What’s the Point of Food Relationship Coaching?
Why pay for coaching when you can find information for free?
I mean, is it really worth it?
And what even is food relationship coaching?
I spent about a dozen years trying to figure out how to lose weight on my own. All the while, my relationship with food was devolving.
What I mean by that is, I fell into a cycle of deeply restricting my food by going on juice cleanses, counting calories, and skipping meals, along with overexercising…and then binge eating, only to start the cycle all over again.
I was anxious about my food choices, obsessed with my weight, and constantly overthinking about what I should and shouldn’t eat. I nitpicked every detail of my body, weighed myself at least once a day, and berated myself for every perceived slip-up in my behavior.
Over the course of this time, I was progressively gaining weight because I couldn’t stop binge eating.
Not only was I NOT getting the results I wanted, I felt worse and worse about my body and worse and worse about myself. Meanwhile, I resented the fact that I needed to eat to stay alive because I was engaged in endless battles with food.
When I finally hired a weight loss coach, my results lasted slightly longer because of the accountability, but I still continued to yo-yo; my swings just became bigger. I lost more weight, but I always ended up gaining it all back and more.
Finally, when I put my goal of weight loss aside in order to learn how to stop emotional eating, binge eating, and purging, I found peace with food, my body, and myself—and after resolving my food and body issues, I was able to lose weight and keep it off.
I had everything I’d been seeking for nearly two decades.
How?
By focusing on my relationship with food and addressing the root causes of my disordered eating habits.
What is Food Relationship Coaching?
The difference between food relationship coaching and weight loss coaching is that weight loss coaching (sometimes referred to as “nutrition coaching”) focuses on WHAT you eat, sets external rules (such as calorie or macronutrient goals) for how much/when/what you can eat and relies on various strategies to keep your behavior in line with these rules.
Food relationship coaching, at least in my practice, focuses on WHY you eat and HOW to change your behavior from the inside out. We examine your motivations for making the food choices you have in the past, and set about to change or replace them so that your behaviors align with your goals and values.
This means that when we want to change your habits, we dig down into your mindset and emotion regulation skills, so that your choices always remain ones that are driven by your intrinsic motivation, rather than relying on an external set of diet rules. This is always how we’re able to resolve complex eating behaviors like emotional eating, binge eating, and eliminate “trigger foods” such as sweets.
For most people, the initial problem they try to solve is their weight. They ask the question:
“How do I lose weight and keep it off?”
If this has been a struggle that you’ve been spending years attempting to resolve, the more important question I suggest you seek the answer to is:
“What are the root causes of my overeating?”
The number one reason we fail to achieve our goals isn’t because we don’t know WHAT to eat. Of the hundreds of people I’ve coached over the years, very little of the education I provide has to do with building a healthy plate. What I coach has far more to do with HOW to get yourself to consistently choose and stick with those healthy, balanced decisions.
This is why I focus on eating psychology rather than diet advice.
Why Hire a Coach When There’s Information for Free?
As you seek information about how to solve your problems with food, there are two primary ways you can find help:
Indirectly, through means of books, articles, social media posts, etc. and
Directly, through coaching.
I have nothing again gathering information via indirect means. I personally read a lot of books and have gained a substantial amount of valuable knowledge from them.
However, even when you follow a single coach, reading their emails, social media posts, and so on, it’s like a game of solitaire, where you’re being fed one card at a time, and the card you get is not necessarily the card you need. Sometimes you’ll need to skip over a card entirely and wait for the next one. Other times, a few things may fall into place for you. But it’s a game of chance.
When you opt to enlist the help of a coach, it’s like telling them what card you need next, and having them hand it to you. You still need to do the work to stack your cards in order, but you’re not stuck hoping and waiting for the right pieces to fall into your lap.
I believe there are three major factors that make coaching so effective:
Accountability - I always enlist the help of a mentor when I can, because even though in many cases I know what actions to take, I get faster results when I work with a coach, whether that’s on my fitness, relationship, finances, or business. People take more consistent action under another person’s watchful eye.
Being held accountable increases the likelihood of following through, overcoming challenges, and surpassing limitations. It instills a sense of responsibility, driving individuals to remain consistent and disciplined.
“Because you were still checking in and still reminding me of whatever exercise I was doing at the time, even when I was having a bad week I was still going, ‘Hang on let's make a bit better decision here than what I normally would,’ and that was awesome.”
- Tara F, Food Body Self® student
Personalization - Your coach will be able to address your most pressing issues and current obstacles as they arise, rather than you following a course curriculum, or no curriculum at all (such as when you follow a coach on social media).
