What is nutritional coaching?
The concept of nutritional coaching is a form of guidance or support in Nutrition and Dietetics to help and guide the patient to achieve their proposed goals thanks to the communication and motivational skills of the specialist.
Nutritional coaching helps the patient to identify what hinders or prevents them from achieving their goals, and manages to help them make changes in their lifestyle habits while improving in other aspects.
In this case, coaching not only helps to lose or gain weight, but also helps people to make a change in their relationship with food, being a change in all aspects of life, not only in the food aspect. Thus, the coaching process implies a commitment not only on the part of the person who will do it, but also on the part of the professional.
It should be clear that the nutritional coach does not replace the nutritionist, but complements him/her to help the patient reach his/her previously established goal.
Why is nutritional coaching performed?
Coaching uses communication skills to motivate the patient and guide them until they reach their goals. In this line, the coach will empathize with the patient, guiding him/her and providing solutions to the situations in which he/she encounters difficulties in his/her relationship with food. Thus, nutritional coaching could be used in the following situations:
- The person interested in coaching wishes to improve their diet, but does not know how to put into practice their theoretical knowledge about how their diet should be or has been trying for some time but is unable to achieve their goals.
- The person has a specific nutritional objective, but does not know how to achieve it. At the same time, the patient may have some respect or fear about the change and all that he/she will have to do to carry it out, although he/she is aware that the change would be positive for him/her.
- The person interested in receiving coaching is dissatisfied with his eating habits and wishes to change them. As such, he does not have a specific objective, he simply has the knowledge that he has or wants to make a change.
What does nutritional coaching consist of?
Nutritional coaching helps the patient to find out what “obstacles” are preventing them from achieving their dietary goals, creating an environment and giving the person an appropriate attitude, achieving a change in their diet and lifestyle. During the nutritional coaching, some concrete objectives will be set:
- A concrete goal or objective will be set. It must be a realistic objective.
- We work on the moral aspect and motivation.
- The benefits that this objective or goal will provide to the patient are sought.
- The objectives and those actions or situations that act as barriers or obstacles are identified and discovered.
- Concrete ways and actions to be carried out in order to achieve the set goal are proposed. At the same time, we try to find a way to ensure that this objective is present on a daily basis, so that it will not be overtaken by other factors of an “urgent” nature.
- We learn how to manage and handle emotions, and how they directly affect our nutrition.
- Many options and strategies for improvement appear.
- Beliefs that prevent progress are questioned, including unknown beliefs or thoughts that with work can become enhancers.
- We work from an optimistic attitude, but from an intelligent attitude.
- A personalized diet plan is developed and adapted to the patient’s own needs and objectives.
The relationship established between the coach and the patient will be one of mutual trust. The coach will try to improve the patient’s skills, helping him/her to find the way to reach his/her desired goal.
Preparation for nutritional coaching
The nutritional coaching does not need a specific preparation, but requires or needs the will of the patient. That is to say, the willpower and the effort that patients will make are the most important in achieving the previously set goals.
After coaching
As already mentioned, coaching is not an alternative method that aims to help people lose or gain weight according to their wishes or needs. As such, coaching involves a change of attitude and a new look at the way we relate to food.
In this way, once the set goal has been achieved, the patient himself will have changed his way of looking at food and his relationship with food.