Got an email today with a lot of questions I get all the time from trainers, I thought it would be worth re-posting.
The two basic questions were:
- Is coaching nutrition outside of a trainer’s scope of practice?
- What to do about clients who don’t “conform to the program”
Those are great questions! Most of the personal training organizations say something to the effect of “general nutrition recommendations” are within a trainers scope of practice.
We need to careful of scope of practice in two places:
- Making medical nutrition recommendations (this is obviously out of our scope, but I hear trainers do it all the time and drives me crazy)
- Making individual meal plans (this is also out of our scope of practice)
So the key is to avoid those two things.
This is where working on habits instead of diets really shines
Everything we do is working on behaviors: Cooking, shopping, eating slower, ect.
You don’t need to make ANY food recommendations.
Those are all things that are totally within our scope. Most clients have a pretty good idea that the chocolate chip cookie isn’t ideal, and that adding vegetables is probably smart. I don’t need to tell them that.
According to NASM’s Weight Loss Specialist program, it is absolutely within our scope to talk to clients about how calories impact scale weight.
Resources for habit based coaching:
Free facebook group:
if you want to talk to other habit-based trainers, check out our Facebook group for trainers who are using either my book or Georgie Fear’s book, or both: https://www.facebook.com/groups/HabitCoachingPros/
“Non-conforming” clients
The clients “non-conform” usually need less directing and more guiding. Read http://www.amazon.com/Motivational-Interviewing-Health-Care-Applications/dp/1593856121Take a look at the difference between directing, guiding, and following. And also the chapter on how to roll with resistance.
When the client gets a say in the direction of their program, when they get listened to and treated as smart, motivated adults, then pushback about the program goes away entirely.
Magazine Series for Trainers
I do a monthly column in Strength Matters Magazine about how to coach habits for personal trainers.
Habit Coaching Mentorship for Trainers
Georgie Fear, Roland Fisher, Steven Ledbetter and myself run a mentorship program for trainers on best practices for habit coaching as trainers, and how to make that work as a business: http://completecoachingmentors.com/
Habit Coaching Workshop for Trainers
Georgie and I are doing a 4 hour Habit Coaching System workshop on Friday, and then another one hour module on working with nutrition as a trainer on Saturday (just me) and another module on working with clients who emotionally eat on Sunday (Georgie) at the Strength Matters Summit in San Diego
Josh Hillis
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