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Food Story Coaching® with Ian Rubin, Wellness coach, Educator

Episode Summary

In this episode, we dive into a client-centered approach to nutrition and behavior change. Our guest, Ian, shares his insights on how practitioners can create sustainable change by focusing on empowerment first, education second. The conversation highlights the importance of small, realistic goal setting and understanding the emotional challenges clients face when trying to make lasting health changes. Rather than pushing for perfection or drastic overnight transformations, Ian advocates for collaborative planning and supportive coaching to help clients achieve their goals and rebuild their confidence.

Episode Highlights

  • Empowerment First, Education Second: Ian emphasizes that practitioners should prioritize empowering their clients rather than bombarding them with education at the outset. Empowering clients helps them feel more capable and motivated to make changes.
  • The Power of Small, Achievable Goals: We discuss the importance of setting small, realistic goals that help build momentum and confidence. Rather than striving for perfection, small successes lead to long-term change and prevent discouragement.
  • Breaking the All-or-Nothing Mindset: Ian addresses the common “all or nothing” thinking that many clients fall into, which often leads to feelings of failure. He highlights how to move away from this mindset and set expectations that are more forgiving and flexible.
  • Collaborative Coaching Approach: Instead of dictating what clients “should” do, Ian stresses the importance of negotiation and working together to set a plan that meets clients where they are. This collaborative approach fosters trust and ensures that clients are truly committed to their goals.
  • Sustainable Change Through Layered Goals: The conversation also covers how practitioners can layer small goals over time to create lasting behavioral change, as opposed to overwhelming clients with large, difficult plans.
  • The Role of the Practitioner: Practitioners should view themselves as collaborators, guiding clients through manageable steps and providing support when setbacks occur. This approach fosters a sense of agency in clients and helps them stay engaged in their health journey.
  • Building Confidence Through Support: Clients often enter the process with broken confidence, and this episode discusses how practitioners can rebuild that confidence by focusing on small wins, empathy, and consistent encouragement.

Resources Mentioned

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Subtitles:

Hi, and welcome back to the Empowered Nutrition Podcast. If you’ve ever tried to implement changes in your diet or your lifestyle and then you weren’t successful in making those changes, please don’t miss this episode. In this episode, I interview Ian Rubin, who is the founder and coach at Food Stories. And what we talked about I think is so important. It’s almost the quiet thing in healthcare, in the sense that healthcare, especially in the western world, is very focused around educating, giving instruction, which sounds innocent enough, but it’s actually disempowering and, and top down and can almost honestly harm people’s confidence. And so what we talk about in this episode is really how to kind of switch that narrative and change it to where work, if you’re a practitioner working with a patient or or a client, you change sort of the the empowerment piece of how you work.
And, and ironically enough, giving less and doing less each time tends to result in more success and more results for your client. And so even if you’re not a practitioner, if you’re a consumer of healthcare or a patient or a client yourself, then I think this episode will be really interesting to reflect on like, is this the type of care that you’d like to have? And if so, are you currently getting it? And if not, where, you know, start to get curious about where you can get this type of care. Because I think he really is hitting something that’s critical to what prevents people from getting the outcomes that they want when it comes to their, their health. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. And of course we’ll link up Ian’s website in the show notes and we’re definitely gonna invite him to speak to our whole team and take some of his trainings. ’cause it was really interesting and I think, again, really important. So enjoy the episode and have a great day.
Hi Ian, welcome to the Empower Nutrition Podcast. How are you?
Thanks Erin. Thanks for having me. I’m good. How are you?
I’m great. Where are you coming in from?
I’m in Portland, Oregon. Oh,
How is it there right now?
Cold and rainy. Pretty much what we get in the winter. Yeah. Where are you? Where are you?
We’re in North Carolina.
Oh. How’s the weather there?
Actually, also rainy, but not it’s chronically. Yeah.
Yeah. People who move to Portland, it, what drives them crazy is it’s cloudy a lot. It’s not even that it rains all that much, it’s just that it’s cloudy. So
Yeah. And just kind of dark and gloomy.
Yeah. People just, they get seasonal effective, really, really bad.
I used to live in England and it was like hard to predict who would be okay and who wouldn’t. ’cause we are a military family, so it’d be like a lot of people coming and going. And some people, it didn’t bother ’em at all. And some people it would just be like, I can’t even live here. And I couldn’t really fill out like what the rhyme or reason to that was.
Yeah, yeah. People who often come from San Diego or la, California, San Diego, Arizona, places like that, they get here and they spend their first winter and they’re like, Ooh,
Yeah,
I might need to move back. Yeah, definitely. The gray gets to people.
Yeah. You’ll get that desk therapy lamp going,
Right? I gotta get that. Yeah, you gotta get your, your your uv. But even then, it’s just being in the gray all the time. People are like, when is the sun gonna come out? And they just
Yeah, exactly.
For people who like the sun, it’s Portland’s hard. Yeah.
Well, I’m excited to talk about food story coaching. So I was researching it and it’s such an interesting thing. I’m curious like what your story is of like, how did you get into this topic?
It was professional slash personal. So I’ll tell my quick, my quick personal story. So I was born in 69. I’m quite a bit older than probably you are, and a lot of your listeners, but through your peers. So I was born in 69, raised in the seventies and eighties. And so in the early to mid eighties, I was a skinny little kid. Yeah. Very, very skinny little kid when Arnold Schwarzenegger and yeah, Roger Stallone and Sean Claude Van Dam. Yeah. It was just like the thing they were like, yeah. All over the screen. And I was probably 13 and I was starting to not feel so great about my body and Aw, you know, people who called me string bean and toothpick and people were not very nice to me No. When I was young. So I started working out and I started trying to eat better and that type of thing. But of course nothing worked. Nothing worked. I went to the gym. I, I asked every guy in there that was, that, you know, was bigger than and more buff than me. What did you do? I tried everything. I tried high carb, low carb, I tried high protein, I tried high reps. I tried three day splits, five day splits. I tried
All the things,
Forget it. I, I tried it all. But again, this is mid eighties, you know, the personal training industry was not really a thing. And by the time I was 18, I finally was five 10 and I weighed
1 20, 1 20,
Yeah. Five 10 and one 20.
Oh my gosh.
And I like to joke that I was like a supermodel, a female supermodel, but hey, I was, you know, I had to take,
Yeah.
So I was 18. My dad had been having some thyroid issues and we thought, well maybe you have a thyroid issue, so we’ll send you to an endocrinologist. So I went to an endocrinologist and he said, all right, fill out all this paperwork and took all this blood. And he said, come back in a couple of weeks. And I went back in a couple of weeks and he said, well, I think it’s one of two things. Or when I left that day, he said, it’s one of two things. And when I came back, he said, yeah, I figured it out and I didn’t know what’s going on with you. And I’ll never forget what he said. He goes, you have a imbalance in your parasympathetic nervous system.
