Weight Loss Coach: Why You Should Work With One
By: JM Nutrition Team of registered dietitians, sports nutritionists and weight loss coaches
Should you see a personal weight loss coach?
There are numerous reasons why weight loss coaching sessions conducted by qualified, certified health practitioners can be of enormous benefit to anyone looking to make positive changes to their diet, lifestyle and overall health and well-being.
Before we take a look at the many pros of weight loss coaching, let’s define what a weight loss coach is.
What is a weight loss coach?
A weight loss coach is a practitioner who helps clients reach and maintain a healthy weight using various personalized coaching strategies and nutritional interventions.
Learn more about healthy weight
How can a weight loss coach help
Fundamental benefits of working with a weight loss coach
A qualified, regulated health professional and personal weight loss coach can help clients in numerous ways:
1. Analyze and assess your overall health and well-being
Via a detailed intake form, a weight loss coach takes an in-depth look at your health history, background, food intolerances, food preferences, type of lifestyle, physical activity, eating habits and behaviours and much more. This serves as the basis form which to develop a plan of action to help you lose weight.
2. Assess your diet
A personal weight loss coach can then assess your diet via a food log and an ensuing one-on-one session where more probing can be done. After the assessment, a weight loss coach can outline areas of strength and areas for improvement.
3. Discuss the concept of balanced eating
One of the benefits of working with a weight loss coach is the educational component. During a nutritional counselling session a coach can help achieve balanced eating and basic nutrition principles by reviewing certain basics.
Examples:
- how to read a nutrition facts label
- discuss various ingredients
- outline serving sizes
- teach about portion sizes
- lay out the balanced plate model
- and more
4. Prepare a custom meal plan
A coach who specializes in weight loss counselling can also prepare a personalized meal plan or guide to help you lose weight. The meal guide serves as a starting point that can provide choice, as well as tips and strategies. In turn, it can help instil nutritious food selections and build new habits.
5. Suggest nutritious foods
In addition, a personal weight loss coach can suggest foods, snacks, meals and recipes that are conducive to boosting nutrient intake and aimed at reducing weight.
6. Reveal food substitutions
Similarly, a weight loss coach can suggest healthier food substitutions for your favourite ‘challenging’ foods, if available. This can help you enjoy the foods that you’re eating when on the way to reaching a healthy weight.
7. Revamp existing recipes
Moreover, a coach who works with clients for weight loss can help revamp your favourite recipes, replacing certain ingredients with more nutritious ones. Every bit of tweaking helps pave the way to success.
8. Provide new recipes
In similar fashion, a coach can equip you with access to various new recipes aimed at helping you lose weight. Of course, the recipes are based on foods you enjoy eating.
9. Suggest new products
Another benefit of working with a coach for weight loss is being able to have a direct pipeline to new food products that come out regularly. During the weight loss counselling sessions, you are free to discuss the merits and drawbacks of these new products.
Other benefits of working with a coach for weight loss
10. Ongoing support
Via regular nutritional counselling sessions, a seasoned personal weight loss coach can provide support as you deal with new or challenging situations. A coach can help you avoid pitfalls by providing effective strategies for these challenging situations. Adjustments can also be made at this time, if deemed necessary.
11. Help build new habits
During the follow-up sessions, it is important to work diligently to replace old deleterious habits with new, positive ones. A skillful coach can certainly provide a platform to achieve this.
12. Equip you with meal planning and prepping strategies
When working with a coach, you can learn various meal planning and prepping tips aimed at saving you time and effort. Doing so makes meal prep more convenient and less likely to be abandoned. This helps to ensure you meet your weight loss goals.
Related: Meal Planning and Prepping Tips
13. Inform you about latest evidence, studies and research
What’s more, a coach who specializes in weight loss can provide you with the latest evidence-based scientific research on weight management. This way you avoid going by outdated information or even misinformation, which is commonplace in the online world. It is no doubt vital to have a source that can sift through the information and provide with the most accurate, indispensable advice.
