Do you or your clients keep a food journal? Why/Why not?
The “why” is because awareness and accountability produce results. Yes, I encourage my clients to use fitday.com and I use it myself to get back on track. While I may strongly beleive in the value of monitoring food intake, the client may not to ready. The “why not” is about the client’s readiness.
I also have all of my clients on MyFitnessPal! It is a non-intrusive way for me to help keep up with their nutrition and cardio. They also have app’s for iPhone and Android, so there is never any excuse on why they cant enter their food 🙂
For the first few weeks I just focus on letting them learn to enter everything and give them a chance to realize how many calories they are actually eating to help them understand how they got to where they are. After that we start making small adjustments to their daily routines, then slowly making lifelong changes.
I have had the best success with clients that really do buckle down and use the program pretty religiously. Most of my clients are only with me 3 hours a week, they understand its what they do for the other 165 hours in the week that makes a huge difference.
Yes, and I also use MyFitnessPal because it allows me to see what they are consuming without having to ask them every time I see them (I have them open their diaries to friends). If I see something that needs to be addressed I have that option. Keepig a food and exercise log keeps the client accountable and allows them to see what they are really doing. My clients also like the graphs because they are goal- oriented people in life, and not hitting a goal to them is not acceptable, which helps them reach their goals in the long run.
