Nutrition Coaching Assessment Form | Become A Nutrition Coach SUF NC

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Most people think “nutrition coaching” means macros and a food list. We don’t. We talk through what it looks like when a trainer treats nutrition like a real service with clear boundaries, a structured assessment, and an actual registered dietitian on the team. The difference is immediate: clients stop getting vague advice during rest periods and start getting a process they can follow, measure, and trust.

We get into the nuts and bolts of onboarding: setting expectations up front, keeping nutrition as a separate paid service, and using simple objective measures like blood pressure to stand out in a gym full of coaches who skip the basics. From there we go deeper into behavior change, because fat loss is rarely about knowing what a calorie is. It’s stress, sleep, decision fatigue, and the shame loop that makes clients hide what they eat. We break down how to coach weekends, binges, and “off plan” meals without punishment, using habit loops and practical next-step strategies clients can actually execute.

You’ll also hear the tangible tools that make this work in the real world: food photos, food scales, portion plates, hydration tracking, RD-built snack options, and stress tracking sheets that turn emotions into action steps. If you want to build a professional nutrition coaching offer that gets results and creates a dependable second revenue stream, this gives you the roadmap. Subscribe, share this with a trainer friend, and leave a review with the system you want to implement first.

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Transcript

Why Nutrition Should Be Separate

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Haddy all, welcome back to the Show of Fitness Podcast. Today we're coming at you live with our nutrition coaching certification. Miss Tori, she's one of our instructors. She goes on to our seminars, helps teach, but she's been a rock star with implementing the strategies and systems that we talk about as a trainer to drive streams of revenue. And as you know, most trainers just have one stream of revenue. And unfortunately, a lot of trainers incorporate nutrition into the programming. We're not to say that that's wrong, but I think it's a missed opportunity because you're not giving true value to what goes into nutrition. And right before we push record on this, there was a student, Sheeve, and she was talking about some FOD mapping and some issues that she has with herself. And unfortunately, a lot of coaches just give generic here's the food plan that you're going to be doing, and here's your macros. And we're overstepping our path as a personal trainer and nutrition coach. That's why, within this certification, the big difference is that you, when you graduate and you get that certificate, you have an RD on your team. You also get the blood lipid panel testing through Vitality in our partnership, which is Dr. Galpin as well as Dan Gardner, two extremely well-respected nutrition experts. And you actually get a really thorough look at what's going on inside. Obviously, we're not prescribing medication, we're not interpreting that, but you're just able to provide a lot more, especially with that catchy term today, longevity. And everyone is typing into the Google machine longevity and what can I do to live longer. Well, if you really want to live longer, we got to take a look at what's going on inside. So they have a hundred different blood markers that they're going to take a look at. And then you and your RD, and if you have a doctor, which you absolutely should, and physical therapist, psychologist, your team is what's going to really separate you from everyone else. We have Mr. Johnny over here, and he's in Ireland. And I was asking prior to this who in here checks blood pressure. And it's pretty common because it's one of the things that we we talk about within the show-up certification. But so many trainers don't do it. And if you're at a gym with 30 other trainers and no one's doing blood pressure, I want to make sure that I'm doing that. And I'm going to do it on the have them sit down on a massage table, make sure that the right cuff size. And I'm going to do blood pressure. So people look at me differently. Like, well, who's that trainer over there? Is that like a um you know EMT or something? Why, why are they checking blood pressure? Because we are, in fact, in the front lines of defense. But you know, you hear that a lot. And it's it's interesting to me because it would be like a soldier who's in the trenches, but they don't even have the uniform, they don't have a gun, they don't have you know the technology like everyone else has. And if you really want to be a qualified trainer, you understand the human body. The average textbook trainer just reads a book, takes a simple test. Oh, yeah, I got my NASA Mace ISSA. I'm qualified, and you know yourself. So when it comes to nutrition coaching, and you're doing the assessment aspect, you set clear expectations

Assessments And Staying In Scope

SPEAKER_04 3:04

from the get-go. Today we're going to go through medical history, see how your insides are looking. We're going to do blood pressure, do some grip strength. Then we're going to get out there and do a workout. I'm going to see based on what your goals are, how you move, and we'll load that up. We'll have a nice little workout. And then at the end, we'll talk about training, what that looks like, how long you want to work with me, and also nutrition coaching if that's something that you're interested in. I want to be very, very clear that nutrition consulting is an additional service. And we'll talk about that at the end. Again, you just set very clear expectations. There's going to be no ambiguity from the client's mindset. And so, Ms. Tori, she's done a great job of driving that second stream of revenue, and she charges for nutrition. She's had some great posts on her Instagram where she's talking with her RD. The RD is going over, you know, PCOS and what this specific client needs to be doing and how you're going to uh adjust it for client A versus client C. That's what team looks like. At no point is your RDJ threatened by you because you're not overstepping your boundaries. And we know what's in our scope. And you know, go back to the Shiv earlier and the condition that you have with your sensitivities to food. If I were to assess her and this stuff comes up, well, then I refer out to my RD and I say, okay, I'll schedule an appointment with you, I'll follow up afterwards, but that's not in my scope. Yeah, for most general pop when it comes to fat loss, we want to be in a deficit, we want to look at movement, we want to see how many steps you're getting, what's your sleep like, all that stuff. But for those that want to take a deeper dive into nutrition, that's why this is a paid service because it's not just going to be generic macro calculations like 99% of coaches do.

