken up into sugar and fiber. The average American is getting about 10 to 15 grams per day. That's nuts. For every thousand calories that we're consuming, we should be getting roughly 14 grams. So if you're consuming 3000 calories a day and you're an athlete, we should be getting close to 40 grams. The general rule of thumb that I use 40 grams for males, 30 grams for females, and that's just because of the size differential.

Speaker 1:

Now that we understand the fundamentals of nutrition, let's take a look at a case example. We have John here, who's a male. He's 191 pounds and roughly consuming 3,600 calories. It will be so easy for me to say John, just eat less and work out with me, and for the most part, studies have shown when you go from two workouts to three, you're going to lose a significant amount more weight. That's why I focus so much on fitness in the beginning, because it's not so much of a mind screw over. If you think about it, we're having three meals a day, a couple snacks, and now we're going to be addressing all of that history in that one session.

Speaker 1:

It's really not fair to the client. Your client is drowning per se and just by telling them to swim it's not going to help them swim. We need to educate them and I like little victories showing up, having a great workout, setting a PR that builds their mentality. It gives them the motivation to keep showing up. We are the discipline to get them into the gym, the accountability from the paid sessions. Motivation can be high and it can be low. Most importantly, we have to keep. The best workout you can ever do is the next one.

Speaker 1:

So I try to not make it too overwhelming. I just feel for clients. They come in with all this stuff on social media. They have no idea what to do and now you're telling them to work out five times a week. They got to change their diet completely. They got to get their steps, got to get their water. It's overwhelming. If you were to try to learn Spanish and I give you 500 words today, you're probably going to get overwhelmed and frustrated. Versus, if I give you a couple, you own those couple. That's a victory. The next time you come in you want more. Those little victories, those little habits, are what are going to parlay for future success.

Speaker 1:

So let's take a look at an example here 191 pounds, 3,600 calories. If we are getting 495 grams of carbs and you tell someone just to stop eating carbs like carnivore or paleo or keto nothing wrong with those diets they do help for people but that blanket statement is not appropriate. Just like if someone had low back pain. We don't just say do planks, you need to assess. You get into the biopsychosocial model of pain that plays a huge role into nutrition as well. You find out their history and then you make the best professional recommendation. Get into the biopsychosocial model of pain that plays a huge role into nutrition as well. You find out their history and then you make the best professional recommendation. I'm going to teach you how to get to grams, how to get to calories, the percentages and then the best recommendations for John Doe right here. So if he's getting roughly 3,600 calories, the average American is closer to 38, but just for numbers sake. I know we suck at multiplication and division, all that stuff.

Speaker 1:

Sokotoa, bringing you back to 10th grade geometry. It's confusing, but this is really important for trainers to gain reps. Just like in the beginning, programming was probably confusing for you when it came to designing programs for your clients. These calculations can be challenging, but you have to get out of your comfort zone and do more. If you work at Equinox or Lifetime we have partnerships with them. They love our certification.

Speaker 1:

Go up to every trainer, find out how many grams of protein, fat and carbs they're consuming and then work through these calculations. Maybe they have their macros Work backwards to find out the grams, and this is just going to fine-t tune these skills that are essential on why you can charge for nutrition coaching. So if you take 3,600 and you times it by 55, and the reason we're timesing it by 55 is because that's what the hypothetical American is consuming today in carbohydrates, so 3,600 times by 0.55 is going to give you 1980 calories. When we're working with calories, if you divide by the fuel factor, that's going to get you into grams. If you have grams, you multiply by the fuel factor and that's going to get you into calories. So 1980 divided by four is roughly 495 grams of carbs.

Speaker 1:

As persons consuming the average American diet, do you think that's a lot of fruits and vegetables? No, it's chips and breads and pastas. It's easy highly caloric foods that we're consuming that are not very nutrient dense. If we look at our fat consumption, take 3,600 times it by 0.35, you're going to get 1,260. Divide that by nine, you're going to get 140 grams of fat per day. And then for the last one, protein 3,600 times 0.1, that's going to give you 360 calories. Divide that by four 90 grams.

Speaker 1:

You could just be listening to this right now or watching this on YouTube and say why not just tell them to eat more protein? That's the simple solution and what we suggest in the beginning. But there's going to come a time where they're going to hit that plateau. So really getting into the weeds with this is going to educate your client where you can give the best recommendation. So if I were to say, go carnivore and we take 495 grams, which is almost 2000 calories, and we bring that pretty much down to zero, we've just created a ginormous deficit. It's roughly 3,500 calories for one pound of fat. You will see a significant amount of scale weight loss in the first couple of weeks.