14. Take pre-occupation off weight
An unrelenting preoccupation with weight or a specific number on the scale can wreak havoc on your mental health and overall well-being. The journey to healthy and sustainable weight loss is impossible without its acceptance. And it’s here where a good coach can lend a hand through guidance, support and nutritional counselling sessions that focus on this area.
15. Stop the cycle of on-and-off dieting
An experienced, qualified, personal weight loss coach can outline the negative impact of diet culture and explain the detrimental effect of ‘yo-yo dieting’ on your overall health and well-being. A coach can also equip you with various strategies to help you steer clear of this pattern, providing support as you make changes.
16. Help break the cycle of restricting food and bingeing
Similarly, a coach who has experience working with disordered eating can assist you in the recovery from the restrict-binge cycle using the latest, most effective techniques.
Related: Binge eating support with a dietitian
17. Help cope with cravings
Furthermore, a coach who works with clients to help them lose weight can uncover ways to cope with cravings through personalized strategies. These strategies are geared towards modifying specific behaviours through reinforcement, support and accountability.
18. Assist with emotional and stress eating behaviour
Along the lines of the previous point, a coach can also shed some light on why and when you resort to emotional eating or stress eating. After assessing your specific situation, a good coach will develop a plan of action to address this behaviour via time-tested interventions.
19. Help build a positive relationship with food
Although building a positive relationship with food may take some time, a coach who is experienced in the area, such as our disordered eating practitioners, can help you significantly improve your relationship with food and achieve a greater sense of well-being, physically, mentally and emotionally.
Additional benefits of weight loss coaching
20. Inform about metabolism
Surely, a practitioner who is well-versed in the area of metabolism and its connection to weight management can be of enormous help. At times, all that is required to reach one’s goals during personal weight loss coaching sessions is the educational component. Understanding how metabolism works and how it impacts weight maintenance can certainly be crucial in your journey. Don’t overlook it.
Related: Metabolism 101
21. Help reduce inflammation in your body
A weight loss coach such as registered dietitian can also help you fight inflammation in the body through various personalized nutritional interventions. According to NIH and many other institutions, weight loss and inflammation are interconnected.
Related: How Chronic Inflammation May Contribute To Body Weight
22. Guidance as you adopt a postpartum diet plan
What’s more, a coach who specializes in post-natal nutrition can help with weight loss after the birth of your child. This includes nutritional counselling with a focus on the postpartum diet.
23. Align weight loss coaching with an athletic plan
You can also work with a coach who specializes in fitness, sports and performance nutrition. Such a practitioner can skillfully align your weight maintenance plan with the given physical activities you perform. Doing so, can enhance stamina, improve fitness and help you stay more active. Being more active on a regular basis can only help supplement your weight loss goals.
Related: Sports nutrition dietitian
24. Refer you to other specialized practitioners
Frequently, there can be much more to weight loss coaching than mere weight maintenance. Sometimes it’s imperative to address underlying and/or co-existing conditions. These can include digestive health, diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, women’s health concerns, and much more. A coach who specializes in one or more of these areas can help you address these conditions, in addition to weight maintenance.
25. Weight maintenance and meal planning for whole families
Last, q qualified, experienced coach can also help whole families lead healthier, longer lives. This can be done with nutritious meal planning for whole families with a focus on achieving and maintaining a healthy weight for all its members.
Related: Family dietitian
Conclusion
If you’re interested in engaging our weight loss service, a personalized meal plan, or any health concern, book a free consultation or contact us for an appointment, and we will gladly lend a hand.
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JM Nutrition is a nutritional counselling service by registered dietitians and nutritionists. Main office: Dietitian and nutritionist Toronto. Also available: online counselling with a dietitian.
For specific information on other areas of service, visit: our dietitian in Ottawa, nutritionist services in Halifax, nutritionist Vancouver, dietitian Edmonton, dietitian Calgary, dietitians servicing Saskatoon, dietitian in Regina, Winnipeg and more.