Mm.
What 18-year-old understands.
Yeah. You’re like, thanks for giving me no answers.
Thank you. Thank you for the non-answer. Yeah. This is like 1987. Like this is worthless to me. Basically what he was saying, but we didn’t say this in 1987, we started saying this in the nineties, which was, you have a DHD or you’re hyperactive or you’re hyperreal or something to that effect. But they didn’t say that back then. They just, he said this imbalance in my parasympathetic nervous system. Okay. Which on reflection I look back makes perfect sense. I was a bounce off the walls kind of kid. Couldn’t sit still. My mom used to call me a fidget widget, which is a funny little way of talking about like, you sit still for goodness sake. So yeah. So I saw my first nutritionist right after that. He sent me to a nutritionist and I, I remember this nutritionist looking at my plant. She’s like, okay, gain weight. Gain weight, gain weight. Okay.
Oh.
She’s like, I
Do that.
Like, nobody comes to me for weight gain. What do I do? Oh, I know. I’ll have you do all the opposite of what I tell everybody else to do.
Okay.
And she did. And she did. So, you know, it was like creamy dressings were fine and you could put butter on things and I could, you know, have all the salad dressing I want and you know, sure. Dessert’s fine if you’ve had a meal and this sort of thing. So she, overnight she doubled my calories.
Wow.
Yeah. Doubled my calories overnight. I went from 1500 or so calories to 3000.
Nice.
And I started to eat at 7:00 AM 10:00 AM 1:00 PM four, seven, and 10.
Okay.
Whether I was hungry or not, I was eating 600 calories or 500 calories. Yeah. Five times six to 3000.
You’re on like the college athlete nutrition plan?
I really was. Yeah. I was on the like, yeah, that’s a perfect example. Perfect, perfect description. And I mean, for an example, I was drinking four glasses of home milk a day just to get the calories in because it was just no other way I was gonna get it in. So I basically spent three years nauseous, bloated, and on the verge of throwing up and just forcing myself to eat food most of the day because my natural appetite was not to eat 3000 calories. Yeah.
I look back now and I think, oh, there is a lot there. This food story thing, this food relationship thing. Yeah. That’s a nexus point for that. I made it to one 50 in about three years when I was about 21, 22, I was hundred pounds. And she says, okay, now we’re gonna get, you know, give you a more normal diet. So then she got into the lower fat diet and you know, she cut me back. Okay. But I still spent the rest of my, you know, twenties and into my early thirties. Well anyway, t through my twenties, still trying to get bigger and more above. ’cause I was looking to be like one 70 and I wanted to be like eight to 10% body fat. Sure. Like, totally unrealistic Right. Outta muscle and Fiction magazine kind of crap. So, and then I was, you know, graduated from my undergrad and was working and I tweaked my back.
I zinged up my back. Yeah. And I ended up seeing a chiropractor for the first time. And he said, you know, there’s this thing called core exercises and, you know, stretching and good posture and all these things. ’cause I had just been in the gym crashing weights. I didn’t have any good form. Okay. And so I started doing that, listening to him and started thinking about eating a little differently. And I had moved up to Portland by then and I was really excited about natural and organic food. I had spent some time on a friend’s farm, so I was really inspired to eat healthier. So I, it didn’t be coming. It didn’t coming. Sure. And a couple years after I graduated from undergrad late, I went to, I went to undergrad late, so I was 26, 7, 8. When I graduated, I was in the environmental field and that just really wasn’t working for me.
So I, I was like, well, what else can I do? And I was like, well, I’m pretty, pretty knowledgeable about food and fitness and working out. ’cause I’ve been doing it since I had been 13. So I got a job at Jenny Craig and it began at gnc. Yeah. Oh man. Oh wow. What an experience that was. Yeah. So I spent, spent a couple of years at GNC asking people, well, I know you wanna buy this supplement, but how’s your diet? How’s your exercise? And I spent a couple of years as a weight loss consultant at Jenny Craig trying to convince people to eat Jenny Craig food. When in fact what they really needed was this sort of life health coaching support that they weren’t, you know, weren’t getting. And when I left both of those jobs, I was like, well, I don’t wanna just try to sell people packaged food and I don’t wanna just sell people supplements.
I wanted to do the whole thing. So I got certified as a personal trainer and I got a job where I was able to do all of it. I was running weight loss programs, I was doing nutrition, I was doing personal training, I was doing supplementation. I was doing the whole nine yards. And it didn’t take long. And you’ll, you’ll of course vibe with this, having been in the field for a while. I, I would have clients who would come in and I’ll, I’ll, I’ll tell two quick stories. And I don’t remember whether it was a man or a woman, so it doesn’t really matter. But I remember one of my clients saying, basically they’d come in in the morning and they, or come into my session and they were like, yeah, you know, this breakfast thing is getting in the way. It’s challenging. Maybe I should do more cardio and maybe I should fast.
I forget exactly what they were talking about. I was like, what do you, what’s really going on here? They’re like, well, you know, maybe I should, you know, get up in the morning and do cardio in the morning, you know, so I can burn more fat or whatever. And I was like, wait, this doesn’t sound like it’s about that. What’s it really about? And, and they were kind of shy and sheepish and embarrassed about this whole, well what do you, this sounds like a breakfast issue. Like you’re talking to me about stuff, but why do you keep talking about breakfast and then this other stuff? And they were like, well, you remember how you said Ian, that you wanted, we decided I was gonna eat oatmeal for breakfast. You’re probably too young to remember this, but oatmeal was like the thing for a few years.
Yeah, yeah. So fiber, and so oatmeal was like this magic food, just like we love to do in America. We love to sell magic foods. And, and she was like, oh yeah, that whole breakfast thing with oatmeal, the truth is that I don’t really like oatmeal. I was like, well, why did you tell me that you would eat oatmeal every morning? And she’s like, well, because you said it would be good for me, and like it would help me lose weight and gimme energy and all these things. And I was like, well, what difference does it make if you don’t like oatmeal? And she’s like, oh, well I don’t know. I’m like, well, whatcha eating for breakfast now? She’s like, well, I either skip breakfast, eat, eat McDonald’s. I’m like, well that’s not helping us. I’m like, well, what would you do if you could do anything you wanted?
She’s like, well, I just assumed have leftovers. I was like, well then have leftovers. And she was like, is that okay? I was like, well, it’s better than what you’re doing. She’s like, oh, okay. If you think it’s okay. And I was like, okay, it’s fine. I started thinking, what’s going on here? There’s some weird stuff going on. And more and more of my clients were having a hard time changing their diet. They’d come in, they’d work out, they’d take their supplements, but I would talk to them more and more about their diet. They’d be like, well, you know, this and that and the other thing, family and time and all these different things.