Speaker 1:

Going back to our basic science over here, carbohydrates are broken up into glucose, fructose and galactose. Glucose is stored in our muscle and liver as glycogen and glycogen attracts water. Glycogen is hydrophilic. It sucks in water. So if we take out carbohydrates, we're not only going to lose fat from the deficit, but we're also going to lose water weight. That's why you see a lot of weight loss in the first couple of weeks.

Speaker 1:

Nothing wrong with it. That could actually motivate your clients. There's nothing wrong with giving them a seven day challenge to cut their carbs in half or even go significantly low. Just set them up for success. You're going to have a lot of hunger cravings. Energy is going to be low. You're going to want to kick cats and scream at people in your car. Understand it's going to happen because your brain loves glucose and we're pretty much putting that to zero.

Speaker 1:

So when we look at this calculation here, I don't like to give that simple recommendation. Just choose this diet. If they're on a diet and it's working, amazing, I'm not going to change it. We have students who prescribe to a carnivore and it's helped with their metabolic diseases, their skin, gut issues, inflammation Amazing, I love it. Get your blood checked out, make sure your lipid profile is aligned, your testosterone, everything else, because that may work for you. It doesn't mean it works for everyone and a qualified coach can give the best recommendation for the person in front of you. Great coaches understand the human body. The average textbook trainer and nutrition coach understands their body, so they just prescribe their anecdotes to everyone like that's gospel and that's not how the organism works.

Speaker 1:

Now that we've done some basic math and you may be thinking, oh my gosh, that's really challenging. Practice, practice, practice. You will to do this super efficiently and it's actually impressive from your client's point of view. I like to do it in front of my clients because they're going wow, you're doing stuff in your calculator Like holy crap, this is a lot more scientific than I thought and the fact that you can do it it just showcases that you are the professional. A lot of people just send out a simple macro plan and they don't know how you got to it. So the client could be thinking they just put in some random numbers or the numbers that you gave them and you're just spitting that out. So that program is what's helping them, not you as the coach. This solidifies you as the professional. So we have these numbers here in grams, with the percentages based off of 3,600 calories.

Speaker 1:

Now what we have to ask are what are your goals? And we have found that for fat loss, about 150 to 250 grams of carbohydrates per day is optimal. It doesn't mean that's where we have to start. This is just the optimal beginning, and then you make the decisions based on the person in front of you. Maybe they don't like carbohydrates, so going lower could be efficient for them. Maybe they love carbohydrates and before they weren't eating that much because they were on a diet that didn't give them that much carbohydrates, so their mindset wasn't set up for success. So you can slowly implement carbohydrates by educating them.

Speaker 1:

Then I like to take a look at protein. That's the easiest one to address first and I don't just give a blanket statement eat your body weight and protein. Eat your lean body mass and protein, because that's too simple For this individual who's eating 90 grams per day. Bumping them up to 191 is going to be too overwhelming. He's constantly going to be full and probably not the best recommendation in the beginning. If you want to bench 135, but you can't even do the bar, I'm not just going to throw 135 on there and say it's tough shit, you got to start doing it. We gradually work our way up there. Progressive overload it's kind of the same with nutrition. We gradually work our way up there. Progressive overload it's kind of the same with nutrition. We gradually work our way up there.

Speaker 1:

As I said earlier, we don't go below 10% in any macro recommendation as qualified nutrition coaches, if the RD suggests that or a medical professional, so be it. Probably the best recommendation for fat loss is between 300 to 500 calories To be consistently in that deficit. You may want to incorporate some reverse dieting but for basic general population keep it simple For the most part. Increasing their movement in the gym, full body workouts, training with you as the professional two to five times a week and then creating that deficit with the nutrition side is going to be more than enough. That reverse dieting and more complexities behind nutrition is more for your intermediate to advanced clients, which we have case examples within the platform. So the biggest thing that I'm concerned about for my clients is creating too much of a deficit.

Speaker 1:

If you go online, type in I want to lose fat, the general recommendations males 1500, females 1200. That's not a good suggestion. It can work If a hundred people do it. 35 may get great results. But what about the 65 who failed? They're going to go through some yo-yo dieting, have some psychological issues from that. I'm a pile of shit. I'm not good enough. This isn't for me. I'm a terrible person. All those automatic negative thoughts we don't want our clients to have. The psychology and mindset definitely needs to be played into this when you look at their medical history and stuff that they've experienced in the past. If you have someone who had an eating disorder, I'm probably not going to go right into these calculations. I'm going to have more mindful recommendations. Each person is a case example. I don't treat everyone the same.

