Here is a hard truth - most diet and exercise plans fail without a coach to lead you along the way. This is one of the major reasons why the health and fitness industry is a multi-billion dollar monster. More often than not you’re designed to fail, you do fail, and you are left feeling broken and like there’s something wrong with you. Look, you’re not alone in this, and even more so, it’s not your fault. So what is a nutrition coach and how can they help you not only achieve your results in the short term, but achieve long lasting, sustainable change? Let’s find out, shall we?

What Is A Nutrition Coach

In short, a nutrition or a wellness coach is a professional individual in the health and fitness space who leads you on a journey of physical transformation using the power of food. The changes you’ll learn, when aligned with the right program and coach for your goals, should be empowering, sustainable, and informative.

Since there is no ‘one size all’ approach to nutrition, having a nutrition coach can help you navigate the confusing landscape of food, nutrition, your life, and your goals with ease and enjoyment. Taking responsibility of your health by working 1:1 with a nutrition coach can also eliminate the guesswork, take out the stress, and provide you with efficient results in a short period of time rather than toiling and wasting time not getting results on your own.

What To Look For In A Nutrition Coach

When seeking guidance and advice from a nutrition or wellness coach it is important to take your time, do your research, and choose the program that aligns with you and your value system best. Why? Well, in the long run, you’ll feel more connected to your programming, you’ll receive direction better, and enjoy the journey along the way. Regardless of your goal, you should also look for a nutrition or wellness coach that has BOTH education and experience to back up their results. Don’t be fooled by the glitz and glam of social media alone. Are you able to talk to them in person, on the phone, or over a video call? What education and/or certifications do they have? What about client testimonials?

So often individuals get wrapped up in the drastic changes of transformation photos. However, coming from a coach, take it from me when I say that most coaches only have a handful of these and they use them over, and over, and OVER in their marketing messages to hook people on the fast results. While yes, this can be your goal and quite possibly that is the right coach for you, it also comes down to the type of coaching that they offer.

A good nutrition coach should help you:

EAT: Improve food intake and the quality of that intake without feeling deprived, restricted, or by using intense diets
MOVE: Improve overall energy output and to achieve higher activity levels, regardless of your fitness level or ability
DITCH: Remove constraints, uprooting stigma, and ditching diet culture once and for all is part of the role and responsibility of a coach who customizes options and coaching for you
EMPOWER: Make choices from a place of self trust and intuition takes practice, trust, and guidance from a nutritionist or professional nutrition coach
ACHIEVE: Get results from your programming, habit practice, and coaching sessions that align with your values and goals
MAINTAIN: Learn the keys to sustainable and maintainable change in the long term, not just for the short term goal

What To Look For In A Nutrition Coaching Program

Now that we’ve answered the question of ‘what is a nutrition coach’ let’s get into what to look for in a nutrition or wellness program. Some coaches offer only habit based coaching with practices applied to nutrition such as eating until you’re 80% full or taking pictures of your food for accountability and food recommendations. Other coaches put a large emphasis on counting macros or tracking macronutrients to support your personal health, aesthetic, and performance goals.

Some coaches provide template meal plans that are very cookie cutter whereas others provide customized, top to bottom, unique meal plans. Some coaches believe that food groups and specific foods should be eliminated from the diet altogether (i.e. soy, gluten, corn, GMO’s, lactose, etc.). Others believe that a diet should be well rounded and not be restrictive or limiting. Then, some coaches believe that diets are the way to go and without harsh rules and restrictions you’ll never get results.

Now, we get it, that’s a lot of information that we just threw at you. But that’s because the internet and the world of nutrition coaching can be extremely overwhelming. Everywhere you go on the internet, social media, and even looking at billboards down the freeway, you’re overloaded with information on ‘do this’ and ‘don’t do that’ and ‘eat this’ or ‘this is good/bad’ which can be extremely discouraging. This why you not only need to answer the question of what is a nutrition coach but figuring out also what they do and how they do it.

