A Nutrition Coach is Not a Calorie Accountant

How do you picture working with a nutrition coach?  Is it like going to the accountant to get your taxes done?  You provide the accountant with a bunch of information, they crunch some numbers, and come up with instructions on how much you owe on various taxes (or if you’re lucky, how much your refund will be).  This is the idea many people carry around in their heads - you speak with the nutrition coach, tell them about your weight and activity level, they crunch some numbers, and provide you with a calorie goal or meal plan.  Perhaps they give you a stern look and suggest you cut back on the cookies, or maybe they congratulate you on hitting up the salads.  If this is your experience, then you’ve picked the wrong coach!

Working with a nutrition coach should be very much like working with your CrossFit coach.  There may be a clear end goal (eating a healthy diet, doing pullups), but the path to that goal is individual to you.  A great coach will get to know you, your strengths and struggles, and help you build healthy habits in the way that’s best for you.  Your coach won’t judge you if your starting point is “super unhealthy,” and will celebrate every healthy milestone.  You can move forward with the steps that seem right to you, no matter how small or significant they may be.

You may be surprised to find that in your meetings with your coach, you talk about plenty of things that seem to have no relation to your nutrition.  They may ask about how the kids are, what’s going on at work, or for updates on your house hunting.  The truth is, everything else in your life has an effect on your nutrition choices, and a great coach knows that.  The greatest meal plan in the history of the world is no good at all if you’re too busy with work or parenting to enact it, and every new goal you make should take your lifestyle into account.  Life is full of stress, and making healthier choices shouldn’t add to it!

So, don’t view a nutrition coach as a calorie accountant who’s just going to focus on the bottom line.  Just like your CrossFit coaches, a great nutrition coach is going to help you build the capacity to fit healthy choices into your busy life, with a high-five at every step along the way.