How Tori Opens The Conversation

SPEAKER_04 4:44

So we're taking a look at this uh intake form that you have. So why don't you talk to us a little bit, Tori, on how you start that conversation? Is it generally the client who brings it up? Like, I really want to get into nutrition, or is it maybe during a workout and they start talking about nutrition and you kind of put your foot down and say, I'm more than happy to hear you talk and vent about this, but if you really want me to provide more intel and depth, this is going to be a paid service. So talk to us more about that, how it comes up.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

So I start nutrition coaching on my actual personal training assessment form, but it only starts with the first two questions. Are you interested in nutrition coaching? And then have you worked with a registered dietitian before? Um, if yes, would you like to schedule an appointment after 30 days? So I'm already getting for just from the personal training assessment, I'm already getting that answer, whether it's yes or no. If it's yes, then we're gonna go into the actual nutrition coaching form just to get a better understanding of you know what their diet looks like, what they consume in a day-to-day. Um, but if it's no, then you know, I just I'm like, okay, no worries. Now, after like 30 days, if they start talking about nutrition, I still make it known and I preface the fact that, hey, nutrition is a completely separate service. Um, sometimes I'll have clients talk about like, oh, I made this recipe and I did this. I'm oh, cool, fun, great. Like that's, you know, send me the recipe. I want to try. But we don't go into depth because I noticed my first year of training when I really wanted to start implementing nutrition coaching because my clients weren't getting the results that they wanted as far as fat loss. I mainly work with clients who want fat loss. It was just, it was super important for me to, you know, actually get them to pay for it because then it just adds a different value. I one time during one of my sessions was talking about nutrition. I was like, well, how many calories do you eat? And they're like, Well, I'm not entirely sure. I'm like, okay, so you should, you know, let's go into nutrition coaching. They're like, oh, I don't know. The following day, I did like a calorie breakdown of just their BMR, their basal metabolic rate. And the more I went into it, they were like, oh my gosh, like, wait, this is great information to know. Like, oh, I'm gonna take a picture. I'm like, you can take a picture, or you can sign up for nutrition coaching and actually get the results you want because these calories are just to keep you alive. So doing the breakdown in front of them completely changed the game. And then meeting with my RD Jalen, that's when they were like, oh no, like I need to actually, they bought into it, which is super important.

SPEAKER_04 7:11

And that's where you can just have that business conversation with your RD where if they're newer and they have a lot more capacity and bandwidth, it could be, you know, I'm gonna give you an opportunity, a 10-minute call, and you kind of plant the seed. Maybe they even turn into like your salesperson where they're able to get them to sign up for it. And whatever package they sign up for, they get a commission and on top of it, they get monthly um commissions for when they work with your clients. There's so many different ways that you can do it. I typically have found where I will present pricing, just like with personal training. One month costs this. It's gonna be more expensive because you're not committed to it. Six months cost this. You'll get a little bit of a discount, but it needs to be paid up front. So if you're charging $500 a month for nutrition coaching, if you commit to six months, it's now $450 or $400. $2,400 is gonna be invested up front. That's gonna get you your blood testing with vitality. It's gonna get you whether if you want to do weekly or monthly calls with your RD, it could be one-on-one, it could be in a group setting. Those are things that you're gonna experiment with. It'll be like me saying from a personal training side that everyone has to do private one-on-one training. And that's not the case. Maybe you like semi-private, like three to five people. Maybe you like a small group where it's 10 to 15, maybe you like big group. You have to kind of experiment to see what you like. And I have found, again, this is my anecdotes that I can have my clients hop on a call like this with the RD in the middle and they can ask them questions. And more times than not, I think you're gonna be wow, that it's like it's not as complex. It's just they need to hear it from a different source because your clients know they know I went to in and out seven times last week, and your RD just you know positions it in a way, okay, that's fine. It's like they're gonna get

No Shame Coaching And Habit Loops

SPEAKER_04 8:56

mad at them. And now I heard a trainer talking about this online the other day, and I just disagree with it and you know, tweets their own. But he said when the clients tell them that they, you know, went out over the weekend or they binged or whatever, he always beats the hell out of them on Monday. And I think that's just from a psychology standpoint, because we had that biopsychosocial model of pain. We have it with addiction, we have it with nutrition as well, because now what you're doing is saying that what you did was bad, certain foods are bad, and now you're getting punished for it. And that's just creating a bad loop because A, and maybe next time they're not gonna tell you, so they're gonna be hiding it from you, and then you're looking at your renewal process, and the client's like, I just paid you two grand last month for training and I gained four pounds of fat. It's because your your communication is based off of if you tell me something that's in my mind's my eyes bad, I'm gonna punish you for it. Versus, oh, cool, you went out and you had cheesecake. How was it? That's great. It's in the past. As we know, cheesecake is very calorically dense. Our goal is to hit a deficit during the week, 1500 calories. That would be 200 per day, roughly. You did great on five days, but on Saturday, you had seven pieces of cheesecake, and now you're in a surplus of 5,000 calories. So it makes perfect sense that by the end of the month, you're gonna gain a couple pounds of fat. You're not a bad person for that. We just have to make better decisions. So let's talk about you know, cognitive behavioral therapy. We're not therapists, but you can coach them up in the future on next time you go to the cheesecake factory, have a protein shake, have an apple. You don't have to eat seven cheesecakes in a row. Have a bite, take a sip of water, go to the bathroom, wash your face, ask yourself, how are you feeling today? Are you inebriated? Okay, well, maybe it's not the best time to be eating all these extra calories. Do we have a workout schedule the next day? So we're coming up with solutions for the hurdles that are presented to our clients. So I really like that approach with looking at, you know, stress. And if you had someone who, you know, maybe wrote a 10 on here, what would that conversation look like from your end as the nutrition coach?

