How to handle a client who thinks they know more than you?
I recently aquired two new clients, both overweight, and spent over 2 hours assessing them, calculating their BMRs, and recommending a caloric range for both.
For one of them I recommended between 1500 and 1750 calories for an average weight loss of 1-2 lbs a week if she exercises. She changed her caloric intake to 1200 in the program, chose to eat 600 calories for a few days, then stopped logging her meals altogether. The other client was staying within his caloric range but ate very low ND foods such as white pasta, pancakes, and processed meats. I asked him to incorporate one fruit, vegetable, or side salad a day. He chose to ignore me for 3 weeks and then his calories jumped way above his recommended intake. I know you can’t win every battle, but I feel like I am losing these two and maybe it is not my battle to fight. How would you handle these two situations?
People do know themselves better than we know them.
As mentioned above have a heart to heart, or, professional to client talk around your expectations for them, and their’s for you. Maybe the weight loss is really not that important to them? Maybe, it is more important to you?
You need to discover where the block is, and move on from there, together, with a co-created plan that they own, because they designed it. They are the experts of them, not us. We are the experts in exercise.
People won’t do something “well” they don’t own. Challenges like this are incredible opportunities to get it right, or better, after dialogue.