Become Your Clients’ Nutrition Manager and Help Them Achieve Their Goals

This blog originally appeared on the Evolution Nutrition blog. Susan Kleiner, Ph.D., in nutrition, discusses how health and fitness professionals can use meal-planning tools to deliver sound nutrition advice while staying within their scope of practice. The ACE Fitness Edition of Evolution Nutrition is one such program that can help you meet the needs of your clients. 

Successful people plan. Building your business depends on your ability to effectively guide your clients as they build their bodies. Whether through a financial plan, a career plan or a family plan, it’s clear that organizing thoughts and deeds on a daily, weekly and monthly basis keeps people moving in a desirable direction. When it comes to nutrition, having the tools and strategies to support behavior change makes all the difference for your clients and your business.

Customization is the buzzword for maintaining forward momentum in your business. Clients don’t hire you for cookie-cutter programming, and you probably spend a lot of time designing their personalized training programs. For clients to achieve maximum success from those efforts, however, their nutrition also needs to be dialed in. While some of your clients have complex health issues that require the specialized training that a registered dietitian (RD) can provide, many of your clients just need good solid nutrition planning and direction based on their health and fitness goals. Be the nutrition manager they need by using tools that can help you provide a diet plan that falls in line with the gold standards of menu planning, created by an RD.

Once you have a menu plan, you must organize your tools and strategies to motivate and support behavior change. Keeping a record is the most important factor to help clients change old habits into new habits. When they write down how they are eating and exercising day to day, they will see and understand what they are actually doing. The act of writing down what you are doing creates personal accountability, which is a major factor in promoting lasting change. Once they see and acknowledge what they have

been doing, you’ll have them ready to take the steps toward change. And when they come back to you to take their diet to the next level, be sure to get them logging again.

Support success by looking for plans that include items your client already eats. Most people aren’t ready to follow a completely new approach to eating, and your goal should be to make it as easy as possible to follow through. I ask clients about what foods they like and dislike, what allergies or sensitivities they have, what foods and beverages work best for them around exercise, and even whether they regularly eat at home, at work or between activities. I load all of this information into each client’s log and I pick current and future plans based on these factors.

Many clients like to have lots of tips and pointers, such as recipes and shopping lists, how to prepare food for several days ahead of time, packable lunches and snacks, recovery foods, and what to do with leftovers. Keep it simple. Getting them into an easy- to- follow routine will keep them on track, and help them stay with it. Don’t expect big lifestyle changes right away; that will come with time and success. Helping your clients blend your new plan in with their current schedules and lifestyles will go miles toward getting them to achieve real results.

Create ongoing value by staying in contact with your clients on a regular basis. Sending simple motivational messages and training and nutrition tips lets them know you’re there with them, and reminds them they’ve paid you money to help them reach their goals, which is usually a real motivator. Nothing keeps people going more than knowing they’ve got someone supporting them, so go get ‘em.

Susan M. Kleiner, whose long list of credentials begins with a Ph.D. in nutrition, maintains one foot in the academic world and one foot in the business world. After her doctoral research on the Influence of Dietary Fats and Cholesterol, and Anabolic Steroids on the Lipoprotein Profiles and Body Composition of Competitive Male Bodybuilders, she continued to research and publish her seminal work on male and female bodybuilders. Dr. Kleiner has continued to research and publish in the field of sports nutrition and supplements, and has also established herself through research and publications as an expert in hydration and health. Dr. Kleiner has consulted with professional teams, including the Seattle Seahawks and Supersonics, the Cleveland Browns and Cavaliers, the Miami Heat, Olympians and elite athletes in countless sports. Dr. Kleiner is the owner of High Performance Nutrition, LLC, a consulting firm in Mercer Island, Wash. She is a scientific advisor to numerous businesses in the industry, and is the author of seven popular books, including POWER EATING®, The Oxygen Diet Solution, The Good Mood Diet®, and The POWERFOOD Nutrition Plan.

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Two Underrated Exercises You Should Be Doing

There’s a constant focus on what is new, flashy and trendy. And, to a certain extent, that’s fine. But in pursuing the new, the cutting-edge and the fresh, we can sometimes overlook the basics. As the summer schedule winds down and we transition to the slightly more stable fall, you may find your clients have a renewed focus on fitness. Here are a couple of old-school movements to train some fundamental movements well.

Bicycle Crunch

I remember doing these in gym class in elementary and middle school. All we did was lie on our backs and jerk our shoulders rapidly from side-to-side while kicking—more like flailing—the legs in and out, all at a pace that was way too fast. There wasn’t much ab work going on and we didn’t get tired until we did them for a long time.

Here’s the modern, updated version of the Bicycle Crunch from my book, Abs Revealed

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With this modern, updated version, you move more slowly and perform spinal flexion with rotation. And, no, your spine will not explode if you do crunches. The anti-crunch dogma is overblown, to say the least. Crunches are far from the most amazing exercise ever invented, but they have their place. (For more info on this topic, see the ACE articles When Pigs Crunch and Get Off the Pendulum.)

Adding these to your routine will target all of the abdominal muscles effectively so, unlike the old-school version of this exercise, you don’t need a ton of reps to get tired.

Glute Bridge

Keep reading, gentlemen. The glutes are perhaps one of the most important muscles in the body to train. All of my clients get glute work—female and

male, young and old. The glutes are sometimes described as the brain of the lower body because they control everything that happens in your legs. Here are the basics of how to do a Glute Bridge from the ACE Exercise Library: 

I’m taking you beyond the basics to make sure the glutes are the muscles actually doing the work on this exercise.

