This topic contains 18 replies, has 9 voices, and was last updated by 
-
Posts
-
I am going to stick primarily to my athletes here as general population opens up a shit storm of emotional issues.
Barriers:
- too busy
- didn’t meal prep
- Don’t know how to cook
- Don’t do the shopping
- Can’t eat that much
- not hungry after practice, weights, games, etc…
- don’t like vegetables
Solutions:
- How bad do you want it? Make it happen and stop making excuses!
- Learn how to cook, mommy isn’t going to college with you so you might as well start now.
- Go grocery shopping with your parents or tell your parents to schedule a meeting with me to go over proper nutrition lists/items.
- Just like you practice your shot, or steadily progress in the weight room, you must practice eating and steadily progress to eating more if you want to gain weight.
- Utilize a shake after activity if solid food isn’t immediately appetizing.
- Be a grown up, learn to cook them so they taste good and eat them.
-
I’m going to jump on this before everyone else says all the common barriers.
I dont work with gen pop. I help my soldiers, for those who want to listen.
I have little patients for people’s excuses too so I have been quite an ass about these things.
Barrier:
I don’t have time
Solution:
Make time or stay fat and get kicked out of the Army.
Barrier:
But I already spent money on the bad food in my house and don’t want to throw it out.
Solution:
I threw my girlfriends crap out and she got pissed. Now I just throw judgemental glares her way when I see here eat crap. I offer my soldiers to let me come over and throw it out for them. Throw it out or stay sub-par.
Barrier:
I don’t like the way it tastes
Solution:
Learn how to cook, find a new way to cook, find new food choice
Barrier:
I eat out a lot
Solution:
Stop eating out (unless it’s really good pussy). Eat before you go out and buy something small. Be the one to choose where to eat.
-
Ben, all the machine guns this weekend has you turnt up! You know you’ll chow whatever box comes your way!! Ask Hobbs!
-
-
Just like @benkuch and @chobbs mentioned pretty much all of the biggest ones. The one I want to expand on is the instant gratification status. We are all used to having the page print afap, or getting the page to upload fast, everything is fast! I want to lose 20 yesterday and so on. People don’t want to spend a full year measuring their food and tracking what they have eaten every minute of the day. So I always say to them… what is the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again expecting a new result. It is time to do something that you have never done before. I start by asking for 6 weeks of perfect eating. Then we go from there.
The other big aspect that we have also talked about the GRIND. People are not used to the grind, the monotony, the staying the course, the discipline …. the sacrifice. When the “you pay now or you pay later” phrase comes in, people start listening. In my case my older people are more open to listen to this information about wellness and growing old than my young people that think they can eat like crap and still perform. When we say the word depends and assisted living it is a tough reality to face.
-
@benkuch Dropping the hammer from off the top rope.
-
When speaking with teenage athletes, the excuses and barriers are endless!!
*I don’t have time to make breakfast so I just grab something on the way out the door.
Please go to bed earlier and get up earlier to start your day with a good big breakfast.
*I eat whatever is served at the cafeteria.
Please make your lunch for a week and see how your performance and how you feel improves.
*Teachers won’t let me eat in class.
Please have the teacher contact me, I will work it out. You need to pick foods that are not disruptive to the class.
*I don’t like vegetables.
Grow the fuck up and find some that you like.
Speaking with the parents is a mixed bag. A lot of the moms go crazy when I discuss adding fat to their athlete’s diets. I then discuss the current and past research on good fats vs. bad fats, the caloric expenditure of burning fat , the benefits of more fats in their diets as well, and when all else fails, kick them over to Robb Wolff and Dr. Ken Ford’s pages. Dads seem to want to know what supplements their boys should be on to gain mass. I start by having them switch to whole milk with every meal, and double the serving sizes of all aspects of their meals. One chicken breast becomes two, two becomes four, double the veggies and add rice or fruit when more carbs are needed and they have had their fill of veggies. Put grass fed butter on everything. Please visit PAHQ website for JW’s Wagon Wheel recipe as well.
-
I hear you on the frustration with lack of personal responsibility, but let’s bring this back to coaching and chunking learning.
When an athlete is struggling with loading their posterior chain in a squat, would you ask them “How bad do you want it?” or tell them to “Make it happen.”? Or would you break the movement down into remedial exercises so that they could feel, learn and understand all of the necessary components?