Stress Tracking That Changes Behavior

SPEAKER_00 11:03

Honestly, I want to know what the main contributors are to their stress. I just say top three, because I, you know, I don't want them to write a whole paragraph of all the things because life is stressful. So um, but then that's when I usually go into more in-depth questions of like, okay, well, you know, what are your, and I hate to say coping mechanisms, but what are your coping mechanisms for stress? You know, people have different ones. Some people take walks, some people take a certain supplement, um, some people just hold it inside. And so that's when I go into my, I guess excited about talking about it because I think I just love making it, but my nutrition stress sheet, um, which basically just goes into each day, and I have like time slots for them. So, like from 8 a.m., you know, if you get up earlier, it's fine, but 8 a.m. to about like 10 p.m. And it's called it's a lot stress sheet. So they basically have to color code when they're feeling stressed based off the actual color. So orange is overwhelmed or you know, stressed out. So their next move would have to be write down, um, right for five minutes. You can't let your pen come off your paper. So each color has an action step because I don't want you to just feel overwhelmed or feel emotional or feel bored and there's no solution to it, because then that's when we usually start to go back into our old habits and we just start feeling tempted, and some people will emotionally eat. And it's cool because it looks completely different for everybody. Some people's sheets are like so colorful, and then some people just have green or just have red. So they're just frustrated all the time. So just taking action steps um that coincide with what they're feeling, so I can get a better understanding of you know what it looks like outside of training because you can train people three times a week for an hour, that's only three times three hours in the week that you're seeing them. I have no idea what your life looks like outside of that. So that's just something I I really enjoy um incorporating. And I noticed that people enjoy coloring, so it makes it fun.