And they would always say to me at the beginning, will you tell me what to do? And I’ll do it. And I’d be like, all right, I’ll tell you what to do. And all right. But then they wouldn’t do it. And I’d say, well, you said that you wanted me to tell you what to do. I’ve given you all the information. Well, what’s going on? Well, you know, it’s this and it’s that, and it’s the kids and it’s the dog and it’s the job and it’s time. And I don’t know, I don’t really like this vegetable and everything. And I was like, okay, tell me more about that. Tell me more about that. And I started realizing there’s more going on here. I didn’t quite figure out, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. And this is before the two women wrote, wrote the book about intuitive eating.
This is way before body positivity. This is way before you know, health at every size. This is way before even the world of holistic nutrition even started. There was nothing but msds in the world. There was no such thing as holistic nutrition. And if there was, it was, you know, some weekend seminar that people took and you know, called themself a nutritionist, but they didn’t really know what they were talking about. And eating disorders were, you know, really hush hush. And you didn’t talk about eating disorders. And, but there was, I was like, these are not these people. They understand the science and they’re not, they don’t have eating disorders. There’s something else going on. So I went back to school with this question. If people say they know what to do and they say they want to do what I’ve given them as information, why aren’t they doing it?
And I thought about psychology and I thought about naturopathic medicine and I thought about becoming a nutritionist. And I thought about all these different things. Interestingly enough, I ended up at a program where I was able to sort of ask myself all those questions and do a bunch of research, sort of independent study. And the bottom line is, what I came up with is that everybody has a relationship with food or a food story. And it’s this story, this relationship with food that is created by cultural forces and individual experience that’s actually at the root of most people’s day-to-day interactions with food. And if we don’t address their relationship with food, if we don’t talk to ’em about their food story, we can tell ’em all day long what to eat and why it’s good for them. But they’re gonna struggle to have success. And so for the last 10, 15 odd years I’ve been doing food story coaching with clients.
And more recently, in the last 10, 10 years, I’ve actually been teaching it to other nutritionists and naturopaths and chiropractors who do nutrition and things like that. Because what they had told me was they weren’t having very good success getting their clients to make dietary change. I said, well try this. And they were like, oh my gosh. Wow. No one ever taught me that. And started making a real difference. So that’s what led me to you, which is one of my students from the college that I teach at, from the master’s program that I teach at one of my students, one of my graduates connected me with you. That’s how I got here.
Yeah. That’s so interesting. When you say the food story they have built up, like, tell me some specifics about like what needs to be addressed about the food story they have.
Can I do that by asking a question? Yeah. Okay. You’re a nutritionist, so everybody expects that you’ve got your whole diet totally dialed in. Right. You’re the expert. But I’m sure just like you and and I both we’re human and we probably have stuff that we struggle with with our own diets. Sure. So pick, just tell me one thing that you can think of that you’re like, yeah, I’m supposed to be doing that and I know I should be doing that, but you struggle with it yourself. Like for me it’s, it’s caffeine and it’s, it’s sort of greasy food that’s not really good for me. Like, you know, yeah. Food, but just like, you know, pizza and things like that. Like I know those are my, those are hard for me to like stay away from. Yeah. Is there one challenging for you?
So many things, but Yeah. Really definitely sugar, eating more sugar than I probably should.
Right. And you know it. Yeah. So for me, it’s a comfort thing for me. It’s a convenience thing sometimes when I’m busy. How about you when it comes to sugar? Same thing. Different. Yeah.
It probably, yeah.
Okay. That’s food relationship. That’s their food story. Sure. It’s like people know all kinds of things. They know they should eat more vegetables. They know they should eat more, more than one time a day. They know they should drink water, but they don’t for any number of reasons. It’s comforts, it’s habits, its attachments. Well, yeah, but that’s my favorite food. And I don’t wanna give it up or Yeah. Yeah. But my family likes that food. So it’s always in the house. So if it’s in the house, I’m going to eat it. It’s logistics, but it’s also the stories, the thoughts, the feelings, the, the tapes that we all have in our head about, well, well, I should do this, but I really wanna do that. You know? And I know that this is better, but I seem to not be able to change my habit. ’cause I’m,
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I, I agree with you. I, in the sense that it’s getting information when it comes to nutrition is important. ’cause there’s a lot of confusing and conflicting information. So I, I find that it’s important to establish like, okay, for your specific case and your situation, here’s the nutrition pattern that we’re gonna pursue. But that is a very relatively quick and simple thing to achieve. And then where people like really struggle, as you said, is actually implement it. Yep. And on a, especially like, on a chronic like basis,
Yeah. It’s gonna take a long time to get it dialed in. It’s very challenging.
Yeah. Well, what are some of the like, and maybe it’s not even this, but it’s, I almost imagine that you need like a replacement story.
It’s, it’s interesting that you would say it that way. It’s, it’s what I, the metaphor of story allows clients to sort of just engage with their relationship with food. So they may say, you know, we may talk about like, well what’s your protagonist? What’s the number one challenge that you have? Right. So my protagonist is sugar, my protagonist is, you know, fast food. My protagonist is, I don’t make time for myself. So, so they, okay. Well that, do I, where did that story, where did that part of the story come from? Well, it came from watching my mom. And it came from being busy and having four kids. And I, you know, I never paid attention. And now I suddenly I have to. And Oh, that’s interesting. So like, there’s your backstory, like, oh, okay, so where did the story come from? Like, oh yeah, my mom was into weight loss and oh, I remember, you know, my dad saying, oh, you’re so beautiful if you were just a little thinner and squished my cheeks.
And like, people have some deep seated, you know, intense stories behind why they don’t like the way their bodies look. Why they think they should eat a certain way. And so our job is to help them recognize that, oh yeah, that story is actually getting in the way, that’s the story that’s driving you. It’s not willpower, it’s not motivation, it’s not intelligence, it’s not wanting it enough or not wanting it enough. It’s not self-sabotage. It’s that these powerful stories are running in the background. And so our job is to unpack them, understand them, and rewrite them, edit them, write some new chapters, rewrite some old chapters. So in a sense, reconstruct or construct a new story that actually serves their purposes, serves them better. ’cause most people’s story right now is one that is leading them, you know, down a bad road. It’s, again, it’s shame, it’s guilt, it’s judgment, it’s, you know, beating themselves up.
It’s blaming themselves. When they can’t stick to a program, it’s always their fault. You know, they’re not enough. But they don’t think of it this way because what we’ve done in our industry, as, you know, we’ve split it off into nutrition science and eating disorders and psychotherapy. Instead of recognizing that the average person doesn’t have an eating disorder, but the average person isn’t gonna make change just because we teach them what to do. Like there’s this big middle ground of people who are like, I’d like to make that change, but I need logistical and sort of psycho-emotional help to make it happen. Because it’s actually a lot harder to implement it than you. You, the nutritionist, you the naturopath, you the doctor realize it is to make the change.