Our recommendation? Look for something that aligns with your lifestyle and your values. Ask yourself if the short term, long term, or both terms, are important to you. Do you want hands-off guidance or hands on guidance? Do you want to follow a meal plan or count macros and have the freedom to choose what you want and when you want it?

THE SWOLE KITCHEN Nutrition Coaching

As you can see from the above programs, there is a common theme. Regardless of the approach, you’re going to receive professional guidance, accountability, motivation, direction, and information on not only how to achieve your goals but how to maintain and sustain them on your own long term.

Who Is Nutrition Coaching For

Hiring a nutrition coach is a personal decision and it can be for just about anyone looking for the guidance, direction, motivation and accountability that you’re not receiving in your daily life. If you have a goal, and are unsure how to achieve it with the power of food, then nutrition coaching is for you. If you are tired of diets, not achieving results, not happy with your body, have health markers or goals you’d like to achieve, and you don’t know how to get those things (or maybe you’ve never gotten those things) on your own, then you’re a great candidate for nutrition coaching.

Below you will find a full list of the services we offer at The Swole Kitchen. Through 1:1 nutrition coaching, we will provide you with the guidance you need, with lifestyle coaching, meal plans, training programs and more specifically designed for you to get the results you want.

Customized Nutrition Coaching - TSK

What Else Should A Nutrition Coach Do

In addition to all the benefits listed previously, some other things that a nutrition coach can do for you is calculate your individual food intake needs for your goals, make adjustments on a daily or weekly basis as needed, help you feel more confident at the grocery store, reading labels, and sifting through all the mounds of nutritional information available on the internet and social media.

By taking a 1:1 approach to you, your coach should be able to customize their approach to meet you are to take you where you want to go rather than just telling you. It’s also extremely nice to have a soundboard that you can ask questions to, check in with, and ‘walk the walk’ with. If your coach doesn’t offer you these things, and you want them, speak up and share that or just get a new coach altogether. There are plenty out there (including us here at Swolverine & The Swole Kitchen) who want to invest in you and help you be the very best version of yourself every single day.

What Is A Nutrition Coach: Takeaway

All in all, a nutrition coach, nutritionist, or wellness coach is someone who has the education, experience, and expertise to lead you on a transformative journey while improving health, habits, and overall performance. A nutrition coach is someone that you should be able to connect with, feel appreciated by, and that should teach you along the way not only how to get results, but how to sustain them and maintain them long term. While there are a wide range of philosophies and approaches out there, we recommend working with a coach that aligns with your value system and that will give you things like habits, meal plans, macros, grocery lists, and all the tools you need to implement into your lifestyle with ease to promote overall health and wellbeing.

Need Help With Optimizing Your Diet And Nutrition Plan To Finally Get The Results You've Been Waiting For?

The Swole Kitchen is an exclusive membership opportunity for those who are looking to pursue a performance-driven lifestyle. By combining wellness consulting, nutritional lifestyle improvement, and 1:1 customized nutrition plans to our members, our programs aim to optimize human potential. In each of our programs, you’ll receive guidance to reclaim your health, fuel your lifestyle, and pursue performance ambitions, all while learning how to make nutritional decisions from a place of self-trust and intuition. All of our coaches are committed to providing the highest level of results-driven wellness to our members.

SWOLVERINE IS AN ENDURANCE ATHLETE AND ACTIVE LIFESTYLE BRAND. MADE FOR THE ELITE ATHLETE, AND THE STRONG-WILLED OUR PRODUCTS WERE DESIGNED TO FUEL YOUR ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE. WE PERFORM WHEN YOU PERFORM.

We believe that everyone can optimize not only their athletic performance but their human potential. The way we believe we can optimize performance is through transparency, clinically effective doses, and clinically proven ingredients with evidence-based outcomes. We provide the nutrients you need to power your active lifestyle.

Tags: Nutrition, Wellness