SPEAKER_04 13:07

I I think that this is a really great sheet, but also perspective and different lenses. Because if you're a dude like me, dad's military, you have three older brothers, you may be thinking like this is dumb. Like, I'm never gonna be coloring this stuff. But guys are also notorious for just suppressing their emotions. I'm not saying that we got to talk about, you know, mom and dad and our emotions and the you know, all this, you know, mushy gushy stuff, but it is good to bring it to perspective that it's perfectly okay as a male to feel overwhelmed. It's perfectly okay to feel lonely or sad. And you may not feel comfortable talking with me about this, and I totally understand, but that's why I have an RD. That's why I have a nice psychologist. And I'm not again saying that you go to the RD to talk about your psychological psychological stuff. It's you know, there's there's resources for that. And I try to just make it human where you know there's certain things in our society that is normalized, such as you go to the dentist twice a year, that's pretty normal. But when it comes to psychology and and you know, go to a shrink, like, oh, you're you're screwed up. Like, oh, did you guys know that Tori goes to a shrink? Eee, she's a psycho, don't talk to her. It's like there's that negative um association, which is unfortunate. So I'm again, this is for you, and your goals are to get to where you want to be. And the more people that I have on my team, and the more that we really dive into this, I can tell that you're more serious. And if someone, if I give this to one of my clients and I come back and you know, there's just on Monday on breakfast, there's you know, just a quick little dash with blue, and then on Thursday there's a you know a dash of red. And you're not taking that serious because you know, imagine if you again try to relate to them, whether if it's a job or if it's a workout plan. It's like imagine if I were to say, here's your plan for Monday to hit chest, you're gonna do bench, you're gonna do incline dumbbells, you're gonna do you know chest flies and push-ups, and you end off on an AMRAP. It's very detailed, and you only do one set of bench and then you go walk on the treadmill. It's not like you're a bad person for doing that, but you're not following the plan. So, how can you expect to get the goals of what you said you want to get a chiseled chest, but you're not even doing the plan? And again, that's why we charge for nutrition. And I tell my clients it's because you're not taking it serious. And I just don't want to waste your time. And my clients who do follow it, they get results. And we like to find scapegoats. Noah Rahm is a uh colorful figure online and four weeks to the coach's summit and the sorry, four weeks to the beach, he does the coach's summit. I'm excited to be talking there in in April and being in front of 500 plus trainers. But he's he's very, very articulate, well educated, but he's strong in his opinions. And he made one that, you know, kind of stirred the business a little bit the other day. And he said, Hormones are the I, your dog, H, your homework of today, where people just like to say, Oh, you know, I can't lose it because of my hormones. And it's a tough one because there's a male saying that, and you have, you know, a bunch of ladies who may disagree with you. Well, I disagree because of my anecdote. You know, we're not saying that you're wrong or that you're you're going through a challenging time, but that's how it comes off of social media. And so then you find that person, you put a, you know, the crosshairs on them, you're like, okay, you're now my target because you're saying it's not because of my hormones. No, no, no, no. Didn't say that. I'm saying we talked about nutrition and I told you to track your calories, but you said you were too frustrated and emotional or angry and frustrated, and you skip three days. I do not care about what you did on those days. It does not make you a bad person. But here's an example from one of my clients. And then I think what that does is again puts that human element where I don't say I'm perfect and I eat like an angel all the time. But if I give a third example of like an avatar that's similar to your client, it kind of calms down the situation. Where I have a client right now and she's struggling with weight loss, and she was at work and she was hungry. She went to the desk or the little office space, and they just did a shopping spree to Costco, and they had three different bags of chips, and people started like rushing in there like a bunch of rhinos. So she's like all flustered. She's like, I just grabbed three of them because I didn't want them to be gone. And then she ate all three bags. And I said, you know, like this was my conversation. I said, which ones did you have? I had some, I love those little uh Fritos, chili cheese ones. Oh, I think those are amazing. Those are my my one go-to and cool ranch Doritos. This is the conversation I have with my client, it makes it human. So, okay, well, if Chris can have Doritos, that's fine. But then I'll be like, Well, I I had one day. I couldn't tell you last time I had them after that one day. You had three bags. So next time this happens, let's look at your it's a lot week log. And on Monday, you were overwhelmed and stressed. And I can see that it's right around lunch. What do we have for breakfast? Oh, you know, I was super stressed out because A, B, C, and D. Awesome. I really like that because now we have a solution. So, what do you think? And this is how I have these conversations with my clients. What do you think will be a great plan of attack for next Monday when 11 o'clock comes around and you start getting stressed out? Well, maybe I can. So then that's critical thinking. Your clients will start talking about it versus the alternative. You can't have that, you fat ass. Why'd you have three bags of chips, you pile of shit? That's bad. It's seed oils, it's bad, bad, bad, bad. You got to be like me and have watermelon all day. And so it's not realistic for your client. So they're not gonna do it. And so when that stressful situation comes up, they go back to that same behavior. So, you know, read more books on habits and formation, BJ Fogg, Stanford Professor, and Charles Dweig, the power of habit, and understand that habit loop. You can even have the habit loop on one of these forms. You had a trigger, this was your cue that went on, and then here's the reward. Your reward was having those three bags. How did you feel afterwards? Oh, I feel like shit, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, so here's my challenge next time. Have a bag. It's fine, it's 150 calories. But then I want you to walk down to your car and put the other two bags in there, walk back up to your desk. And after 30 minutes, if you're so stressed out and overwhelmed and you want to have that other bag, walk down to your car, grab one bag, bring it back upstairs, finish your glass of water, and then have that other bag. So now you're giving them talking points. Oh, okay, I never thought about that. I think for us, you're like, oh, that's pretty most of us in here as trainers and coaches, we wouldn't do that. You know, we're not, you know, just smashing three bags of chips. We have our food prep for the week. If you're like most lunatics like us, because we like exercise, your snack is an apple. You know, it's a protein shake, it's something that is gonna fuel our workouts because we're in tune with that. But I feel for the clients because when it comes to nutrition, everyone's an expert because everyone eats. So you go online, you have 30 different people saying, okay, one, chips are bad, seed oils, you're gonna go to hell. Two, oh, you gotta go carnivore, three, you got to go vegan. And then you see someone with a physique, like, oh, I gotta follow what they're doing, but they're on steroids and you don't know that because they don't tell you. And you got another person over here saying, Oh, talk about peptides. Like, what do I do? I'm frustrated, I'm I'm overwhelmed. So when you humanize it, I feel that nutrition is gonna go a lot more in your client's favor. And it gives you a lot more power because it's really neat to see, like when you sit down and you go over this, like Tori said, there's she had a light in her eyes. She's like, This is fun, it's kind of cool to see what's going on. You kind of connect in the dots. And so, talk to us a little bit more about the second sheet.

RD Built Snacks And Plate Templates

SPEAKER_00 20:28

The balanced snack options. Yeah. So the thing with nutrition, like my nutrition coaching, is the foundation is the same. The system is pretty general for everybody, but it depends on which portion of my system that I'm gonna implement for my clients. So the balanced snack options I have for weight loss that my RD gave me. And shout out to Jalen because she she never underpromises, but she always overdelivers. So when I have conversations with my clients and my RD, you know, just get a basic understanding of what their goals are. You know, if they have PCOS, if they have hormonal issues, what would she, what would she suggest? Um, and for Jalen, she always sends more than I asked for. And I'm like, thank goodness. Because I can't, I don't mind my clients using ChatGPT, but I'm just like, hold on, before you get crazy and start typing all these crazy things, I want you to talk to the expert who's actually studied this stuff, who's been in the labs, who has a degree. Um, so the balance knock options, I just, you know, I'm a girl, so I like to make things look cute and detailed, but it just gives different options for my clients based on what they enjoy eating. And for clients who are trying to gain weight, it looks different. The template is the same, but the um actual items are different. So portion sizes, I have clients who were more of like snackers. So Jalen would suggest four to five like smaller meals. It stays within their macro count. Um, but four to five smaller meals for them to eat instead of you know just constantly snacking. Um, but yeah, it looks Pretty much the same, and then the actual easy training day plate. Each every single one of my clients when they start interesting coaching with me, they don't get as excited as I do. But I always send them um a food scale. And I'm at this point, I'm like, you know what? If you don't use the food scale, whatever, but I just want you to have it. And then Chris knows what I'm about to grab, but these portion plates that look very similar to the actual plate on the the last image. And Jalen is a sports RD, so she works with athletes, and that's something that she gives her athletes. But I'm like, if we're training clients who want to lose weight, who want to gain weight, at some point you're gonna be training like an athlete. So instead of just guessing and assuming, like, well, how much is this way? How much is this way? I want to give you a physical template for you to use. And it's cool because the to-go plates have a lid and they're microwaveable. So no excuses if you're at work and you're like, well, they had you have portion plates that you can use. And then the same thing with the food scale. And then I also will do a water bottle if my clients they love them to death, but water intake is like borderline impossible. And on my intake form, I would always get people, I'm like, how much water you consume? And they're like, uh, and they'll grab like their Stanley, and I'm like, okay, so how many do you drink? They're like, Well, how many ounces isn't it is this? So I just have them circle on average how many cups of eight ounces of water that they think that they consume instead of just guessing.