Yeah. It’s so hard. Right. Yeah. I mean, and I feel like another element to this is that for some people, there’s other issues around it that it looked like maybe their access to healthy foods, like from a financial or like a food desert aspect. And then there’s also the element of like their physiology. Because I, I subscribe to the idea that it’s like, okay, you, you’re born into this world where the food environment is incorrect for your body out the gate. As soon as you have something that’s on breast milk, it’s probably, well vegetable puree. Fair enough. But within the first six months of your life, you’re gonna be starting to have foods that are not really the right thing for human physiology. And there’s this dis health that starts to unfold. Insulin resistance, metabolic endotoxemia, gut health, like lack of fiber, dysbiosis of the microbiome, leptin and growl and hunger hormones being dysregulated. And so it’s, it’s tricky. ’cause they have, like, I don’t, I don’t wanna hear what you think about this, but it’s like, other than this, like let’s say we, we like correct the story. We still have these challenges around like their physiology and their access. But what do you
Think? Yeah. Yeah. Two, two separate issues. Access is a social cultural issue, which we can talk about and, and unpack. ’cause I do a lot of cultural anthropology of food stuff as well. But to speak to your point about the physiology, what I’ve said to people, and I agree completely, is if you haven’t identified your personal physiology, your personal sort of blueprint for nutrition, if you haven’t addressed your underlying physiological challenges, no amount of attitude shift is gonna get you there. I don’t care how motivated you are, I don’t care how dedicated you are, how committed you are if you’re eating the wrong foods, if you’re putting the wrong things in your body and you’re feeding your dysbiosis. If you are eating foods that you’re already sensitized to, you’re not helping yourself. And if you think that it’s then your fault, here’s where the story piece comes in.
If you think it’s your fault that you just don’t have motivation to resist drinking dairy, or you just don’t have the motivation to not snack at night, but you’ve never addressed the fact that you have a dairy intolerance and that you eat one meal a day and you’re ravenous by nine o’clock at night, and of course you overeat at night. Like if you’re not addressing the physiology, no amount of story work is ever gonna get you there. But clients blame themselves and think that somehow they can just magically have control over these physiological issues, or they think that it shouldn’t matter and they don’t do what they need to do, which is to come and see you and get a personalized blueprint, right. For their specific body, their specific needs. They go online and they check out an Instagram follower, or they read a book, or they hear an article or they talk to a friend and they just sort of try something.
They’re like, I’m just gonna do keto. I’m just gonna go gluten-free. I’m just gonna fast eight. You know, 16 and eight. They just try stuff. And they’re like, oh, it doesn’t work. Oh, I suck. I gotta try something different. And you’re like, that’s not even what you’re supposed to be doing. Come talk to me so I can actually put you on the right path. And so the problem is we, we, we get into this culture of sort of self-diagnosis and self-medicating around nutrition. Right? And there’s so much shame and blame and judgment around food that people hesitate to see nutritionists, right? Because you’ve heard this, because they’re so afraid you’re gonna take away all their favorite foods, make them eat a bunch of foods that they’ve never heard of, that they don’t understand, they don’t recognize that are expensive, hard to prepare, don’t taste good, quote unquote, right.
And upend their lives, make their lives miserable in terms of, you know, not letting them eat what they like. The classic nutritionists have been, eat this, don’t eat that, eat less of this, eat less of that. And while a little bit of that goes a long way, like you said, you’ve gotta make sure the client understands the fundamentals. That’s all they’ve had. The tradition of our industry is once you’ve given people the data, once you’ve handed them this big thing, you’re like, great, go do that. And then when they don’t do that, you’re like, why aren’t you doing that? I’m not saying you, I’m saying our
Industry. Yeah.
Right. And so then they feel bad and they’re like, forget about it. I’m not gonna come, come back to these people.
Yeah. I, and I find that the more things someone tries, the less likely it is that anything will work. Because they just really start to lose, I think, like self-efficacy. Like they, they start to lose confidence that they can’t get anywhere. And then that becomes almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy that’s like they’re not then is motivated to even fully do it. Yeah. And so they end up, like you said, just kind of jumping around, but then not fully doing anything. And yeah, just the fact that they’re working with a nutritionist who gives them new food rules doesn’t necessarily really change that underlying thing. I think you’re talking about
It, it most, I, two things. One is I have a saying which is that new information given to a client that they cannot use, or at least hold and reserve without judgment, is disempowering. It makes them feel worse about themselves because it turns into a should I should be doing this, I shouldn’t be doing that. I know all the rules, but I can’t do it. And what I also tell people is, if, if our, if our clients could do 80% of what they already know is right for them, like they know a lot of what’s right for them. If they just did 80% of it, 80% of the time, they’d get great results. So instead of trying to teach them new data and new information, why don’t we focus on helping them be consistent with 80% of what they already know works 80% of the time. But the problem is our industry, the nutrition industry has focused so much on nutrition education as the one and only thing or as the first and most important thing and have forgotten that the behavior change management psychology is equally, if not more important. Because once someone knows what to do, helping them implement it is the most important thing. Because a plan that’s not implemented is no good to us. Doesn’t matter how great the plan is, if they don’t do it, it can’t do its job. It can’t help.
Yeah, exactly. What do you, what’s something that you wish every say dietician or case or professional nutritionist, like what do, what do you wish they would say or talk about with every patient they work with?
How do you feel about that? Literally ask that question. How do you feel about that feel? How do you feel about that?
Scary feelings? No, I’m just kidding.
Scary feelings. Exactly. And every nutritionist, every naturopath, everybody I’ve ever worked with in this industry, and I’ve worked with thousands at this point, they’re like, oh, I’m not supposed to talk to people about emotions. That’s therapy. I’m like, hold up, hold up. Just talking to people about feelings is called talking to a human. Humans are emotional creatures. You can have a conversation about emotion with a normal everyday person and not be doing therapy. You’re not trying to diagnose a, a mental health condition. You’re not trying to treat a mental health condition. You’re not stepping outta your ethical boundaries. But humans are sticky emotional creatures. And we’ve been trying to treat them as though they are logical, rational robots, data in action out as if I just give you the right data, you will automatically do the right actions without actually recognizing that we’re psychosocial emotional beings and therefore the data is gonna get sifted through that part of our story.
And we’re going to have feelings about it that are going to override our rational front brain executive function. However we wanna think about it part of ourselves. But when I ask a client, how do you feel about that? They come in and say, oh yeah, I’ve been diagnosed with diabetes. How do you feel about that? Oh my God, I’m so overwhelmed and I’m totally freaked out and I think my life is over. Oh, okay. Why? Why is that? Well, ’cause you’re gonna tell me I can’t ever eat sugar again. How do you feel about that? I’m pissed. Why? Because I love a croissant in the morning or I love ice cream, or I love this or that or other thing. Okay, so you think, I’m gonna tell you, you can’t ever eat sugar again. Yes. And I’m freaked out about it and I’m, I don’t even really wanna be here because of that. Okay. That’s a conversation that the average nutritionist, naturopath, personal trainer, never has with their client yet. That’s the undercurrent of what’s happening. So when the practitioner says, well, here’s the thing, your, your blood sugars are really high and you got an A1C of 11, so we’re gonna get on top of your, you know, blood sugar regulation. I think we’re gonna work on is cutting back on carbs and really get that blood sugar under control. How that great.