Do you assume that your athletes can squat perfectly but lack the will power to do so? Or do you think that they don’t have the understanding or motor control to do it properly despite their best intentions?
Is a coach who yells at their athletes to “Just squat the weight! If you want it bad enough you’ll DO it!” teaching their athletes anything? Or is it the sign of a coach who doesn’t have the skill to fix the problem?
While it may feel good, taking the Dr. Phil approach of telling people to man up and figure it out doesn’t provide any actionable direction.
Athletes need benchmarks and guidance for food the same way that they need movement prep and primal movement practice for athletic proficiency. Some athletes legitimately do not know how to go grocery shopping. Do not know how to boil water or cook on a stove top. They simply haven’t been exposed to it. And if they’re coming to you for guidance, there is also a chance that they have a legit physiological dependence on sugar, processed food and products that they have no tools for dealing with.
We provide athletes with three main tools in our nutrition program:
- A laminated print out with a picture of what a plate full of food should look like if you are following the nutritional guidelines.
- A weekly schedule they have to fill out and submit the Friday before the upcoming week that shows how they have blocked off time for:
- Planning
- Cooking
- Meal Prep
- Grocery Shopping
- Gym
- Commuting
- Work
- A sheet that includes three short term goals and two specific scenarios they have written out where they visualize a potential problem for that week and how they will deal with. THIS IS POWERFUL. By visualizing what their meals, their week and their problems look like they are much more likely to adhere to the behavioral changes needed to alter their diets.
Your athletes may be at a loss as to how to organize their lives and introduce new habits when it comes to nutrition. Their seeming lack of drive or discipline is an OPPORTUNITY for you to install a new set of behaviors. Think of them as a blank slate. Instead of turning them loose to search the internet for juice cleanses and whole wheat pizza crust recipes, give them the tools they are lacking and asking you for.
Getting frustrated with your athletes for their lack of knowledge reduces their likelihood to come to you with other questions and concerns. While I have also thrown out food for my clients, I don’t tell them to simply lift themselves up by their bootstraps and figure it out. If they’ve given me a chance to shape their habits, you better believe I’m going to exploit that opportunity for all that it’s worth.
Now, granted, most of you guys aren’t running gyms in an area that is predominantly female, overtly academic and dominantly liberal so my “hold your hand and sing kum-by-yah” approach may not be exactly your style.
My point is that we can at the very least offer our athletes resources as follow up to our tough love.
Don’t know how to cook. / Well, you when you learn how you’re going to get better results in the gym and impress girls. Here is a cookbook on how to use a slow cooker. I want you to make me 1 recipe and bring me a sample in 3 days.
I don’t have time. / Here is a spreadsheet I want you to fill out by this time tomorrow with your schedule for the next week. You need to block off two three hour periods for cooking that are at least two days apart. Why three hours? Because we know you can’t cook, so it’ll probably take your dumb ass three quarters of an hour to finish making minute rice. You need time to learn. I also want you to list what you’re going to give up to make room for that three hours. It’s probably going to be watching TV. I expect to see pictures of you cooking at the start and finish of that time window. If you don’t accomplish that I’ll assume you were watching TV and I will come to your house and take your TV or your cable/DirecTV/Apply Play device. The choice is yours.
Detailed, actionable and timely guidance that gives them something to accomplish and build on. Then be a hard ass in enforcing it.
-
This is a very solid and fair point @conorwlynch, as the “solutions” I put forward on mine only work a small percentage of the time. Nutrition with our athlete’s is the next stage in our evolution with The Athlete Factory, however, dealing with kids is a totally different beast. I like the idea of a folder of essentially a picture book of recipes and guidelines. I/we need to do a much better job of getting through to them on nutrition and not using the excuse that they are kids. Any and all ideas/help is definitely wanted. A big thing is to have more staff available at the times of our groups as it is chaotic currently given our numbers to do anything other than manage, organize and coach the workouts. This is a work in progress and thanks for bringing a serious approach to make a difference with the question that was posed.