Making Tracking Practical And Fun

SPEAKER_04 23:23

I'm gonna play a little game here, and I'm gonna internationalize this. So, Mr. Johnny, our trainer over there in in Ireland, I want to see if we're just crazy here in America or what's going on. But can you think of a family member or a friend? Just think of them off the top of your head and tell me what their profession is.

SPEAKER_02 23:42

Okay. Um yeah. Uh let's say a teacher.

SPEAKER_04 23:48

Okay. And this isn't like the Dr. Oz stuff where I'm gonna be reading minds. Uh, I love that guy, but um the teacher you're thinking of, do they 100% absolutely love their job?

SPEAKER_01 24:00

I think they probably love kids to death, not the amount of time they have to put into it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:06

Okay. And what happens if they don't go to work?

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Uh well, two things. They're probably under a lot of pressure and they're sick. Um, but nobody gets the the work doesn't get done.

SPEAKER_04 24:21

Will they get paid if all of a sudden they're like, you know what, I just I don't want to go to work these next couple weeks.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

No.

SPEAKER_04 24:26

The point I'm trying to make here is you have to try to connect with your clients because most of the pushback you're gonna get from what Tori just said. I don't want to weigh my food all the time. That's just not realistic. You have a job and you go to work and you do it. I'm not saying hate your job, but why not take a different mindset? And why not like Tori? Like, she's a psycho. She is see how excited she was when she held up her scale. She's like, I like doing this stuff. But I measured out just for fun, you'll say what three and a half ounces of wine look like. Obviously, off camera, I just poured that sucker to the full. But you're like, whoa, that's pretty crazy. Three and a half ounces is 150 calories. Again, this isn't to make you feel bad. So let's try to make it fun. So I I have a binder kind of like Tori does, but I have a bunch of food in there because I love posting it in my story, and I do it. It's the the story posts that I get the most engagement are always my food. How many calories are this? Two tacos clients, it's always cute because the ones that are struggling with weight loss, 250. That was actually 750 calories. What? No way. And they're thinking, I just had seven tacos the other night, and they probably taste amazing. Because when I have boring tacos, it's a small ass tortilla, which is 50 calories, ground turkey and salsa, which is probably 150 calories. But when I want to have fun with my tacos, I get the big white one that's about 200 calories. I'll put some ranch in there because as we know, tacos definitely need ranch. And then I'm gonna put cheese and sour cream and guacamole. It's 500 calories per taco. And so when you do this regularly with your clients, you're educating them. Just like when you go to work, there's certain things that you may not like to do, but it's part of the gig. And if your goal is weight loss and you've been struggling, these are the questions you need to ask them. How long have you been struggling with weight loss? And more times than not, it's your clients are gonna say, since high school. Okay, so you know, not to point your fingers here, but you said you're 44, high school, you were 18. So almost 20 years ago. That's when you know you've been struggling this for a good chunk of change, two decades. Is that correct? Yeah. So what's gonna happen if we keep on doing this? I always say like this. What's gonna happen if we keep on doing the same thing over and over and over again? And I make a little circle with my fingers, and your clients go, yeah, that's called insanity. Yeah, it's batshit crazy. So you're telling me that you want to try another diet that's this magical diet that is pretty much the same as all the other diets in the past, it's just now it's trendy, and you think that this is gonna work. So, how about this? Can you commit to eight percent of the year? I think that sounds pretty you know, reasonable. Eight percent. One month out of 12 is eight percent. Track your food with a scale for 30 days. And if you don't miss one day, I guarantee you 100% your life will be changed. Well, I go out a lot and I eat a lot of fast food. Don't eat fast food for a month. Be creative. Go to Costco and get a giant little block of protein shakes. And the next time you have to go and eat, have a protein shake before you're not gonna die. But I mean, I'm hungry all the time. You're uncomfortable because you're super stressed out. Commit to one month, and then you're gonna find three months from now, you don't have to worry about the scale nearly as much because you're in tune with it. I was at a little family event over the weekend, and one of my buddies, 240, big dude, works out all the time. He can deadlift 400 plus pounds and you know, benches, 225 for eight to 10 reps, a lot of muscle on them. And his wife was mad because he had 12 tacos. Ah, it's not fair. Ralph gets to eat whatever he wants to. And I asked her, you know, not to you know, put her on the spot. I said, Monica, how many pulpes can you do? Oh my god, pulps are so hard. I can never do one. It's just the hardest thing in the world. Monica, what's your mile time? God, I don't I don't run miles. How often are you in the gym lifting weights like your husband, Ralph? And you know, I like Pilates. Nothing wrong with Pilates, it's fine, but he has that intensity. So when you go back to the equation that you know, Tori was talking about the BMR, you have a multiplier effect. And if you're not exercising regularly in moving load, which I like I challenge people, like, what's your mile time? How much can you back squat? I want those numbers because more times than not, I'm not picking on ladies, but it's well, I go to my bar class and you know, we grab the red weights and I do 25 squats. Well, that's not nearly enough to create a stress so your tissue adapts and gets stronger and strengthens your bones and so forth. But your husband over here, he's pulling twice his body weight off the ground. So his energy requirements are significantly higher than you. And it's you can't compare yourself to him. Once you get to five pull-ups, I guarantee you you're gonna be looking and feeling different, but your calorie intake will be higher. So instead of looking at him and judging, and now he's in the doghouse, but it's like, how about you focus on yourself and move the needle the way that you can? Go ahead, Chief.

