Building a Business as a Diet Coach

online education for nutrition and diet coaching

How to Offer Diet Coaching Services

It’s important to first discuss what a diet is to most people. And, what is it in actuality? Is it a lifestyle? Is it something you do short-term to reach a specific goal? Is it how you describe your daily eating habits? Technically, it can be all of these things and more. So let’s break this down further.

If you ask 100 nutrition or fitness professionals their opinion about the word “diet”, you will likely get 100 different answers. Many of them will be very different from the others. On social media, nothing sparks debate more than politics, other than the topic of the optimal diet. Why is this? Why are we all seemingly consumed with this topic? And, after all this time, why are there so many different opinions? Why is this so divisive? Why is this topic so polarizing? The answers are deep and multifaceted.

Why are There so Many Different Types of Diets?

The first, and most obvious, reason for so many differing opinions about diet is the economic factors. Billions and billions of dollars are spent globally on unfounded weight loss strategies. Billions more are wasted on unsafe products. However, billions are spent on weight loss and weight management strategies that are safe and incredibly effective. To that end, even more billions of dollars are invested in nutritional supplements which can make a clinically proven difference in helping behavior modification, appetite, metabolic optimization, and even nutritional assimilation.

Let’s talk about some truths that, hopefully, all of us can agree on. And if not all of us, hopefully, most of us.  In general, if someone wants to lose weight, they need to burn more calories than they consume on a daily basis. In general, not all calories are created equal. Simple and refined sugars can give the body energy, yeah they are far more detrimental to the body than quality complex carbohydrates which also give energy.  In general, organic foods will have fewer chemicals, pesticides, and herbicides than foods that are not grown organically. It is also a fact that there is no absolute when it comes to organic food growth. There are always possibilities of contamination through wind, water, soil, handling, and processing of the food product.  Another reason it’s not absolute is that each country holds different standards for what is termed “organic”. This means that your country or local grower may abide by different, and even more stringent, organic standers than a farmer who may be in a neighboring country who then ships the product to your country.  

What is Short-term Dieting?

In many cases, people do unhealthy and unreasonable things to change their bodies quickly. Oftentimes, they will set unreasonable goals and do things that are ill-advised. That goal may be going on a cruise, attending a high school reunion, being part of a wedding, or preparing to see a long-distance love for the first time.  Unhealthy dieting may include severe caloric restriction, dehydration, eliminating all carbohydrates, using diuretics excessively, or even even more extreme behaviors such as using an enema. We don’t suggest any of these things.

You can help your client lose unwanted inflammation, excessive water retention, and extra body fat all while building lean muscle. This can be done in a moderately short period of time in a safe manner by following some logical protocol.  First, you will want to ensure that they have no medical contraindications for modifying their diet or exercise programming. You also will want to understand the reasoning or rationale for their desire to make changes quickly. Is it reasonable? Is it safe? Is there emotional distress? Is there any irrational behavior? Are your client’s expectations safe in the long term?

Best Diet for Maintaining Weight loss

One thing you can encourage your client to do to facilitate faster and safe weight loss while reducing toxicity in the body is using an infrared sauna. We are not advocating extended use beyond a reasonable amount of time. We are not advocating using a sauna as fighters do the day before a fight to make a specific weight cut. They are highly trained athletes, and that practice is unsafe regardless of their world-class conditioning.  The benefits of using a sauna are documented and numerous and credible studies done across the globe. Aside from improving metabolic health and eliminating waste products through perspiration and respiration, it also helps a person better manage blood sugar and blood pressure. In a recent study, appropriate and regular sauna use also was shown to reduce the likelihood of cognitive decline.

Another thing that is helpful for you to help your client who wants to drop excess fat more expeditiously is to keep a journal. This journal can, and often should, include the following: they should document their daily energy level and mood. Why? Because this is often directly reflective of how food is making them feel. It can also be related to their relationship with food and the process. They also should document their food intake. There are many ways to do this. It can be very detailed including macros and micros. It can be general in terms of total calories. There should also be documentation of caloric expenditure through daily exercise and basal metabolic rate. All this is necessary so you have a proper accounting of the necessary and desired caloric deficit daily.

Helping your clients in the long-term is better and healthier for them, and provides you with a more sustained and predictable monthly income. When you can provide a quality service for someone for a duration of 90 days, 120 days, or even for a full year, with all things being equal, you will generate more revenue for working with someone for a longer duration. They benefit by understanding a manageable and sustainable lifestyle that gives them a healthy, lean, and fit body.   

How to Make Money as a Diet Coach?

You have a lot of options. Here’s one that you may not have yet considered.

Physique and Figure Training Specialist

By becoming certified as a NESTA Physique and Figure Training Specialist, you learn the specific strategies that work for fitness competitors over the long run and in the short term as they prepare for competition.  The same strategies can be modified safely for the general consumer who wants to eliminate puffiness more rapidly and safely, inflammation, excessive water retention, and unwanted body fat. And, in this program, you will learn specific business strategies to get a constant flow of clients who want these services.

