Nutrition Coaching for Better Fitness and Health
Just like in the gym where we are consistently making efforts to improve our Fitness over time based on achieving and maintaining standards, we can do the same with Nutrition.
Nutrition is the key to better (race/game/competition) Performance and overall long term Health. If your Performance has plateaued, or even has degraded, then you might need to look at your Nutrition. In parallel, if your overall Health is degrading, where certain conditions you haven’t had before are manifesting, or that you are perhaps even getting sicker more often, then you might need to look at your Nutrition.
Once you have made the decision to improve your Nutrition, then you first ought to Assess where you are at, like finding the “You are here” on a map. That way, depending on the goals you have, you know where to start from, and what your plan might be to achieve those goals—those next destination(s) on the map.
For most people, maybe like yourself, the path to take to those goals is unknown or difficult. The right path to take is often confusing and fraught with all kinds of options that might create detours, or worse yet, bring you back to where you started from, without making much progress. How fast or slow to go down that path you probably don’t know, either. How many steps should you take to get to your goals?
Suffice it to say, you might be a beginner, or ignorant, in your Nutrition journey to the goals you want. What you might need at that point is to find a guide, or a Nutrition Coach, to lead you down the right path effectively, efficiently, and safely. Luke Skywalker needed Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda as his guides on his journey to become a Jedi; you are no different.
A Nutrition Coach should first help you Assess where you are at, partner with you to Address what aspects about your Nutrition (and overall Lifestyle) you both determine as needing to improve, based on a Standard. By Addressing where you need to improve in small and simple habit adjustments over time, then you and your Nutrition Coach should start to see Progress, in not only your objective data gathered compared to your initial Assessment, but also see subjective changes in terms of how you feel (mood, energy levels, etc.), how clothes fit, and even how you look in the mirror (and how you feel about seeing yourself in that mirror). That Progress over time taken by small and simple habit adjustments is what should get you to your goals.
A basic Assessment of yourself objectively would serve as a baseline to work off of and track changes as you would make the small and simple habit adjustments over time.
Some objective data you can take with the help of a Nutrition Coach for an initial Assessment, or a snapshot in time of your overall Fitness and Health would be for example:
Bodyweight
Body Fat Percentage
Lean Body Mass
Bone Density
You can also get bloodwork done via your Primary Care Physician, checking the performance of your Heart and Blood Vessels, Liver, Pancreas, Kidneys, and various other Hormones via your Thyroid and Sex Organs. Overall, you would be finding out what your overall (Fat and Carbohydrate) metabolism is like, and to find out what conditions are manifesting (and to what degree) based on your metabolism. Here is an almost comprehensive list of the tests that can be taken, for example:
Blood Glucose
Hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c)
Insulin
Triglycerides
Total Cholesterol
High-Density Lipoprotein (HDL)
Low-Density Lipoprotein (LDL)
Very Low-Density Lipoprotein (vLDL)
Alanine Transaminase (ALT)
Aspartate Transaminase (AST)
High-Sensitivity C-Reactive Protein (hsCRP)
Insulin-Like Growth Factor-1 (IGF-1)
Testosterone
Cortisol
Dehydroepiandrosterone Sulfate (DHEAS)
Sex Hormone Binding Globulin (SHBG)
Estrogen
Follicle-Stimulating Hormone (FSH)
Luteinizing Hormone (LH)
Growth Hormone
Triiodothyronine (T3)
Thyroxine (T4)
Thyroid-Stimulating Hormone (TSH)
Sodium (Na)
Potassium (K)
Chloride (Cl)
Phosphorous (P)
Calcium (Ca)
Bicarbonate [to measure Carbon Dioxide (CO2)]
Albumin
Creatinine
Blood Urea Nitrogen (BUN)
Magnesium (Mg)
In addition to those above measurable biomarkers, you can also use your own Performance, or Fitness data. Something like your VO2 Max, Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Tolerance, Running/Cycling/Rowing/Skiing/Swimming Times and Distances, Gymnastics/Bodyweight movement abilities, Powerlifting and Olympic Weightlifting personal records, and other classic CrossFit Benchmark tests would work.
Here at Audacious CrossFit, we use The Level Method to Assess everyone who trains here, which you can try, too.
Once an Assessment is complete, then you and your Nutrition Coach would have to get on the same page on what Nutrition is. Some education is necessary; your Nutrition Coach should teach you what Nutrition is and what the Standard should be ideally to support long-term, whole-body Health and General Physical Preparedness. Based on your goals, your Nutrition Coach would help you make those small and simple habit adjustments over time to get as close as you can to that Standard.
For a quick introduction, the Standard should be:
1. Sleeping (well) enough
2. Maintaining a Hydration and Electrolyte balance
3. Eating enough whole and unprocessed food
(Meat and Vegetables, Nuts and Seeds, Some Starch, Little Fruit, and No Sugar) to support Exercise, and not Body Fat
With your Nutrition Coach’s help, you would see how the actions you have taken Deviating from that Standard would have resulted in those objective data you would have collected in the Assessment.
Addressing those Deviations and getting you to the Standard is where the value of working with a Nutrition Coach lies. He or she would be the one to work with you to decide on which small and simple habit adjustments you should be making from day-to-day, week-to-week, and month-to-month to eventually get to your goals. Most people fail in making changes to their Nutrition and Lifestyle by making 180-degree/night-and-day/cold-turkey changes, which do not last. Your Nutrition Coach should hold your hand through the process and help you make those small and simple adjustments, and rack up “wins,” one at a time. He or she would help you hit the right checkpoints and navigate the path to the point on the map (your goals) you set your original course for. By doing that, you would be making more effective and safe changes, saving lots of time and heartache, i.e. efficiently.
Those objective data you would have collected initially would be continued to be collected over time to measure your Progress. Each small improvement over time you see would keep you engaged to keep moving forward, and provide meaning to the efforts you would be making on your journey.
Before you would know it, you would be Luke the Jedi Master.
”May the Forks be with you!”
What our Nutrition Coaching looks like:
Bi-Weekly Meetings via Zoom/Google Meet/Phone (or in-person)
1st Session:
Conducting Assessments and Education
Setting initial small and simple habit adjustments
Follow-up Sessions:
Continuing Education
Iterating on and progressing the initial small and simple habit adjustments
Conducting Re-Assessments at 3, 6, 9, and 12 month marks.
Sheree, a local athlete start Nutrition Coaching at the beginning of this year, 2023, and saw some great results:
“Prior to working with Albert I bonked during endurance events if I didn't fuel constantly. I haven't bonked once since I started working on nutrition with Albert. In fact, I completed a century bike ride in June with only stopping to eat 3 times and I felt great the whole time. I highly recommend nutrition coaching with Albert!”
Sign up for our program below, starting with the Nutrition and Lifestyle Assessment!
https://app.chalkitpro.com/gymProductLink/589/prod_PWKNTvnVn400sp/3053/