SPEAKER_03 29:23

Yeah, um, one of the tips I have for water is um I like to drink my water out of a small bottle, and it's really hard to know. This is only 16 ounces. I only need 100 ounces a day for my kidney. Um, hard to know how many of these. And so I fill this guy first, along with this one. This one's 64 ounces, so I need to drink one of these first this whole thing. Um, and that's how I track my water so that at the end of the day I know how much is left and what I've actually drank.

SPEAKER_04 29:54

Sorry, Sheep. For you and Johnny, I misunderstood what you said. What is water?

SPEAKER_03 29:58

Water. I know it's really hard.

SPEAKER_04 30:01

Water. Sorry, sorry, I can translate. How do you say it, Johnny?

SPEAKER_01 30:08

Water. Water.

SPEAKER_04 30:10

I love that. But I think what it's really cool just to you'll see that the stuff that goes through with your client's mind is like that is gold for them, and they would never think about that. I made some pasta the other night and I put an onion and two red bell peppers in there with 99% turkey meat. And my client was like, Oh, you can get vegetables that way. And my mind, like, yeah, no shit. Yes, you can, dumbass. I didn't say that to them, but I'm like, yeah, you can get fruits in different ways. You don't have to eat the banana as it is. You can, and don't get me started with what you know people are saying today about mixing blueberries and bananas. That's a whole other conversation. But yeah, you can put that in there. Have you ever, uh, this is one of my favorite ones. Have you ever ate a red bell pepper plane? Your clients look at you like you're a serial killer. Like, what? Like, you eat an apple plane, you eat a banana plane, have a fucking red bell pepper. You'd be surprised. It's sweet. Bring it to work. People are gonna look at you. That's fine. But you don't have to have that bag of chips. Here are some suggestions from an RD on snacks that you can consume. And again, just putting that label on it from the RD, your clients are like, oh, wow, okay, let me try it out. And this isn't just to say it's all about calorie counting, but the foundation is we need to figure out how many calories you're consuming. And you've been struggling with weight loss, probably means that we're in a surplus. And the fact that we're in a surplus and you're unhappy with where you're at based on this chart, we need to mitigate our stress better. How's our sleeping routine? Oh, you don't have one. So we have a stress questionnaire I want to pull up real quickly that I like to review with my clients.