Over the years, I’ve had many people perform a glute bridge and inform me that they feel it in their hamstrings, low back and sometimes even the quads—everywhere but the glutes. If the glutes cannot create the desired movement, other muscles will jump in and take over to create what is expected.

In this case, I’ve found this systematic, thoughtful 4-step approach to performing the exercise to be very effective. Once this is mastered and your client begins to “feel” it in the glutes, the more fluid, standard technique can be used effectively.

Steps:

Posterior pelvic tilt (A helpful cue I have used is “Move your belly button toward your chin and your butt toward your heels.”)Lift butt off the floorLift low back off the floorLift middle back off the floor

At the top, position the hips slightly higher than the line connecting the shoulders and knees. This provides more glute action because it adds hip hyperextension. To return, just reverse the steps, 4-3-2-1. Quick cues are “Tilt – Butt lift – Low back lift – Mid back lift.”

Another factor here can be the reciprocal inhibition caused by tight hip flexors. The solution is to perform static stretching for the hip flexors immediately before performing the glute bridge. Here’s the most effective way to stretch the hip flexors: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqH8Rmeu1fs

Some have stated, incorrectly, that static stretching should not be done before strength training because it temporarily weakens muscles. Once again, extreme viewpoints are wrong. In this case, some weakening of an overactive muscle group is precisely what we want as it allows more neural drive to the glutes (rather than neural inhibition if we do not address potential hip-flexor hypertonicity prior to glute strengthening).

Wrap-Up

New ideas are great, but what has come before can often be effective if we know how to effectively use them and how to do the basics well. Fitness need not be dazzling to be effective. Effective exercises make the results dazzling.

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Chain Restaurant Favorites Get A Healthy Makeover: Chili’s Spinach and Artichoke Dip With Chips

Eating out used to be an occasional treat, but for many people it is now part of their regular routine. Unfortunately, that often means trading sound nutrition for convenience. The good news is you can still enjoy many of your favorite restaurant meals at home—and for a lot fewer calories. In the first of an ongoing series of healthy restaurant meal makeovers, we put a healthy spin on Chili’s Spinach and Artichoke Dip with Chips.

Chili's Spinach and Artichoke Dip With Chips: A Whopping 1440 calories

Your Homemade Healthy Version: Only 358 Calories

Dip Ingredients:

1 cup spinach, finely chopped

1 tsp. garlic

1 Tbsp. olive oil, canola oil or grape seed oil

1 cup nonfat plain Greek yogurt

¼ cup canned artichokes

dash of salt & pepper

Homemade tortilla chips ingredients:

2 whole-wheat, low-carb tortillas (La Tortilla Factory makes a good one) or other whole-grain tortilla with approximately 50 calories per serving

cooking spray

Directions:

Slice each tortilla into 8 pieces. Spray a baking sheet with non-fat cooking spray and place each tortilla slice individually on the pan so that they are not overlapping or touching each other. Bake tortilla chips at 350°F for about 3 minutes on each side.

In a medium saucepan, sauté spinach and garlic in the oil. Remove pan from heat and let it cool. Once mixture has cooled for a few minutes, stir in non-fat plain Greek yogurt and a dash of salt and pepper. Pour mixture into a serving bowl and enjoy with homemade tortilla chips. 

Nutrition Facts*:

Serves: 2, Serving Size: ½ of dip and 8 chips (1 tortilla); Calories Per Serving: 179; Total Fat: 6g; Protein: 21g; Carbohydrate: 19g; Fiber: 9g; Sugar: 0g; Sodium: 290mg

*This was analyzed using whole-grain tortillas containing 3.5 grams of fiber each.

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Chain Restaurant Favorites Get a Healthy Makeover: P.F. Changs Chicken Fried Rice

Eating out used to be an occasional treat, but for many people it is now part of their regular routine. Unfortunately, that often means trading sound nutrition for convenience. The good news is you can still enjoy many of your favorite restaurant meals at home—and for a lot fewer calories. In the second installment of an ongoing series of healthy restaurant meal makeovers, we lighten up P.F. Changs Chicken Fried Rice.

P.F. Changs Chicken Fried Rice: 1240 calories

Your Homemade Healthy Version: 246 calories

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp. vegetable oil

1 4-ounce raw chicken breast

1/2 Tbsp. sesame oil

3/4 cup chopped carrot

1/2 cup sliced mushrooms

3/4 cup frozen peas

½” x ½” piece of ginger

1/2 cup thinly sliced green onions

1 egg white

1 cup brown rice, cooked

1 Tbsp. low-sodium soy sauce 

1/2 cup bean sprouts

Directions:

Heat vegetable oil in a medium saucepan. Once hot, add chicken. Cook chicken breast on low- medium heat until fully done. Remove from the pan and finely chop the chicken breast into small pieces and set aside.

In another medium saucepan, add sesame oil along with carrots, mushrooms, peas, ginger and green onions. Cook on low-medium heat until tender.

In a small pan, scramble the egg white and set aside.

Once vegetables are done cooking, add brown rice, chicken and egg whites to the vegetable mixture. Add soy sauce and bean sprouts and mix all ingredients thoroughly. Allow fried rice to cook on medium heat for about 7 to 10 minutes.

Nutrition Facts: Serves: 3, Serving Size: 1/3 of recipe; Calories Per Serving: 246; Total Fat: 9g; Protein: 19g; Carbohydrate: 25g; Fiber: 4g; Sugar: 5g; Sodium: 350 mg

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