Yeah.
Okay, well inside they’re like, ah, they’re freaking out. And so then they give them a plan. They walk out the door going, okay, thanks. They just took away all my favorite foods. Didn’t ask anything about how I feel about that. They don’t even recognize that’s what they want. Well, there’s another person who’s not giving me what I want, which is how can I get my blood pressure under control but not be miserable and give up everything I love that’s sweet for my entire life.
Yeah.
But they don’t say that because the practitioner firebombs them with data and information about how we’re gonna help them be successful with all this great dietary and exercise approach. And never once considers, Hmm. There might be some thoughts and feelings about what I’ve just given this person and our industry is failing people because we don’t teach enough psychology coaching and behavior change in most programs. Now, selfishly our program, they get to see me, you know, teach them that. But not all programs have a psych or health coaching component. Right.
Yeah.
I think, I’ll get off my soapbox.
The dieticians learned of this, it’s called motivational interviewing, but it’s like a one, not even a whole course, I don’t think. I think it’s like a part of one course.
And the problem with motivational interviewing, while I love the theories and I do love some of the toolkits that motivational interviewing provides food story coaching, food relationship coaching is so much more inclusive. It’s a much bigger concept. What happens with motivational interviewing in my experience is that it’s used as a blunt object. It’s a very blunt tool. Why are you resistant? Why don’t you wanna do that? What are you gonna do instead? How are we gonna make that happen? Let’s make a goal. How are we gonna make that goal? Well, how many times, what day are you gonna do that? Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. And they’re like, okay, okay. Oh, okay.
Yeah. You’re not really asking about their feelings with that. And they don’t ask, trying to coach them into make, coming up with their own ideas. Yeah. It’s
Pure logistics and it’s very confrontational. It’s very in interrogatory, it’s like being interrogated. What am I gonna do When gonna do it? How many times are you gonna do it right here Friday? Like, okay, okay.
Like I’m gonna corner you into making a smart goal.
Yeah. I’m gonna make you make a smart goal. I’m gonna you in and make you pick a smart goal, but
You’re gonna pick it.
Yeah. They’re gonna act like they’re picking it, but they don’t feel like they’ve actually picked it. Yeah. They feel like they’ve been hemmed into a corner.
Sure.
One of the things that happens in our industry is we start from the baseline of being a practitioner and we give information and we give data and we tell people what to do and we offer advice and suggestions and protocols. Then if we’re lucky, there’s that next section up the pyramid where maybe you have a little bit of mi, maybe you have a little behavior change management, maybe you know a little bit about something and maybe you actually can communicate with your client. And then at the very tip of the pyramid, maybe we think about being a human, a compassionate, heart centric, non-judgmental, radically accepting human. And that’s why our entry doesn’t work. We need to flip that on its head. And at the very base of the pyramid, we should be being a human compassionate, heart centric, understanding, non-judgmental and meet clients truly where they’re at and be like, I hear you.
I feel you. I see you. I get what you’re going through. I don’t have it myself, but I get it. I work with clients every day. I can tell this is hard. I see that you’re upset about your diagnosis and the thought that this is gonna transform your life. I’m with you. Then the next stage, we’ve gotta concentrate more on coaching psychology and behavior change management, which is about communication. And then at the very, very top, once we’ve established that we’ve got a human connection and a good coaching connection and we can communicate with the client, then fine bring out our expertise because now the client might actually be ready, willing, and able to hear and implement what we have to offer them. And then we need to get into the practice of, you know, offering more information. But giving it to them, you know, titrated, we need to give it to them in smaller doses. Yeah. Problem is the average client walks out with something this thick and and told, great, go turn your life upside down and go do this. And they’re like,
Well what do you say about this? I feel like there’s almost, I think practitioners, a lot of them are scared to not do that because they know that because of the way the world is with diet nutrition, that the patient is sort of primed to expect this sort of like all in comprehensive approach, like a full framework of how to eat. And ideally it’s gonna be extreme and it’s gonna be something they’ve never heard of before. And it’s gonna be like, you know, this whole new thing. And even though if they get it, they’re not gonna probably be able to do it. That’s what the practitioner, I think Yeah. Thinks that the patient’s wanting and sometimes the patient really says that’s what they’re wanting. Yeah. And so it, I think it can be scary for a practitioner to step back and say like, not only I let the patient lead ’cause that’s kind the motivational interviewing piece, but I’m gonna, I’m gonna avoid giving them very much. And, and, and if they walk away with like one tiny goal, they’re gonna be like mad. You ever think about, I
Totally get that Yes practitioner feel that way. I totally get this. I something I, I work with all the time. With, with with mentees. The reason why practitioners fail in that regard is ’cause they don’t have the coaching, the psychology and the behavior change slash communication skills. Yeah. So what happens is they’re operating in two black boxes. They don’t really know what the client is actually thinking and feeling. And they’re not actually telling the client what they’re actually thinking and feeling themselves as practitioners. They’re not actually having an actual conversation with the client about what’s really going on. So, Aaron, tell me, what are you looking for today? Are you looking for a comprehensive plan or are you looking for more help with being successful over time? Oh, no one’s ever asked me that. Well what, what do you mean by that? Well, most people come into my office and they think what they want is a big protocol that gives them all this information.
But then what they realize is when they get home they can’t implement it. Does that sound familiar? Oh my God. That’s what I’ve had every single time I’ve ever seen a practitioner. How’s that work for you? It sucks. What happened? Oh, I can’t ever use that program. Okay. So are you looking for something different? ’cause I don’t offer that to most of my clients ’cause I know it doesn’t work. Oh. What do you offer? Well, I focus more on the coaching component, which is I’ll slowly give you the program over time. Focus more on implementing a small amount of it over time successfully and we’ll build on success and eventually get the whole program going. How does that sound? Oh, I didn’t know we could do it that way. Yeah, that sounds a lot better. Okay. I just had a conversation in three minutes and I totally changed the dynamics of the client coach relationship.
Totally. But that’s not what’s happening because unfortunately too many people who came outta the RD system, the medical system, right. And even frankly some naturopaths and some nutritionists, depending on where they went to school, if they were lucky, Erin, they got mi Yeah. But they don’t have the communication skills and the confidence to do behavior change management. They don’t understand the psychology and so they can’t have these conversations. And so then they’re stuck with, well, I guess I better be preemptively proactive and just give the client everything I think they might want. That way I’ve earned my value. Right? I’ve, I’ve validated my existence and I’ve validated the, the client’s quote unquote expectation that I’m gonna like blow their brain away with all this amazing information. Even though the reality is they’re probably never gonna use it and it’s gonna overload them and they’re not gonna be successful.