With an individualized program, you know that your unique needs and goals are being addressed, resulting in greater effectiveness and often faster results.
The Coaching Relationship - I believe this is the most important factor of the three. The majority of individuals I have worked with have lacked self-belief, and in some instances, had the unfortunate experience of working with professionals who doubted their motivations and capabilities.
When you have a mentor with whom you develop a trusting relationship, and whose belief in you is unflagging, it becomes easier to show up for yourself, and to continue engaging in the challenging work of personal growth.
Why are Some Coaches More Expensive Than Others?
To start, the two main reasons coaches will charge less are because they’re less experienced, or because you’re getting less.
A less experienced coach simply may not know how to get you the results you’re looking for yet, depending on their knowledge base and your personal challenges.
Additionally, regardless of their experience level, a coach may charge more or less depending on what their offer entails.
For example, at the lower end of the coaching spectrum, you may receive a cookie-cutter program to follow. Or you may receive personalized programming, but with little to no contact with your coach.
Moving up the spectrum, you might receive: weekly email support from your coach and/or responses in a group forum such as a Facebook group and/or supplementary reading or coursework to explore.
Further up, you might receive support from your coach on a group call.
And at the high end of the spectrum, you’ll receive fully personalized support in-person or on private calls, with unlimited text and/or email access to your coach in between sessions.
As a coach, there are a few reasons why I don’t work at the low end of the spectrum.
The primary reason is because when it comes to food relationship coaching, I have found that light-touch support isn’t effective.
For some individuals, based on their goals and history, all they may need is moderate nutrition education and occasional reminders or updates to guide them on their journey. But in my experience as a coach, these folks comprised less than 1% of my clients.
This was one of the most frustrating experiences for me when I was working as a contractor for a nutrition coaching company. I needed to go deeper with the vast majority of my clients, but I had a choice to make.
Clients were receiving a low level of support (email coaching), and paying accordingly, which meant in order to make a living, I needed to coach many individuals at the same time, stretching my time and my attention thin.
Time-wise, it would have been impossible for me to go as deep as I wanted to with each person to make their coaching truly effective.
I was forced to choose between being ineffective, being broke, or being burnt out.
At the time, I chose to be burnt out, because I attempted to give each person I worked with more than what they paid for—which was what I believed they deserved and needed.
So, I quit my job. And I returned to my own business, Ritual Coaching Collective, where calls are a necessity. Is my coaching more expensive than what other coaches charge? Yes. But do I get vastly better results with my model? Also yes.
While to some it may sound like bragging, I know that I get better results than other coaches and I know that I make a deeper impact than weight loss coaches. I have experimented with many coaching models over the years, and I know that the one I use now is the most effective.
Once I discovered that, I set about making my coaching as affordable as possible, while still preserving its effectiveness. Which is how I landed on a hybrid model for Food Body Self®.
The backbone of the course is group calls, making it more affordable than private coaching, but each student also receives one private call each month with the option to add more, along with lifetime access to supplementary course materials including articles, videos, and guided meditations.
Understanding and transforming our relationship with food is often a complex and challenging journey. Mere diet advice and external rules are insufficient to address the root causes of disordered eating behaviors, which is why food relationship coaching has become a necessity.
Unlike traditional weight loss coaching, food relationship coaching delves into the deeper "why" behind our food choices, focusing on mindset, emotions, and intrinsic motivation to create lasting change.
While there is an abundance of information available on the internet, the value of enlisting the support of a coach cannot be understated. A coach serves as a guiding hand, offering personalized attention, accountability, and expertise tailored to individual needs. Through the coaching relationship, clients find the space to address limiting beliefs, explore their motivations, and develop the self-belief necessary for sustainable growth.
The decision to invest in coaching is not just about the cost, but the potential for profound and lasting change. While there may be lower-cost options available, it is essential to recognize the importance of personalized support and the impact it can have on achieving desired outcomes.
As a food relationship coach, I’m committed to providing the most effective coaching model possible, one that allows clients to explore their journey in a supportive group setting while also benefiting from individualized attention through private calls and supplementary course materials.
Ultimately, food relationship coaching offers a unique and transformative approach to addressing food-related challenges and achieving food freedom. By shifting the focus from external rules to intrinsic motivation, individuals can find peace with food, their bodies, and themselves, leading to lasting positive changes in their lives.
Embracing this holistic and personalized coaching experience can be the key to unlocking a healthier and more balanced relationship with food, paving the way for a more fulfilled and empowered life.