NOT ANOTHER DIET.
Ever head the expression “you can’t out-train a bad diet?” Or, “abs are made in the kitchen”?
They’re cliches because they’re true. No matter how hard you go in the gym, that hour won’t make much of a difference if you’re sabotaging it with poor decisions during the other 23.
And just as a coach’s expertise, guidance and support will get you the best results in the gym, customized direction from a nutrition coach is the safest—and fastest—way to meet your overall health and fitness goals.
“I never realized how unhealthy my relationship with food was,” says Angie. “I don’t feel guilty anymore if I do have a cupcake every once in a while. Before I’d eat them until I felt sick, then eat more later. I’m glad to be on the right path. 9.9# of fat to go!”
A HABITS-BASED APPROACH
Final Call’s nutrition program, led by Nurse Practitioner Lindsey VanSchoyck, offers flexible nutrition plans customized to your individual goals and needs—as well as the accountability, education and support you need to achieve them. You won’t get a diet and a list of forbidden foods; instead, you’ll get one-on-one guidance on how to adopt healthy habits that make you feel your best.
Lindsey started the nutrition program at Final Call after working for 10 years in the medical field—and a lifetime of dealing with many of the same struggles her clients do.
“I have always been the kind of person who was obsessed with the scale,” she said. “I have history of disordered eating and know how hard it is to overcome an unhealthy relationship with food. I see it everyday in my practice but we just keep trying to cover up the problems with medications instead of getting to the root of the issue.”
She’s also experienced the pitfalls of constant dieting: swinging wildly from success to failure and becoming obsessed with her diet. At one point, she carried a food scale with her whenever she went out to eat, logging constantly in My Fitness Pal. “At one point I had logged my food for every single day for 465 days straight!”
“It was such a sad way to live,” she said, “and if I wasn’t eating that way and logging every bite, I was restricting and obsessing over every calorie I wasn’t logging”
It wasn’t until she gave up on diets and started focusing on how food made her feel that she got the results she wanted. Today, she uses her experience to help her clients have similar transformations.
“I really dive into the psychological aspects of your behavior surrounding food,” she said. “So everything in balance, really getting into tune with your body’s own natural hunger and fullness cues and just the ‘why’ behind why you eat when you do. We really want to focus on one habit and problem at a time and solve that issue before we move on. Small changes add up to BIG long term results”
WHAT TO EXPECT
It begins like this: You, the client, will sit down for a 60- to 90-minute first appointment with a nutrition coach to discuss your goals, take baseline biometric measurements with the InBody scanner and map out a plan.
“It is 100 percent customized like to individuals, so no one really takes the same path,” Lindsey said.
And the plan won’t look like a food journal and a trendy diet to follow. Most clients, she said, start by building general awareness of what they’re eating and why. Then, they take small steps to incorporate healthier habits.
“So for the first two or three weeks, we may just work on you’re going to pause for 10 seconds before you eat and ask yourself, ‘Am I actually hungry?’” Lindsey explained. “And then once you have that mindfulness built up, then you can start to take some action with what you’ve learned about your body. Another person we might have focus on incorporating vegetables into their diet. It all just depends on the client and where they are.”
Clients have an option on weekly or biweekly virtual check-ins with their coach to discuss how the week went and set new goals in addition to a monthly in-person meeting to retest biometrics and review long-term goals.
“And by focusing on the consistency of building one habit at a time, hopefully over the span of three, six or 12 months, they will then walk away with this subset of habits that will really help maintain long-term progress,” she said.
You’re Not Alone
Accountability is the key component.
“You can go and Google anything on the internet to tell you what you should be doing with your nutrition. But what they’re paying for is me,” Lindsey said. “They’re paying for someone who knows their deeper ‘why’ of why they want to make this change in their life and who cares enough to make sure that they’re on the right path to get there.”
In addition to weekly check-ins, clients can feel free to communicate with their coach any time they have a question or just need some support. They are also able to access the nutrition community page where they can get support from their peers.
Angie reported that both the individualization of the program and the regular accountability have been instrumental in her success.
The first thing Lindsey did was ask Angie a bunch of questions.
“What time do you get up in the morning?”
“How is your energy throughout the day?”
“What do you eat for breakfast?”
Lindsey designed a nutrition plan based on Angies work schedule, preferences and fitness goals. And whenever one of those things changed, she adjusted the plan. If Angie had any questions, Lindsey was just a text message away.
PROOF IN THE PUDDING
Nine months after starting nutrition coaching, Angie was “blown away” by her results.
Angie has lost 12 inches off just one tigh. She was never able to sustain weight loss before and would get discouraged and just quit.
More importantly, the success is the result of sustainable habits and lifestyle change, not restrictive dieting.
And that’s what any client can expect from the Final Call nutrition program: customized direction based on goals and sustainable habits.
“One thing I always tell my clients is make sure they are being kind to themselves. And that there is no falling off track, there are no bad food choices, there is no perfect weight, your health and your life are all based on your choices and your mindset and that is what a good nutrition coach helps you with!”