-
I think this is a very detailed and thoughtful presentation on helping people understand nutrition in a more methodical and aware way BUT reading it gave me anxiety. I think this approach may work for a select group of people but I find it hard to believe that the majority of people want this much “homework”. I align more with @carlcase and try and fix one thing at a time and hopefully show them results and build confidence as they go. I can speak from personal experience that I’ve personally seen better results when I’ve gradually changed, or “stacked”, habits as opposed to complete overhauls.
-
Any way to attach a .pdf to a post?
Or link to it?
I’ve got a three page excerpt on specific visualization and will power that I wanted to share.
-
Email it to everyone
-
-
Another suggestion that I forgot about:
Mutual accountability. Me and four other guys at the gym have a weekly Meat Share. Yes, I meant to write that.
We all cook enough of one item to share with the other guys.
1. It makes you plan ahead so that you have food cooked and separated into portions for everyone.
2. You learn new foods and recipes because you don’t want to be the guy who makes chicken wings each week.
3. You’re pushed to make food better and better because you’re serving it to other people.
Granted we all have been cooking for ourselves for years, but it could be a way to get guys interested in cooking without having a coach leading them through a separate class each week.
Plus, Meat Share looks great on a t-shirt. Or a poster. Or a packet of food.
-
I really like the putting importance on the mutual accountability piece, especially if you are working with teammates or full teams. When they are eating lunch at school together, hold each other accountable. Don’t let your teammate slide with mediocracy. They have to get used to holding each other accountable, as well as taking the criticism. They are going to have to do the same thing on the field.
-
-
I’ll add emotional eating that people can’t control or aren’t aware of.
I have a hard time finding solutions for this. I’m not a behavior expert. I’ll default to, do you want to improve your performance?.. Yes, then eat to fuel your body and not cuz of your weak ass emotions.
-
After essentially giving a modified version of the CFFB seminar nutrition lecture to my athletes, they all nod their heads in agreeance that this is how they should be eating. But the biggest barriers I face are (1) I don’t know how to cook/what should I make. My solution is much like Field Strong used to do, every Sunday I send them a recipe that they can make for the week as a good food choice. (2) Lack of compliance and I feel this can be for a few different reasons. One is just the pure information overload/180 degree turn you are asking them to make. Like Connor said, I like to work it in via a chunking model. Week 1: focus on a breakfast that fits the guidelines, Week 2: breakfast + lunch, Week 3: breakfast + lunch + Dinner, Week 4: breakfast + lunch + Dinner + snacks/pre and post workout nutrition. Makes it a little more digestible.
I had a sit down with one of my softball players and her parents because she was actually looking to gain weight. One barrier was the mom was shocked that she was going to have to cook. We sent her a bunch of recipes to get her going. Another thing was they were puzzled about what was how to keep the food at school. Which kind floored me and my business partner, but we told them to invest in a good cooler. Then they said well then she would have to carry it around with her all day because she doesn’t use her locker. Our response in a polite way was essentially deal with it. Another thing that kept coming up was what if she isn’t hungry. We told them it is something that she is going to have to get used to feeling, and that this will be like a full time job for her. We closed it out with if she wants to take herself serious as D1 athlete she is going to have to start taking responsibilities for things like this
-
The biggest obstacle I’ve encountered is people’s unwillingness to change little habits. The problem is that each decision independent of each other is not horrible but when looked at from a macro perspective you can understand why they’re having trouble seeing results.
My gym just completed the Whole Life Challenge and after wanting to slap most of my members the first week complaining about missing the creamer in their coffee, they went on to do pretty well. The biggest thing for most of them was awareness. I was amazed at how few of them understood the big picture and how their individual choices affected the overall diet. By slowly getting them to build better habits they began to see results and were then motivated to continue and not “waste” their hard work, it was the snowball effect. Complete overhauls of your diet are stressful, I’m not saying that it isn’t warranted in some cases, but I’ve seen better results and more realistic long term changes when done in a gradual way.
-
Transtheoretical Model: http://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/MPH-Modules/SB/SB721-Models/SB721-Models6.html
Precontemplation – In this stage, people do not intend to take action in the foreseeable future (defined as within the next 6 months). People are often unaware that their behavior is problematic or produces negative consequences. People in this stage often underestimate the pros of changing behavior and place too much emphasis on the cons of changing behavior.