Cortisol Stress And Food Awareness

SPEAKER_04 31:46

And this gives so much awesome information. And this is derived from the book, The Cortisol Connection. And the forward is from my professor at the University of Connecticut, Dr. Kramer. And these questions, there's a no for never, one for occasional, two for frequently. You know, how often do you feel overwhelmed or um anxious or down? I did this with a client. If your total score is over 10, that means we're moderately to sometimes severely stressed. And so when we're stressed, that's when the hormones come in, meaning cortisol is going to be elevated. It's not that cortisol is bad, but now our decision making is going to be altered because cortisol is an awesome hormone. It just likes to burn fuel like nothing. It's also anti-inflammatory. But if our you know, quote unquote carb tank, which we don't technically have, but it's just easier to imagine, if there's a bigger hole at the bottom because cortisol is draining that, we're going to experience hunger and those voices are going to be louder, that food noise. So, what we can do is we can mitigate that by let's figure out a way how we can address some of these topics. So there's 10 questions here, and you'll, you know, there's questions about sex, there's questions about caffeine and nicotine and so forth. I'm not getting into, you know, sex talk, but it's let's have a conversation about this. How often do you feel aroused? Are these things that are normal for you or not? If you're a dude, you should be waking up every morning with a happy guy. And if you're not, okay, you're probably really stressed out. So let's talk about this a little bit. And I love that question that Tori had as an open-ended question because I have it as well. And I would always just, you know, get again coming from dudes, my family of, you know, my mom's a saint, obviously, but you know, three brothers. When I when I'd start working a lot more with lady clients, I would see some of stuff. I'm like, holy shit, this chick's crazy. I would never say it. But the stress one, I had this numerous times. The stress was husband, number one, number two was husband, and number three was husband. And I'm just like, not only did you write it three times, like when you watched her write, it was like, H, motherfucker, you beat. I'm like, whoo, there's some stuff going on here. Let's talk about it. I'm not a shrink, but why is your husband stressed? Oh, because I mean it's not fair that he's he's working from home and he wakes up at nine and I'm out here doing this, I got home and picking up my dog out. I'm just like who this is great. That's it's good. Vend it out, let it out. That's good. I'm not a psychologist, no, but it's good for you to talk about this stuff because I'm sure when you're pissed off and you're at home and your husband's in his underwear watching the football game, you're not gonna be like, I'm gonna go for a walk today. You're gonna be like, motherfucker, I'm opening up that $300 bottle of wine and I'm gonna drink the whole thing because it makes me feel good, talking about those coping mechanisms. So, you know, that's you know, then that's the beauty of it, where we have our clients super stressed out. And what we want is the quick fix. I'm gonna do a cortisol cocktail. That's not addressing the root cause. Why are you so stressed out? You know, is it, you know, because of you know your workouts, you're not achieving the results or you're comparing yourself to other people. That's fine, but let's figure out a solution for this. And again, I like to use concrete words because it gives hope. When I say things like, I guarantee you, when you go through this nutrition plan, your physique is dramatically going to change. Because when you do track your food for 30 days and you send me photos, I have a really freaking good clue of what you are actually consuming. And we know that the average American consumes about 3,500 calories. But then when we report it, we're saying we eat 1,800. That doesn't add up. If you are truly eating 1800 calories and you're training with me three times a week and you've achieved these accomplishments and PRs in the gym, then you know, with your BMR, I'm just doing, you know, random uh guesstimations here, you know, 2,200 calories. So, you know, that may be a deficit of 400. This would add up to fat loss. So then when I show my clients photos and they send them to me, or that's why I don't do just a food log, I do it with the photos. Because back when I started doing this stuff in the early 2000s, that's all we had. We didn't have phones like we did today. So I would get a food log and a client would say she's eating 1500 calories, but then she would gain weight at the end of the month. So imagine that emotional frustration because you in your mind are consuming that, but you don't even know what a calorie is. So then we have them start tracking, they go, Oh my God, I didn't realize how many calories were in this and that in those little snacks that you're consuming, especially if you're a parent. Your little rug rat has my son yesterday. He was eating a peanut butter jelly sandwich. Little fucker just he just takes out the peanut butter, leaves the jelly there. I'm like, I hate wasting food. That's like my, you know, growing up. So I throw in a couple squares of bread and jam. That adds up. If you do, if you have four kids, jam over here, cracker over here, ice cream bite over here. It's not hard to get an additional 500 calories, you're not even tracking. So, what this is about is just causing awareness so we can make better decisions in the future. And this call in itself has been over an hour. So that's why, again, why it's so important to talk about it because we don't give nutrition enough credit. And we talk about it during rest periods during the workout. And your client tells you, Oh, you know, I had a bottle of wine last night, oh, you shouldn't be doing that. It's just going in one ear out the other. It means like think about like listening to a podcast or a book on tape when you're cleaning your house versus sitting down and reading it. You get so much more information from reading the actual words. A lot of stuff just goes one ear out the other when you're doing other things, but that's what's happening during that weight training session. And it's challenging for coaches. If you have a full book of business, you're like, well, my clients are gonna start paying for this. Yeah, I agree because you gave them all this information.

Pricing Nutrition Like A Professional

SPEAKER_04 37:25

So, how you can position this is I want to let you know, I just signed up for this amazing nutrition certification. You know, there's calls that are alive, they also have seminars, you go in person, you know, with everything in total, it's gonna be about two grand. So if you want to sponsor me and you can pay for it, I'm not going to charge you for nutrition, uh, nutrition services when that time comes. But I do want you to know that come August 1st, I'm gonna start charging $250 for nutrition. But look at the lens of the client. If that time goes through and then you give them the same advice, there's no value there. But if there's now systems that you have and you have all these pages, like Tori has in these charts and stuff, they'll be like, oh shit, what the hell were we doing before, Chris? Because this wasn't nutrition coach, and you were just telling me that Cheetos are bad. No, you take photos, you're consistent for 30 days. There's a step marker. I want you to, if you've been hitting 5,000, we should be getting 58 or 2,000 or more, but make it specific to them. There's a lot of homework to check off. You have a special group. I send out a call or I send out a text message just to my to my nutrition clients every Monday. Maybe you check in with them three times a week. You do story posts and it's directed at them. So now you're getting them involved and they will see like, oh, this makes sense. I now understand why I'm paying for this. I have clients today that I give nutrition advice for still 250 bucks a month. And maybe they text me once a month, like, hey, Chris, I'm gonna go to uh this nice steak restaurant. Can you take a look at the menu and tell me what I should get? Because I don't want to decision fatigue, I don't want to think about that, just tell me what to eat. I go on there and I go, okay, get the fillet. Don't have this, you know, have this drink, blah, blah, blah. And they appreciate she, and a lot of my clients who do nutrition or females, she sees the value in one time a month working with me. So it's all on just how you communicate with your clients. And there's there's things that I think that you should do, just like blood pressure. I think that the equivalent of blood pressure with nutrition is writing out these equations. If you think it's just a ballpark one, you take their body weight, times it by 10. You know, here's your rough guesstimation, you know, here's a 1.375 multiplier because you're working out only two, three times a week, and you get your phone out and you're doing the math, and okay, it would be in a deficit. And your clients have ever like, what the fuck did you just do? You're like a mad scientist. Your client, and then it's it's even cooler, which Tori can attest to is like your RD will do it too. And they're doing these equations, and it just you know, talk about that experience that you had when that happened with you and your RD.

