Video Transcript

Welcome to day 4 of the Precision Nutrition 5-day Exercise and Sport Nutrition Coaching course.

So far I hope you’ve collected a lot of great information using the assessment forms and questionnaires I shared the other day.

I also hope you’ve come up with a smart, strategic, and targeted action plan that suits your client’s goals, nutritional level, readiness, and ability to execute.

Next up, it’s time to track what your client is doing and how it’s working.

So, today, we’ll look at how to measure your client’s progress and use that data to help guide your decisions.

But before I get into the specifics of measurement, here are two things to think about.

First, in coaching, there is no “failure”. There’s only feedback.

To a coach, everything is just data and information.

So if your client’s results are going the way you expect, great.

And if they’re not going the way you expect, that’s great too.

Because that data gives you clues about where you might need to make changes.

You see, coaching is an iterative process.

This means you’ll try something and see how it goes. Then you’ll refine your advice, or individualize the program further, based on the results you get.

So treat all information as extremely valuable.

If what you do with a client doesn’t work, you didn’t “screw up” — you just learned some important insight about what doesn’t work for a specific person.

Now you have the chance to change your approach, or try something else.

Second, every decision you make as a coach should be based on data and assessment, rather than on guessing or imagining.

You should always be asking yourself:

• Is this working for my client?
• How do I know for sure whether it’s working?
• What do the data say I should be doing next?

I call this outcome-based decision making.

What works for one client may not work for another client. So you always have pay attention to what the data are telling you… not what you think you “should” do, and certainly not on what worked for some other client.

So now let’s look at what you can be tracking, and where your focus should be.

Let’s start by understanding the difference between a few types of metrics and progress indicators.

The first type of progress metric is probably something you’re familiar with: measuring the outcome of something.

Outcome measures are usually numeric indicators, such as a client’s body weight, body fat or lean mass, blood work (such as their cholesterol score), athletic performance (like how much weight they can lift or how fast they can run), and so on — all of those numbers that clients are looking for in terms of end results.

The second type of progress indicator is what I might call a process indicator — in other words, how your client is feeling or doing along the way.

For instance, you might track things like your client’s daily heart rate variability, how well they’re sleeping every night, what their mood is every day, how much energy they have every day, how hungry they are every day, and so on.

Process indicators give you a kind of “running newsfeed” about how a client is doing, and they’re really helpful for alerting you to small problems before they become big ones.

For example, if your client starts having several days of low energy and poor sleep, that might tell you there’s something about their plan that you should change before it becomes a more serious issue.

The third kind of progress measure is what I call a behavior-based indicator.

These are things like how well your client is sticking to their nutrition habits and exercise plan, how effective they are at doing the important actions, and how many of those little steps they’re taking towards their goals.

So behavior metrics track what your client is actually doing.

And these are probably some of the most important ones you’ll track as a coach. Because these are pretty much the only things that your clients can actually control.

You can’t make outcomes happen. You can’t make your client’s body lose 10 pounds, or bench press 200 pounds, or lower their cholesterol by 10 points.

Your clients can’t control their fat cells, or muscle cells, or how their body processes cholesterol.

However, your clients can control their behaviors.

So, by focusing primarily on doing the behaviors that matter, you can have the best possible chance of working towards the outcome that your clients want.

What this also means is that along with tracking those outcome measures like body weight or athletic performance, you should be tracking how consistent your clients are with their behaviors.

In fact, much of your coaching should be directed at helping clients do those behaviors that really matter — helping them with information, logistics, strategies, execution, and being as consistent as possible.

So let’s look at how that works in terms of your process.

Step 1 is to decide what to measure.

I suggest you come up with a good selection of different types of progress indicators — some outcome measures, some process measures, and some behavior-based measures.

Now, this doesn’t have to be super complicated. For instance, behavior measures can be a simple yes or no — did you do your one habit today?

Find a balance between measuring a wide range of things, and not overwhelming the client with too much measurement. And make sure you’re measuring what actually matters to your client.

Step 2 is to get a baseline.

As soon as possible, get a baseline set of measurements so you know where your clients are starting from.

It’s important here to reassure your clients that wherever they’re starting from is OK, because over time, they’ll hopefully see changes and improvements.

Step 3 is to have a schedule for regular check-ins and measurements.

Decide in advance how often you’re going to measure things for your client.

I suggest you ask your client to track their nutrition habits every day — which, again, can be a simple yes/no that they tick off on a sheet.

You may want to ask your client to do some simple process tracking every day too, for instance, on a scale of 1 to 10, how is your energy level or your mood today? Or how well did you sleep last night?

If your client is looking for changes to their body composition, I suggest you take body measurements every 1 to 2 weeks, such as body weight and body girths.

I also suggest, for your body composition clients, that you take photographs every 4 to 6 weeks. Often, you’ll be able to see changes in a photograph that don’t show up on the scale, or with a tape measure.

And you may also want to take body fat measurements with skinfold calipers or some other reliable method every 4 to 8 weeks, depending on how quickly your client is progressing.

If your client is looking to improve their blood work, you’ll probably want to ask them to schedule some lab tests every 4 to 6 months.

And if they’re looking to improve their athletic performance, you might do specific tests with them in the gym on a regular basis, track things like their recovery or heart rate variability, or simply use their competition performance as your progress indicators.

Step 4 is to use the data you gather to make decisions.

Every time you collect your client’s progress metrics, take some time to analyze what’s working and what’s not.

In particular, you really want to focus on those behavior indicators.

You want to be curious about why your clients are able to do their habits, or not.

So, if a client is able to do their habits well, why is that?

What’s already working, and how could you do more of that?

Look for clues about how you might move forward using what the client is really good at — for instance, if their habit sheet suggests they’re really good at prepping lunch to take to work, could they also be good at prepping a healthy breakfast or dinner in advance?

On the other hand, if a client isn’t able to do their habits well, why is that?

Is the process too complicated for them?

Is it too time-consuming for them?

Is there an essential piece of information they’re missing — for instance, are they not eating protein because they don’t know what foods have protein, or how to prepare foods with protein?

Is there some resistance to the task that you might need to work through?

Is there something else in the way?

What you’re looking for is to eventually settle on tasks that your client can do, and be successful with…consistently.

So it’s absolutely OK to simplify a task that your client is struggling with.

Go ahead and make things easier if the data show that a particular task might not be an ideal fit for a particular client.

It’s better to start as easy and small as possible, and add challenge over time, as your client begins to feel more confident and successful.

In tomorrow’s lesson, we’ll look more closely at how to adjust a client’s plan based on the data that you collect here.

For today, check out a few of our progress tracking sheets, which you can find below this video. These are the kinds of worksheets we use for monitoring our own clients.

Download them for a few great examples of differentiating between outcome, process, and behavior metrics. And feel free to start using them right away.

These ongoing measurements will give you important clues as to how you can modify a client’s program based on what’s working and what isn’t.

In tomorrow’s lesson, we’ll look more closely at this idea as we discuss Step 4: Adjust.

See you tomorrow.