But hey, at least they got what they thought they wanted. They didn’t get what they needed, but at least they got what they thought they wanted. Now what I’m left with is I gotta go get a new client because that client’s not coming back because they got blown out of the water by the 16 page protocol and no support to implement it. I never asked them how they felt about it. I never thought asked them their thoughts. I never collaborated with them. I just said, well, that’s what they’re asking for. Here you go. Here’s the program. And wonder why they didn’t ever come back to see me again.
Yeah.
And that’s our industry.
I had one this morning. She said, I, I went and saw a women’s health practitioner to get help. She diagnosed me with PCOS. She told me to eat a pescatarian Mediterranean diet. I don’t know what that means. It sounds really restrictive. I’m I’m totally confused by it. So I’m never gonna go see her again. She literally said that
If I had a nickel
Right.
I, our industry wonders why we aren’t having success in our businesses. And there’s a lot of reasons. And one of them is we’re not coaching, we’re not supporting people. We’re not actually helping them with behavior change. We’re being data brokers. Yeah. So we end up with terrible, terrible retention. We’re losing 60% out of the back door, which means we’ve gotta kill ourselves to bring a new client in the front door, but then we lose 60% of them. We have a crap reputation in the industry. Nobody wants to go see a nutritionist ’cause they know they’re gonna be told, don’t eat this food that you love. Go go eat this food that you don’t recognize and don’t like. I’m gonna make your life miserable by taking you all the pleasurable foods away from you. Yeah. So nobody wants to go see a nutritionist or an naturopath unless they have to. Right? Yeah. So yeah. Why so It’s so we can’t help people ’cause we’re doing it wrong.
Yeah. It’s interesting. We have, we have now seven dieticians on our team. And it, it’s funny over now doing this for several years, what I’ve noticed is that the ones who just naturally do some of, not that they’re like on the level of someone that you coach, but like people who just naturally gravitate towards conversations about feelings and about what’s going on in that person’s life. Yep. Tend to do less of the sort of like, here’s your supplement protocol, here’s your diet protocol. And then, and then we have practitioners that tend to be more on that spectrum where it’s like more formulaic, more data driven. And I’ve, I’ve noticed that the, it it’s very like almost a perfect correlation. Like the more that they, it in the minds of traditional sort of care, like seem to do less, they have the best retention
And the best results. Yep.
And the best results.
Yep. Yeah. Actually the better business model for practitioners and for patients, everybody wins.
I mean, I guess you could make an argument that they have good retention that might be bad as in like the person if they got fully well, they would like leave. But I find that people when they’re, when they’re gaining progress and wanna sustain that progress, they tend to stay. But when they feel frustrated and like they’re not getting anywhere, they’ll tend to leave. Yeah. So I do see like retention is tied to like doing, getting benefit for someone. Yeah.
Yeah. There’s a difference between retention forever for my rest of my life and retention for the 18 months that it takes for me to actually convert from a sad diet to a oval lacto, you know, pescatarian diet, all that entails. Yeah. And the client who comes back every week or two weeks for 18 months, you think, good gosh, this person’s just addicted to talking. They’re just, they just want a best friend. No, no, no. They need a good coach who can help them make the hard lifestyle change over time that it takes and deal with all the complexities of making those changes over time. Yeah. So that in 18 months or two years, they don’t need anything more than maybe a pep talk once in a while or a check in every three to six months or blood work done every year or something like that.
But if you’re trying, like most doctors and most naturopaths, they’ll send someone to a nutritionist and say, I need you to get this person’s A1C under control, get ’em off of sugar, the person’s 11 on their A1C, and we start talking to the client and the client is freaked out by their diagnosis. Overwhelmed. And the reason they’re using sugar is ’cause it’s the only comfort they have in their stressful empty lives. And we’re telling them, okay, the naturopath wants you off of sugar and the naturopath’s like, why aren’t you getting them off of sugar? Why don’t you getting ’em off of sugar? Just tell ’em to stop eating sugar. And we have to say, do you understand how important sugar is to this person? Was it more important than their diabetes? Actually yes it is right now. That’s stupid. That’s ridiculous. Do you not understand the power of addictive of addiction or at least comfort eating and the psychology behind comfort eating?
Like, like, well, whatever, I don’t care about that. Just get ’em off of sugar. If they wanna get their A1C under control, like they just can’t conceptualize why just telling the client, your diabetes will get better if you just drop sugar outta your life entirely. And why they won’t do that. It’s like, because it’s psychospiritual and emotional food is the most connected, energetic, meaning making meaningful part of our entire lives. Like, yeah, okay. You can change the way you dress, you change your hairstyle, you know? Yeah. Some people like to exercise more or less, but like, you literally, food is everything. Right? Food is the deepest, most intrinsic part of the human experience next to breath. Yeah. You breathe, you live, you eat, you live or you die. And so you can go and look at psychology, you can look at anthropology, you can look at history, you can look at literature and you can see the power of food is massive. And we have totally dissolved dis sort of disassociated ourselves. It’s all nutrients or it’s all guilt and shame meaning, and there’s nothing in between to help people understand that. No. You just have a complex, normal human, emotional, psychological relationship with food. It has meaning and it, it’s important to you. And you eat for every reason under the sun other than just nutrients.
Yeah. So how would that typically play out in your world? So you have this person with an A1C of 11, but their sugar habit is actually more important to them than their diabetes right now. And you discuss that and learn that. And then, and then where do you go from there? So
I work with people differently because I only do food story coaching, whereas my mentees, they’re almost all nutritionists and naturopaths nutritionists. So they’re doing both.
So let’s say that one of, one of them was working with a client who had A1C of 11. I, I’ve trained them to do a few things. One is to have a frank co conversation with them about their diagnosis of diabetes, about what they understand about their A1C, how do they feel about the diagnosis, how do they feel about the treatment plan from the doctor first and foremost. And then discuss with them where they are in terms of what’s the most important thing for them. How do they wanna balance things out? Where, what do they wanna try to do? And if they say, well, if the doctor says I need to get off of sugar, then I’m gonna work on getting off of sugar. And then my, my mentee would say, okay, how hard do you think that’s gonna be? How many times in the past have you tried to get off of sugar and talk to them about their story, their relationship with sugar, so that they can have a conversation about, well under ideal circumstances and given, you know, in a, in a magical world of fairy dust and unicorns, if get you to drop sugar tomorrow, yes.
