Video Transcript

Welcome to day 2 of the Precision Nutrition 5-day Exercise and Sport Nutrition Coaching course.

Today, we’ll look at the first step in the Precision Nutrition coaching process: Assessing your clients.

As a coach, you need to have a clear, step by step, repeatable and trusted system for assessment… for a few reasons.

First, although they usually mean well and want to do a good job, your clients rarely know what they want and need from you as a coach and mentor.

Even if you’re a very nice person, they may worry that you’ll judge them, or they may feel “stupid” for doing the “wrong” things, or “falling off the wagon”.

They may feel worried, insecure, ambivalent, overwhelmed, confused, or just busy and distracted. So they’ll often tell you what they think you want to hear.

Or they may come up with reasons for why they haven’t gotten to their goals yet, which may or not be accurate.

It’s not that clients are dumb or liars, it’s that as human beings, we’re not always good at knowing why we do things.

Second, you don’t just need “information” from your clients — you need the right information.

By that I mean information that is actually relevant. Information that is accurate. And information that you gather in the most effective and time-efficient ways.

So what we’re really talking about here is information gathering that’s:

• Purposeful In other words, every piece of information you ask about has a reason to be there.
• Focused On getting helpful and appropriate data about your client.
• And action-oriented In other words, you get that information in a format that you can use immediately to create an action plan; one that your client will be excited about, do consistently, and benefit from over time.

So how do you do this?

You need a system.

In Precision Nutrition Coaching and in our Level 1 and Level 2 Certification programs, we have a clear process for gathering information.

At your first meeting with a client, or perhaps even before you meet, you provide them with a well-structured set of questionnaires.

These questionnaires not only ensure that you ask about all the right things, but also that you can repeat this process consistently with every single client.

Having questionnaires filled out before you meet with someone means that your client starts thinking about these questions in advance, which gives them time to reflect.

And that actually kick-starts the process of change… even before your first meeting.

But regardless of when you fill out these forms, once they’re completed you’ll have a ton of information to guide your discussion right away.

In our programs, we use a wide range of questionnaires, worksheets, and other forms to assess and track everything from: body measurements, to eating habits, to time use, to stress, blood chemistry, and a lot more.

Today I’ll start you out with a few forms that can give you a broad foundation and get you going right away. You’ll see links to download all of those below the video.

When you look at the forms, you might notice a few things.

First, you might notice that we cover a lot of ground with a few simple assessments.

We ask about everything from very practical details to clients’ mindset and readiness.

Most forms also have a client and coach version — the client version is for them to fill out. And the coach version has a little script that you can use to introduce the questions to your client, or a rationale for why we ask certain questions.

Second, you might notice that you can use most of these forms for both an initial baseline assessment and to track progress periodically.

For questions that have numeric scores, such as those that ask clients to rank themselves on a scale of 1 to 10, you can use those scores to track progress as well.

A client who gives you a 6 on how they feel about their eating habits when you start working together might give you a 7 in a month. That’s big progress!

Finally, client responses to questions can suggest what areas to work on and track.

You don’t even have to come up with your own ideas — those ideas will often be right there for you, in the client’s own handwriting.

At this point, here are a few things I suggest you focus on:

First, what does the client want to do?
Make sure you clearly understand the client’s goals.

Second, how does the client want to get those goals?
What are they ready, willing, and able to do to achieve them?

Third, where’s your client starting out?
What’s their level? — in terms of their physical capacity and fitness, as well as their ability to be consistent with habits?

At Precision Nutrition, we divide clients into nutritional levels, based on what they know, what they can do, and what they can do consistently.

• Most clients are Level 1s, and these are folks who have some knowledge, struggle to do their habits consistently, and just want to look, feel, and perform a bit better.
• A few clients will be Level 2s, who are probably higher-level amateur or recreational athletes who are already quite consistent with the basics and looking for the extra edge in body composition, performance and recovery. With these clients, we might use more advanced nutritional strategies as well as do things like elimination diets to test for food intolerances and sensitivities.
• Finally, a very, very few clients will be Level 3s, who are elite or professional physique competitors or athletes such as MMA fighters, who need elite-level nutritional protocols. With these athletes, not only do we do much more in-depth, tailored programming and close monitoring, we might also introduce even more sophisticated protocols like testing their genome or microbiome.

Fourth, what are your clients’ limiting factors and bright spots?

In other words, where are they struggling, and what are they doing well already?

You see, at some point in their lives, most clients will have tried at least something to make body changes. So I suggest asking about what’s already worked for them in the past, or is working now.

This way you can use their strengths to build their initial program.

Here’s what to do next.

Download the forms below this video.

Read through them. You don’t have to understand them all; just get familiar with them.

Think about why we asked the questions we’ve asked, and think about how you could use the information that you get from them.

And that’ll bring us to tomorrow. I’ll be back with the next step in the nutrition coaching process… Step 2: Advise.

Specifically, we’ll discuss how to use what you learned during the initial assessment to plan a client’s nutrition strategy.

See you then.