Contemplation – In this stage, people are intending to start the healthy behavior in the foreseeable future (defined as within the next 6 months). People recognize that their behavior may be problematic, and a more thoughtful and practical consideration of the pros and cons of changing the behavior takes place, with equal emphasis placed on both. Even with this recognition, people may still feel ambivalent toward changing their behavior.
Preparation (Determination) – In this stage, people are ready to take action within the next 30 days. People start to take small steps toward the behavior change, and they believe changing their behavior can lead to a healthier life.
Action – In this stage, people have recently changed their behavior (defined as within the last 6 months) and intend to keep moving forward with that behavior change. People may exhibit this by modifying their problem behavior or acquiring new healthy behaviors.
Maintenance – In this stage, people have sustained their behavior change for a while (defined as more than 6 months) and intend to maintain the behavior change going forward. People in this stage work to prevent relapse to earlier stages.
Termination – In this stage, people have no desire to return to their unhealthy behaviors and are sure they will not relapse. Since this is rarely reached, and people tend to stay in the maintenance stage, this stage is often not considered in health promotion programs.Ten processes of change have been identified with some processes being more relevant to a specific stage of change than other processes. These processes result in strategies that help people make and maintain change.
Consciousness Raising – Increasing awareness about the healthy behavior.
Dramatic Relief – Emotional arousal about the health behavior, whether positive or negative arousal.
Self-Reevaluation – Self reappraisal to realize the healthy behavior is part of who they want to be.
Environmental Reevaluation – Social reappraisal to realize how their unhealthy behavior affects others.
Social Liberation – Environmental opportunities that exist to show society is supportive of the healthy behavior.
Self-Liberation – Commitment to change behavior based on the belief that achievement of the healthy behavior is possible.
Helping Relationships – Finding supportive relationships that encourage the desired change.
Counter-Conditioning – Substituting healthy behaviors and thoughts for unhealthy behaviors and thoughts.
Reinforcement Management – Rewarding the positive behavior and reducing the rewards that come from negative behavior.
Stimulus Control – Re-engineering the environment to have reminders and cues that support and encourage the healthy behavior and remove those that encourage the unhealthy behavior.LIMITATIONS
There are several limitations of TTM, which should be considered when using this theory in public health. Limitations of the model include the following:The theory ignores the social context in which change occurs, such as SES and income.
The lines between the stages can be arbitrary with no set criteria of how to determine a person’s stage of change. The questionnaires that have been developed to assign a person to a stage of change are not always standardized or validated.
There is no clear sense for how much time is needed for each stage, or how long a person can remain in a stage.
The model assumes that individuals make coherent and logical plans in their decision-making process when this is not always true.
The Transtheoretical Model provides suggested strategies for public health interventions to address people at various stages of the decision-making process. -
Welp, havent been able to log in consistently for a few days… Lost my long ass post this morning…
I see all of the same issues as everyone else. Time, Knowledge, exposure, etc… Coming from a culinary background, And a food education background I tend to see the disconnect in the area of knowledge, which affects time, and exposure. People simply are not familiar enough with food to approach it, and with the unfamiliarity comes an increased amount of time for planning, shopping, and prep. A lot of times people believe that a meal cooked from scratch using quality ingredients has to look and sound like something that you can only get in a 5-star restaraunt. I prepare 90% of my meals at home for a family of 5 and almost all of them are simple iterations of sauteed, roasted or fresh vegetable, and meat. In my experience the biggest limiting factor is peoples inabiity to prepare food. I am not going to turn to a working class family of 5 and tell them they just need to suck it up and put in work to make it happen. Thats just not how it works. Our society does not promote healthy living or healthy eating, and if you are going to partake in it you are in for an uphill, upstream fight.
The best answer I can give to people is to start small, start somewhere. Pick one meal a day, prepare it at home using from scratch ingredients, make it a habit and go from their. I have so much I want to say on this topic but Its all been lost to the internet. There are so many factors when it comes to good diet that do not have to do with diet itself. I tend to think I live a pretty hectic lifestyle with three kids and dogs and two small business owners but even then, I still lead a relatively comfortable middle class life, which affords me the opportunity to dial in my diet in a way that other people just dont have the time or resources to do.
<span style=”font-family: ‘Helvetica Neue’, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;”> </span>
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.