The Real Value of Online Personal Coaching (It’s not the Training Program or Diet)

A lot of people make the mistake to join a personal fitness coaching program with the idea that they  have to impress their coach.

This means that when they have a good training and diet streak, they do their weekly progress check-ins.

Once they have a bad week or two, they stop reporting on their progress and “wait” with replying to emails until they can show positive results.

As a coach, it’s frustrating to have a client who doesn’t check-in when results are bad because in many cases it’s not the client’s fault.

It could just be that training and diet strategy I designed for you isn’t right for YOU.

There can be many reasons to why a plan isn’t right for you:

• The diet is unrealistic to stick to because you’re going through a busy time in your life so you don’t have the time to prepare meals.
• You feel intolerable cravings for sugar and starches.
• The training is too difficult for you.
• The diet is too low in Calories and you have intolerable levels of hunger, low energy levels and a low sex drive.
• You don’t respond well to the overall training and diet strategy.

Knowing that everyone responds differently to training and diet and that life often get’s in the way, I never judge my clients for “not working hard enough” or “being weak”.

This kind of coaching mentality only works on professional athletes who want to reach goal Y in X amount of time. Not for regular people with full-time jobs, studies and families.

This is why I want you to check in with me every week, regardless of whether the results are good or bad.

When results are good, I can tell you that you’re on the right track.

When results are bad, I can go in and help you get better results.

By making a few tweaks to your training and diet, I can help you come up with a plan that works MUCH better for you.

A good example of this is Francis that I shared on the SKINNY-FAT TRANSFORMATION blog. 

He always thought that he had to cut Calories to lose more body-fat, but the opposite was true. He dieted so hard that his metabolism slowed down.

When we increased his food intake, his metabolism increased and he was able to lose body-fat while gaining strength and muscle mass at the same time… and feeling great on a daily basis rather than being hungry, weak and low on energy.

The end result is the photo below:

Francis got amazing results while feeling great throughout the process because we tweaked his plan until it was just right for him.

The tweaks weren’t huge, but they ended up making a BIG difference.

If he tried to grind out results by himself and didn’t track progress or check in with me every Sunday and give me his BioFeedback reports, I wouldn’t be able to help him move in the right direction.

My hands would be tied because I wouldn’t have any good data or information to make good adjustments.

As a coach, I need to get your BioFeedback when it happens because you won’t be able to remember how you felt after a certain meal or training session in 2 or 3 weeks.

With my coaching clients, I have them track 14 BioFeedback questions related to training, diet, sleep and stress. Every single day for the first 7 days of their first training program and diet plan.

Here are examples of BioFeedback notes I got from clients:

• “I felt hungry before bed so I couldn’t sleep well.”
• “I felt tired and bloated after eating brown rice and turkey breast for lunch.”
• “Chin ups gave me elbow pain.”
• “I felt unbearable cravings for sugar so I ended up binging on gummy bears yesterday.”

Tracking BioFeedback is time-consuming in the first week but it pays off big time because I will get all the details I need to come up with a plan that works for YOU.

The goal is to come up with a plan that makes you feel good while getting your best results because that’s the only way you can stick to the plan long-term.

Getting this balance right is VERY difficult but once you get it, it’s 100% worth the initial effort.

If you ever decide to join a personal coaching program, I hope you keep this in mind so you can get the most value out of your training.

Be proud but stay hungry!

Oskar Faarkrog