Ask any fitness professional and they will tell you that nutrition is an important component of a complete fitness program. Nutrition is also the one aspect of their program that our clients have to face without us, and is a service that we have to refer out unless we are licensed nutritionists.
As Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs points out, nutrition is a fundamental human need. We eat to survive. For some however, food becomes more than a need when it is associated with emotions like happiness, belonging, acceptance, fear, anger, hurt, love, etc. These emotions can spring from our environment, our interactions with other people, our circumstances, or our physiological or mental state.
When food satisfies our need for survival, we are content. But when eating is accompanied by feelings like social acceptance or guilt, people begin to develop behaviors associated with eating that ultimately lead them to a place of unhappiness. It is this unhappiness that can prompt them to change their behaviors. Unfortunately, the unhappiness they are experiencing often doesn’t come until after quite a bit of weight gain.
That is where the fitness professional steps back into the picture. Our clients’ overeating doesn’t occur simply because they put more calories in their mouth than they burn. The behavior they are trying to change is connected to something emotionally rooted within them, and driven by their need to survive.
The reality here is that only they know exactly what that emotional tie is. All we can do is ask the questions to spur insight into their behavioral triggers. We become a facilitator in their quest to find answers for that change. They are the experts in their own lives, not us. Only they know what it will take to change, only they know what they are feeling when they eat. It is up to us to ask the questions that guide them there.
In this respect, we become agents of change. And asking the right questions is just the start of our responsibility in this role.
Agents take an active role in a client-centered relationship. The most successful client-centered relationships are enveloped with empathy. Empathy – driven by effective listening – leads to a reflective solution. Mirroring clients’ emotions and truly putting yourself in their shoes allows us to experience what led them to their behaviors. In the book Engaging and Retaining Clients in Healthy Behavior Change, Roy Sugarman says that empathy “…is about what is vitally important to them at this time in their life. It’s also about getting them and yourselves better and better at doing what is important, and having a higher purpose in doing so.” When empathy is client-focused, we become better simply because they do. When they attain their goal, so do we.
A true agent of change accepts all emotions of a client, experiences those emotions alongside the client, and offers support in the client’s quest to make peace with them. Our ability as agents to guide clients to their own answers for nutritional behavior change will give them ownership of their success and leave them feeling empowered to continue on their own.
When it comes to getting clients to their goals, making an emotional connection accounts for 85% of our success, but failing to do so is 100% of why we fall short.
What I hope that my bold statement blatantly points out is this: We need to become less of a professional and more of a person in our relationships with our clients if we want to truly impact their lives.
Move More!
Hayley Hollander is a personal trainer, educator, and co-founder of Advanced Training Performance in Las Vegas, NV. She specializes in functional movement enhancement for all levels, sports conditioning, pre/post natal, weight loss, and endurance training.
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