SPEAKER_00 39:49

Well, honestly, the most recent nutrition client I have is online, and we started in June, and he's already hit his goal of losing five pounds, which is nice. He also said that he was dealing with a lot of bloating, and I did the macro breakdown, and I was like, he told me what he was consuming, and then I did it, and I was like, There's something off. And then my RD did it, and I was like, oh my gosh, it was like a complete 180. And I had some numbers that were off, but for the most part, like for the most part, we were in the same ballpark. But now he's like, I don't bloat as much. I'm still losing, I'm losing more weight. And I told him, I was like, Chris, honestly, I think the least of our worries is what you're eating, nutrition now. Like, we really need to focus on your habits, your sleep. He's getting like four to five hours, he's stressed, he's overwhelmed. So, like, and that's happened with multiple one, like multiple clients. And that first month of nutrition coaching, when I bring in my RD, when we're doing the calorie breakdown, when they've sent me the pictures of their food, it's like they get that adrenaline rush and they're doing great. The second month, it's like, okay, but how do we maintain this? How do we tweak things? Because then that's when, you know, the stress starts to pick up and they feel like, oh, like I'm a little overwhelmed, like with counting my calories and what I should eat. So having my RD to just kind of like not fall back on, but just to help me and you know, assist me with my clients and just get down to the nitty-gritty, like fine-tune the details, it just changes the game and adds more value. And it's funny, one of my clients is like, now I feel like I'm in like kind of like therapy. Like, this is like we're getting really deep. And I'm like, Yeah, because it's not just, oh, what are you eating? And he asked me, he was like, Well, how do you know all this stuff? Like, how did you figure out this system? And and I was like, Because I went through my own weight loss journey, it's like I have the experience and I can have the empathy, but my journey isn't everyone else's. So I've had to learn through books, through talking to other people, TED talks, watching videos, show up fitness courses. Like I've had to fine-tune it so I can adjust based off the client that I'm talking to.

SPEAKER_04 41:49

And that's what great qualified coaches

Results Stories And Building Your System

SPEAKER_04 41:51

do. So we want to be respected, we want to make more money. But if you look at the process, someone comes in, we half ask the assessment process, we go out there, we annihilate them, and we just give them little tiny little nuggets when it comes to nutrition, and we're frustrated. Most trainers don't make it past the first year. We want to be respected, we want to be professional. Now, imagine if you went to the dentist and they do their regular routine and they say, Oh, you have a cavity. You're not gonna push back, like, I don't want that extra service. No, I don't want this. You do it. It's like you don't even think about it. Okay, I got to come back, schedule another time, and I'm gonna get the cavity figured out. Or if you go to a doc and you have something wrong and they do some blood tests and they don't find a solution, they say, you got to come back again, we're gonna do a more thorough test. We need to go get an echo or a sonic or whatever it is. You do it because they're the professional. Now look at trainers. We don't have that process. There's no system, there's nothing, it's just all just kind of chaos. Come in, work out, random exercises. Oh, one day we're gonna go high intense, one day we're gonna do cardio, and now we're throwing in this over here. And oh, by the way, here's your nutrition. It's chaos. So when you structure it and then you have a conversation with your clients, and then they experience, they go, wow, I've worked with a lot of trainers and no one did this. They understand why you charge for this service. And if you have 10 clients and half of them sign up for a plan between 250 to 500, you can be making an additional 30 plus thousand per year, 100%. And I say it super easy because trainers aren't willing to dedicate and put the time into exactly what Tori just said is you have to learn this stuff. If you don't even know what a monosaccharide is, if you don't know what a disaccharide is or the fuel factor for carbs or how many calories are in a gram of protein versus fat and alcohol, you have to master the fundamentals. And then you provide that service and you have conversations and you have sheets that they fill out. Your clients go, okay, this makes sense. I want this additional service, just like you want your cavity taken care of. So that's a really great conversation on nutrition assessment forms. Create your own. Come up with things through your clients, and you can even talk to your followers on Instagram. I'm going through a course right now, I'm looking for five people who want to be my little guinea pig because starting in July or whatever it's gonna be, I'm gonna start charging X. I'm gonna do it now at a discount, or I'll have a family and friends price, or I'm gonna do it for free. If you do it for free, just set the expectations of what you need from them. I need a picture on day one, I need a picture on day 30 and 60 and 90. We're gonna have weekly check-ins, we're gonna have workouts, whatever you're gonna provide. The moment that you stop doing this, you do not get it anymore. So, yes, it's free, but it's almost like you have to give, give, give, because this is normally gonna be a $500 service. So then you gather the survey from the people who are doing the system that you're incorporating, and then you're gonna fine-tune it where what works for Tori may not work for you, and that's fine because your populations may be different. Create your own stuff. That's that the I part of the Swift analysis, the innovative things. You improve things based on the conversations you have with your clients. And there's nothing more that I like to see is successful stories like this because so many trainers bitching and playing online, Reddit and Facebook groups, so hard to do this stuff, but they're following that path that everyone else is doing. They just read you read PN1. Okay, that's cool. There's three texts there. Did you talk to an RD? Did you have live calls where you actually get asked the RD questions? No, okay. What does your form look like for nutrition? You don't have one, so you just expect your well, I'm just gonna charge more within my training sessions. Well, if you're a competent coach, you can charge more anyways. Why not have an additional stream and start you know working less, but making it more fulfilling because your clients are getting the results because they're taking it actually seriously. Any other questions before we call our day? That's awesome, Tori. Thank you for taking the time. Everyone's showing up, and we'll uh see you next week. Have a good one.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

Thanks for having me. Bye, guys.