on December 13, 2021
Nutritional counselling for better health
A balanced diet helps your members to prevent diseases and to strengthen their health. As we explained in our article “Preventive measures“, nutritional advice can be a great offer.
We asked nutritionist Alexandra Jorga for an interview to give you an insight into the importance of nutrition counselling.
Alexandra is a trained nutrition consultant and coaches athletes as well as young family fathers, managers and anyone who really wants to change something in their diet but doesn’t feel like dieting.
The 34-year-old’s main job is Business Development Manager at XING- a large internet company. Her clients benefit from this: Alexandra knows the daily challenges of many professionals, and what it means to fulfil many roles at the same time. As a business psychologist, she is also an expert in teaching how to establish new habits.
Interview with Alexandra Jorga
Hello Alexandra!
How important is a healthy diet, especially in order to prevent diseases?
Eating a balanced diet is essential to being healthy and resilient. And I don’t mean strict diets! As a rule, it is sufficient to observe a few simple basic rules – but to do so continuously and consistently. The positive effects of a balanced diet are manifold.
And the consequences of not taking care of it are more far-reaching than many can imagine: The WHO estimates that almost 40 percent of adults worldwide are overweight or obese and comes to a clear verdict: being overweight kills more people worldwide than being underweight. I find that frightening!
Positively speaking, a healthy diet helps to prevent diseases of modern society such as diabetes and high blood pressure, but also arthrosis and digestive problems. Even those who have a healthy weight often benefit from adjusting or changing their eating habits: Many of my clients tell me that they feel fresher, more active and alert, that they can concentrate better at work and that they perform better in sports.
These positive experiences through very easy to implement changes are actually what motivate the clients in nutrition counselling. After all, we as humans struggle with changing our own behaviour in order to prevent something that lies in the future and is not tangible.
Should nutrition counselling be an integral part of fitness providers? If yes, why?
Please yes, absolutely! And I’m not just saying that because I’m a nutritionist myself. 🙂 Many gym members are overweight and come regularly to work out because they want to lose weight.
But when, despite long hours on the cross-trainer, nothing changes on the scales or the weight loss stagnates, many lose heart. These are often the ones who, after the wave of motivation at New Years, rarely show up at the gym in February at the latest and quit at the next possible opportunity. Too bad!
With nutritional counselling alongside their training, they would certainly have come a lot closer to their goals and, above all, faster, and thus would probably have remained loyal to the studio for longer. But even for ambitious members with clear athletic goals, structured nutritional counselling often brings performance improvements and can help them overcome plateaus or melt away those last three kilos.
But nutrition counselling also helps directly with member retention: group offers strengthen the sense of community and 1:1 counselling creates a very personal relationship with the member.
How can fitness providers incorporate a nutrition counselling offer into their studio?
For many it is not easy to realise why they should change something about their diet, and then it is once again not easy to take the first step. I would therefore always look for sympathetic and open-minded staff who are on fire for the topic and can thus be the “face” of nutrition counselling. They should have a good education in the field and a knack for dealing with people.
There are many formats for nutritional counselling and, in the best case, you can offer a variety in the studio. Regular information events are great to address current and specific questions (e.g. how can vegetarians eat enough protein, tips & tricks on meal prep, etc.).
Here, members can experience the nutrition experts live and get to know them without obligation, you create awareness for the topic and show expertise as a studio. Group settings such as 6- or 8-week challenges are a great introduction for many, usually cheaper and bring the fun factor, which is very important for many members. Here you can tackle many topics in a relaxed and playful way. The supreme discipline is, of course, 1:1 coaching.
As a fitness provider, I would definitely seek external support here: coaching software for members with good usability makes coaching enormously more efficient. Good quality coaching is also ensured by having a high-quality source of content and tools; handouts, questionnaires, graphics, lists, templates… all this helps to give the nutrition coach time for his core task, the counselling.
What should fitness providers pay attention to?
Right away I can think of three guiding principles of good counselling that, in my opinion, must be fulfilled in any offer, whether it is a one-off group event or 3 months of individual coaching.
Number 1: It can and must be simple!
As I said, simple basic rules are enough for most people to be successful. If you eat a sufficient amount of vegetables and avoid highly processed products as much as possible, you are already doing a lot right! No one needs to know what trace elements are in pumpkin seeds or how much fructose is really in a banana.
Number 2: One step at a time!
This is the absolute key to client success. In my opinion, good nutritionists use a lot of creativity and energy to break down the big abstract rule of “eating vegetables” into doable steps that the client understands and can implement directly. I’ll stick with the vegetable example: the goal is to integrate vegetables every day and in as many meals as possible.
Step 1 can be: Learn what vegetables are available – go to the vegetable stall at the weekly market on Saturday and buy something you didn’t know yet. Or: Always have vegetables at home – write a shopping list with 3 different types of vegetables that you can eat raw for dinner.
Clients need to get into action immediately and take the first step – it doesn’t work with a goal or a plan alone.
Number 3: Stay on the ball!
90% of clients sooner or later lose motivation once the initial enthusiasm wears off. Now it’s about showing accountability. This can happen either through regular 1:1 check-ins with the nutritionist or through the dynamics in a group.
Here, it helps most to have accountable staff and a robust system with clearly defined processes to show continuity and reliability. Have regular events, define clear guidelines and workflows for your counselling, always keep appointments and respond to messages and emails, and most importantly, keep track of your members’ progress, as this is the best motivator.
Combine that with motivated and likeable advisors with a sound technical education and a professionally set-up offer, and the ball is held.
Any questions?
Want to know more about Magicline? Reach out to me! I am looking forward to meeting you!