That would have the greatest impact on your A1C. But let’s talk about what’s realistic. How much sugar in your life is realistic that you’re gonna want to keep or need to keep to keep yourself emotionally, energetically, whatever. Like, you’re not gonna give it all up, are you? Well, I have to give it all up. Do you want to give it all up? Well, no, I don’t wanna give any of it up. Aha. So here’s the tug. You don’t really wanna give up sugar, but you wanna get better with your A1C. We’ve gotta function sort of middle ground here to work from. Yeah. Well I’m not ready to give up sugar. Okay. Well if you’re not willing, give up sugar. I’ve got other ideas, but they’re gonna be harder and take more time because it’s an indirect way to get your blood sugar under control. What does that mean?
Well, I’m talking about fasting. I’m talking about, you know, super high fiber foods. I’m talking about tons of water. I’m talking about cardio and strength training. I’m talking about a lot of changes to down-regulate your blood sugar. If you’re not gonna down-regulate your sugar, your, your consumption of sugar. I’m willing to negotiate this with you and I’ll work with you to find the plan that works best for you. But I have to be honest with you and give you the sciencey stuff. Like I gotta give you the sort of ethical responsibility of being a good nutritionist, which is this is how it works. This is the science. Yeah. But I’m here to help you with the sort of rest of it, which is the coaching and the psychology and the, the emotions that come along with what I’m asking you to do. So let’s work as a team and figure out our best plan forward.
Yeah.
You know, can I have more than six months? Can I take six months to get off of sugar? I’ll let the doctor know that we’re just not gonna try to get the, your sugar consumption, you know, done in three months. We’re gonna work it on, on it for six months. Yeah. Okay. What are you ready, willing, and able to do right here, right now to get your sugar consumption reduced? Well, I’ll, I’ll stop using X in the morning. You’re comfortable with that? Yes. You’re committed to that. Yes. You feel like you can actually do that? Yes, I can actually do that, but please do not take away my X whatever this other thing at night. Fine. We’ll leave that thing at night, but we’re gonna really go after this thing in the morning. And it’s a negotiation. It’s still scientifically found, it’s still based on m and t, you know, medical nutrition therapy. It’s definitely designed for them specifically.
This might make you mad, but it sounds a little bit like mi too of like, you let them decide what they’re gonna do.
Of course. It’s still their story to live, it’s their life to live.
Yeah.
But I, and I’m being a little bit more intense. I’m being a little bit more like, you know, straightforward.
Sure. You wouldn’t nor you’d normally have more time. Of course this
Would take time and compassion and, and yeah. You know, no, it’s like very compassionate and very gentle and very heart centric. It’s very much like, yeah. How do you feel about that? Like, oh my God, I’m overwhelmed. It’s like overwhelmed. It’s like, we’ll work on it together and like, okay, okay. They know that they can actually have success when given the support and not asked to, you know, leap, you know, a tall building in one fell swoop.
Yeah. It’s not as simple as saying, what, how do you really want this to look? Because they come in not any of their fault or your fault with, I, I would almost say like a lack of trust. It’s okay to be like socially inappropriate with what they say. It’s like they feel like there’s this like socially appropriate thing that they should say and it’s that they’re gonna be perfect or they’re gonna go big or they’re gonna make huge changes overnight. And so like, that’s an important thing to establish is that you’d have no expectations. In fact, I mean, I’m curious what you would say in that scenario if you said, okay, well what are you willing to do? And, and they said, you know what? I, even though I care about sugar more than I care about anything else, I, I’m gonna absolutely quit sugar this month. I’m not gonna have any sugar. I’m curious what you would say to that.
I’d say I would be supportive of that goal if you have, if we have a realistic chance of you being successful, what’s gonna happen if you try that and you fail and the client says, oh, I’ll feel crappy about myself. I’m like, okay, would it be better to shoot really high and miss, you know, there’s two ways of looking at goal setting. One is shoot for the moon and then you reach the stars. If you don’t hit your goal, but you get close, how are you gonna feel? Okay, so you’re a, I gotta hit my goal kind of person, not a shoot for the stars. Hit or shoot for the moon and hit the stars. Yeah. They’re like, oh, that’s interesting. I believe in goals that are small enough to achieve, but large enough to matter. And they’re like, Ooh, what do you mean by that?
I’m like, I want you to, I want you to succeed because success breeds success. So I’d rather have you be successful on a small goal, which builds up to another small goal, which builds to a medium goal and those stack up to a large goal. How does that sound versus shoot for the moon? But maybe miss, they’re like, Hmm. And if they say, I wanna shoot for the moon, but I might miss, I say, well, let’s talk about what that looks like. Let’s talk about expectation management. Let’s talk about what it means to fail. Let’s talk about what it means to shoot for goal, but miss it and come back down. You know, two steps lower. No one talks to them about that. No one has the meta conversation. No one has the conversation about the conversation. I lay out parameters and we talk about expectation management.
So the client’s like, oh, I see. Yeah, you’re right. I think about it. If I miss the mark, I think that’s all or nothing. I’m like, ah, well we can’t go for all or nothing if we’re gonna be successful. If you wanna shoot for the star for the moon, but you miss and hit the stars, how are you gonna kind of modulate your sense of quote unquote failure if you just missed the mark by 20%. They’re like, oh, I never think about it that way. It’s either I hit the goal or I don’t hit the goal. I’m like, okay, that’s all or nothing. Thinking how has that worked for you in the past? They’re like, it works for a while, but it never sustains it. Exactly. Very few people can sustain all or nothing thinking long term. So do you wanna do that or do you want to achieve a goal that’s maybe smaller, but you can build off of the success of that goal and you can get all of the success? And they’re like, I don’t know. No one’s ever asked me that. Everyone always just says, here’s your goal, go do that. Or I just pick a goal and they say, sure, go do that goal. No one’s ever questioned me about my goals before, but I like this. This is nuance. This is making me think again about like, how do I really wanna achieve my goals? Nobody has these conversations in our industry. Not nobody, you know, it’s not a common conversation.
It’s so good because I, one of the important things you’re alluding to is that they come in often with broken confidence.
Exactly.
But despite that, they’ll often go for a plan or even request a plan that will further break their confidence. And so it’s really important to understand that and maybe even openly discuss with them of like, I like how you kind of laid out like, look, it’s not, if I, if we agree on like a small realistic goal, that’s not the end of it. What we’re trying to, to do is build momentum and build up success over time. Kind of like we’re layering in your plan over time. And, and I think that is a really important thing to understand that what that does is it, it does help to rebuild their confidence because of what we talked about of like when they’re not confident, they, it makes it even harder to do something that they could have done when they were confident because they’re, they’re almost like sometimes like, oh, you know, if I, if I fully do this, my all, if I give it a hundred percent and then I fail, that’ll be crushing to me and I’m already kind of crushed.