Speaker 1:

The first step really depends on you and your comfort level. If you want to start with carbs, you can. If you want to start with protein, you can. I typically will start with carbohydrates if they're this high, because then I'm just going to create that deficit. So for here, going off of the 150 to 250 recommendation, I'm going to go to 350 because he was at almost 500. Creating too much of a deficit from carbs really messes with people's mentality. They can't stomach it. They're not David Goggins. We, on the other hand, we understand the value of fuel and we use it for gym and performance. Our clients don't, and so if they're restricted throughout the whole entire day, at night, when they're alone, they're stressed out, they're going to have that glass of wine. Their inhibition's out the window. They're going to have 48 cupcakes and 15 boxes of Oreos, and now everything's screwed up. So I'm going to give a reasonable deficit when it comes to carbohydrates, from 495 to 350, which will then you take 350. Times it by four, that's 1400. So 1400 calories are coming from carbohydrates, whereas before it was close to 2000. Now I'm going to go to protein. If we're at 90, I think it would be reasonable to try to get to 150. It's not like if you don't get 150 every single day, it's a loss.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to educate them on lean protein sources and give a list of recommendations that work for their palate. You can't just tell people to have whey protein. Maybe they don't consume milk. Telling someone that cottage cheese is the best and you tell me to do that, I'm going to flip you the middle bird because that stuff is disgusting. The worst food in the world. Yellow Skittles and cottage cheese. That doesn't work for me, but I know that's a good protein source. If that's something you like. What work for me? But I know that's a good protein source, if that's something you like. What are things that we can concoct to help you get to where you want to be Eat more protein.

Speaker 1:

Your client goes to In-N-Out and they get three animal style burgers In their mind. They're thinking I'm eating more protein, but that's probably not the recommendation that you were thinking of. So you need to be really specific. But again, we're not giving food plans. This is what you're eating at this time. We can give a list of suggestions that align with their goal of getting to 150 grams, which would be 600 calories. So you add up 1,400, 600, it's 2,000. The rest are going to be coming from fat 1,080 calories, which would be 120 grams coming from fat. And now we're at 3,080 total calories. That's a deficit of 500, roughly calories. You may be thinking that's too many calories, just like the client who tries to lose all their weight in the first week when we set these crazy new year's resolutions, day one, what happens in month three? They're not doing it and my goal for my clients, as I tell them and look them straight in the eye, is consistency.

Speaker 1:

One year from now, you're going to be on a diet plan. That's your diet, the Chris diet versus Chris. I want to know what's going to be the John diet, the Joe diet, the Francine diet? We're going to discover that through numerous months working together and if worst case scenario, we need that extra support. That's why we have the RD on our team.

Speaker 1:

So how I offer nutrition coaching, you work and meet with me additional to the training sessions. If you wanna do it prior, if you wanna do it after, we can schedule a happy hour or a lunch or a breakfast, a coffee, whatever your client likes. They're paying and I'm gonna go through systems and suggestions that are gonna help them think differently. For a lot of our busy clients it may be a food company that you need to connect them with. Maybe it's a chef, maybe it's different bars and protein shakes that you bring to those meetings and you have them try so you can give them suggestions. When your clients have to think for themselves, they're more than likely going to fail. If the past has shown that and that's really important to understand is the recommendations and the suggestions that you give as a nutrition coach are game changing.

Speaker 1:

I have a client right now who pays me 500 bucks a month and the recommendations that I give for her are she sends me the restaurant she's going to go to and I just tell her what would be the best options. She does that maybe two or three times a month. She finds that valuable when she goes to the farmer's market and she sends me a text message what would be some fruits I should get? I give her a list of five and then she tries them and then I have a conversation with her. The fact that we have this accountability opportunity with the nutrition which I do not include in the training is huge, because what happens is it just gets diluted into one system.

Speaker 1:

Your client comes in, they do a set of bench press and then you're talking about their food. It's not on the top of their mind. When they train, they should be training. When you do nutrition, you should be doing nutrition, and that's why, one time a month, I have a call and option for them to work with a registered dietitian. I pay them their hourly rate. They're part of the team. This ecosystem is setting them up for success. You should have a physical therapist. You should have a psychologist All things that we teach you within the Show Up program level one, you get your CPT.

Speaker 1:

Move up to level two, you get your soft tissue certification working with physical therapists. You get your nutrition coach working with RDs. You are not the average trainer. You are a qualified trainer, you're a qualified nutrition coach and you are changing the lives, helping your clients get their goals quicker than expected, because we're doing it efficiently and more intelligently. But, most importantly for you as the trainer because this is usually the number one concern that we have you are driving streams of revenue which you did not have before. If you'd like to sit on one of our nutrition classes, email info at showupfitnesscom. Title S-U-F-N-C. We will send you a live call or one of the recorded ones. We have tons of calls within the platform on demand from registered dietitians, and then we have live ones where you get to ask questions and level up your game as a nutrition coach Remember, big biceps are better than small ones and keep showing up.