What is your favorite method to deliver a meal plan to your clients (or meal plan suggestions)?
I refer clients to a Registered Dietician for meal plans and other specifics. I do provide my clients with nutritional information and take them to the grocers for learning more about making better food choices. We discuss the current recommendations and how the recommendations apply to them. I share recipes and the nutritional information about them. But actual meal plans are out of my scope of practice.
I don’t give out meal ideas, instead I will ask my client what they ate for lunch and then we discuss if they made the best choice available to them.
As a Health Coach I do talk a lot about nutrition with my clients and have been very successful with coaching them towards a healthier life. When I am working with a client on weight loss only, I have them use myfitnesspal and track BEFORE eating, this way they can make the necessary changes.
Hi Beth,
I use a simple word doc (delivered to them as a PDF so it is mobile device compatible) listing total calories, macro targets, meal number, if that meal is a pre/post workout, total calories/macros per meal, and foods/measurements for that meal. My clients enjoy that it is simple, easy to read, and easy to digest (pun intended) or refer to.
As far as meal ideas go, I always get preferred foods and food aversion lists from my clients during consultation and use those as ‘meal idea starters’ and then use MyFitnessPal to calculate. I use MyFitnessPal because it is what I recommend that they use to track, and I want to mimic their potential calculations as closely as possible. I looked into other software but it doesn’t always allow the degree of customization I like to offer in a program.
Hello Beth Jones,
We like to stick with pen and paper for general healthy eating habits by the food groups. Listing the food groups and checking off that item makes it visible for the client to see where they are lacking and how to improve eating habits. The visual helps tremendously to add more vegetables, for example. The entire day or week is visible at a glance.
Encouraging the client to add healthy food works better than eliminating all the poorer choices in one full swoop.
Take care,
Natalie aka NAPS 2 B Fit.
Hi Beth,
the general consensus among my clients is that MyFitnessPal is easy to use.
I also hold a certification in Fitness Nutrition but it is a fine line to walk without getting on thin ice. I talk with my clients about nutrition a lot but always stay general.
Karin Singleton
www.meltnc.com