Yep. Versus if I kind of go half in and I don’t succeed, then I won’t have another crushing failure. I can just kind of chalk it up to like, well, I didn’t fully do it. So it’s kind of disa I’m kind of disappointed in myself, but it’s not like as bad as if I had fully done it. So I think we don’t talk again. It’s so, the quiet thing, it’s so unspoken. Very few practitioners actually talk openly about it, but I think they are right, right on point. That is like one of the most important things going on in this, in this type of work.
Yeah. I know we only have a couple minutes left, so I’ll, I’ll wrap us up towards the end with this. Yeah. My model is what I call an empowerment first model, which is the opposite of our standard industry. Our industry standard is education first. Yeah. Lemme teach you more and explain to you more
Disempowering. Yeah.
And it completely disempowers people. So what I say is, let’s focus on empowerment first. What do you know you should be doing? What do you know is already getting in your way? What do you know you need to be successful? How can I help you and, and help support you being successful in what you already know? Okay, let’s try that. Let’s get those hurdles out of the way. Let’s address those concerns and and issues, and then we’ll start to sprinkle in and pepper in new data as you’re ready, willing and able to take that new data and apply it and use it successfully. Now, if it’s a brand new client, fine. Then you build the plan and you say, okay, out of this plan, let’s negotiate what we’re gonna first work on. Because I, I’m not asking you to do this whole plan. I want you to feel empowered and powerful and, and capable.
I want you to have self-efficacy. I want you to have agency. I want you to feel like I’m, I’m really kicking butt taking names like I can do this. Why? Because you’ve given me small, realistic goals that I can chew on and work on and I can negotiate my life around and you don’t beat me up when I come in and I didn’t have success. Yeah. You just help me figure out like what’s next And like, I can do this, but I need the support long term to do this. Like, okay, great. We’ll build a plan and we’ll start from there. But I tell practitioners is hold the plan in back from the patient. Don’t give it to them. Don’t just hand it to them. The worst thing we do right now is we say, here’s your plan. Take a look. And they go,
Yeah, I feel like functional medicine clinics are like the worst. Right?
Every page they come over your more, right? The jaw drops more. No, what I say is, look, I have your plan, but I don’t wanna overwhelm you with this plan. It’s a big plan, but I put the whole thing together for you. ’cause we’ll need this plan. This is our guide, this is our map book, right. This is our, this is our Google Maps. This is our, this is our, our MapQuest to age myself. Right. This is our plan. This is our, so we’re gonna get you there, but I have to ask you, what are you ready, willing, and able to do on this plan? I have what I think would be ideal. Obviously that’s my expertise, but whether I think it’s the right thing for you or not is different. Right? Or whether you think it’s the right thing for you or not is different.
I might say, yeah, get off of sugar is the absolute best thing you could do for your PCOS, but you’ve gotta decide how ready, willing, and able are you to go after sugar. If you say, I just can’t right now, and you say, okay, but can you change your protein consumption? Can you sleep more? Can you drink more water? Like what are these, can you do? And the client says, I’ll totally drink more water. I will absolutely up my protein and I will recommit to seeing my personal trainer three times a week. You’re like, Hells bells do that and we’ll get to the sugar. And they’re like, really? Like, that’s okay. You’re like, look, I could hand you this and say get off of sugar, but are you gonna do it? They’re like, no, not realistically. I’m like, well then why am I even asking? Let’s, let’s build on what we know you can do. Yeah. And they’re like, wow, that’s really collaborative. Thank you for being so supportive. And I’m like, well, why? Why would we do it any other way?
Wait, when, sorry for them. It’s easier for you.
My, my practitioners have done my training. They’re so funny. They come back and they go, I don’t feel like I’m doing as much work anymore and I’m charging more and my clients seem happier. What’s up with that? I’m like, that’s how that works. When you’re coaching and clients feel support it and they’re actually making change, they’ll gladly keep coming back and pay you more. The reason they don’t wanna go back and see traditional practitioners is ’cause they’re not getting anything out of it. I had a client say, I don’t know if this client’s getting much outta seeing me. I said, why? She’s, well, you know, she’s still struggling with making changes. I’m like, how long has she been coming to see you? Six months? I said, she’s doing fine. Why? How do you know that? I’m like, because nobody comes back for six months and pays you. Yeah. If they’re not getting something out of their time,
Even if with insurance they don’t come because their is valuable. That’s right.
Yeah. The time is valuable. The copay, the time and energy that it takes to get there, if they’re not getting something out of it, they won’t come. Absolutely. And our industry knows it because we see our role most indu, most people in our industry are just like desperately trying to get new clients. ’cause they keep losing clients off the back and they’re like, I don’t understand why we can’t keep clients on our books because your model’s upside down. Your model is a assessment delivery. Check in and let people roll for six weeks. No wonder they’re not succeeding. Yeah. Coaching people. But we don’t teach that in our industry as a standard.
It’s all about the empowerment. I think that’s so good.
Yeah, so that’s my model. Empowerment first, education second. I mean, certainly education is important, but if we’re not empowering people, all the education just sort of sits on a shelf, you know, literally just sits there like, yeah, I have a plan, but I don’t really do it. It’s too much. I don’t like it. You know, or whatever.
This isn’t so inspiring Ann, I mean we have tons of practitioners that listen to the podcast, so maybe you can tell people a little bit about your training and how it works and where they can find more about you.
Yeah, so I have an online training, like a lot of practitioners, you know, who’ve been doing it a long time. It’s a self-directed plan. It’s so seven modules teaching all about the philosophy and the skills and the common, common topics and how to work and talk to people about difficult emotions and how to understand what it means to do work as a food relationship coach. Not just as a, as a other type of practitioner. How to weave it into your practice, how to, how to work as a collaborator with your patients and not just a hierarchical top down practitioner. It’s a whole step-by-step seven. Like I said, I think it’s seven modules, eight modules sign up. So Yeah. Yeah. So it’s, it’s at my website, food story coaching.com. Food story coaching.com. Yeah. And I think it’s slash professionals or something like that, but you
Yeah, we’ll and we’ll put it in the show notes.
We’ll get it in the notes. Yeah. And then that’s self-directed so that people can take it and get done as fast as they want or as quickly as they need to. And then it includes a, a live mentorship call with me and then also some peer mentorship with one of my master coaches.
Amazing. Okay, well we’ll link that in the show notes and yeah, definitely. I want my whole team to take it, so. Oh, that’s good. Gonna work that. Yeah. Thank you.
Alright, well we’ll talk and we’ll get that figured out.
Good. Ian, thanks again for being on the show and thank you. We’ll talk with you soon. Care. So
Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to the Empower Nutrition podcast. We love offering insight to help you optimize your wellness. If you enjoy this episode, feel free to leave us a rating on whichever platform you’ve stream from and consider subscribing. Also, you can learn more about our practice at www dot Empower Nutrition Health and that link is also in your show notes. Take care and talk to you soon.

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