Another option is to invest in the very affordable FIT FOR PHOTOS body transformation business system.  You will implement the skills you learn in other NESTA and Spencer Institute programs. You simply use these skills as a method to get the results in the body transformation system. FIT FOR PHOTOS doesn’t teach nutrition or diet, it shows you how to make money as a nutrition or diet coach.  People always want photos of their transformation so they can see the progress and even show it off on social media. Well, this complete system is based on that psychology of your client. It sells itself.  By the way, this system can be done with people in your community, at your fitness studio, in your health club, or with people all over the world via social media, a simple group created on Facebook and Zoom.

Corporate Wellness Coaching

You can offer nutrition and diet coaching services to a corporation. In these cases, you would likely work through the human resources department. Because of the nature of the word “diet”, people can perceive that with a negative connotation. So, you might want to use other synonyms that are more palatable to people who might be sensitive to that word. It doesn’t change what you’re doing, but it might make more people inclined to learn how to better their life through optimal living.  If you are interested in doing more weight loss, diet and nutrition/lifestyle coaching in the corporate environment, you may want to consider the Spencer Institute Corporate Wellness Coach Certification.  In the past, corporations didn’t have enough data to show the efficacy of corporate nutrition, fitness and wellness programs. That has all changed. Numerous studies and endless data now show that there is a significant return on investment for every dollar invested and improving employee health, wellness and happiness. More energy, better health, if you were sick days and increased productivity all improve the bottom line of the corporation. 

Nutritional Products

Another great way to supplement your income as a diet coach is to offer quality nutritional products. I think we can all agree that this is not enough by itself. Behavior modification, solid nutrition, more organic choices, and meal timing are all critical and of more importance. We are going to guess that you have at least three or four types of nutritional products in your home right now which could include an energy bar, sports drink, multivitamin or perhaps omega-3 or collagen protein. Are we right?

So, based on this fact, why wouldn’t you want to be the trusted advisor for your clients when it comes to nutritional products? Why send them to the local nutrition store when you don’t know what they are going to buy or what the kid at the counter is going to tell them? When you collaborate with a quality nutrition and lifestyle company, you can generate extra passive monthly income and know that each product has gone through rigorous testing and research. Here’s an option you can now consider.

Lifestyle and Weight Management

As a NESTA Certified Lifestyle and Weight Management Specialist, you offer your services from a perspective of empathy, understanding, and more consideration of all the lifestyle factors that affect someone’s weight, relationship with food, and motivational strategies. Of course, you will consider these things regardless of your education. However, this course is focused even more on these important factors. Although there is science involved in this training and approach to weight management, it’s more of a counseling, coaching, mentoring, and understanding approach.  If you were to liken it to any form of psychotherapy, it would be more closely related to talking therapy. Your client will more freely discuss the struggles, challenges, and hurdles they perceive. Your training in this course shows you how to facilitate this discussion. Based on the information and the knowledge you gain as a coach, you can best come to conclusions as to how to help them resolve their challenges, diminish the perceived obstacles, and safely move towards healthy goals as it relates to their body weight and body fat.

Classic Nutrition Coaching

As a NESTA Certified Fitness Nutrition Coach, you will have more high-level nutrition science training as compared to some of the other courses which focus more on lifestyle, behavior, and other factors. Because of this, you will be able to guide your clients to have a deeper understanding of why certain foods affect them in certain ways. It’s important to know the hard science and the behaviors associated with food and eating. Collectively, these skills make you a better coach and teach your clients to have sustainable goals which can be implemented for the entire family when needed. Getting “buy-in” related to grocery shopping habits, cooking preferences, trying new (and healthier) oils, and even dinner time is critical for success when family dynamics are involved.

Holistic Nutrition Coaching

Still in other cases, taking an even more holistic approach to nutrition may be the best way to offer diet coaching services. Holistic simply means holism. You are considering all the factors possible that can, and often do, contribute to unwanted weight gain, unhealthy decisions and diseases related to diet.  The Spencer Institute Holistic Nutrition Coach program focused exactly on this topic. When you factor in all holistic considerations, the picture becomes clearer as to why someone might be struggling with excessive weight gain. It could be toxicity in their current food choices. It could be using the wrong oils for cooking, perhaps at the wrong temperature which can create inflammatory properties. It could be toxins released by cooking food items in inappropriate plastic containers in the microwave. It could be from too many prepackaged meals with far too much sodium.  The same prepackaged meals often are filled with other preservatives which have pro-inflammatory properties. In addition, there could be factors related to where the food was sourced. Surprising factors can also include how long a person chooses their food before they swallow it. State of mind during eating also is a factor. When you are relaxed, calm and in a state of gratitude while you are eating, it improves digestion and bioavailability of the nutrients in the food. Simply being grateful can help you reduce inflammation and extract more vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients from your meal.

People need your help with their diet.

And, not just a few people.

Millions of people want and need your help.

Now you have a solution for your education and a way to ensure your financial success while helping others.

We’re here to guide you each step of the way. Enroll in your favorite programs now. 

That’s it for now.

Take action!

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