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Precision Nutrition, Inc www.precisionnutrition.com [email protected]
The Future of Nutrition and Body Transformation John Berardi, PhD, CSCS
www.precisionnutrition.com When discussing the future of nutrition and body transformation, it’s always easy to talk about tips and tricks for progressing as personal trainers and strength and conditioning professionals. However, when dreaming up ideas about the future, I think we’d be missing the point of this exercise if we didn’t stop for a few minutes and consider the big picture. And in my opinion, the big picture is this. Instead of thinking about upcoming trends and how we can follow them, we need to consider where the industry should be going and how we can help it get there. The question then becomes – what direction are we going to push the industry in? Based on my conversations with industry leaders, the consensus seems to be this: the future will bring us from an exercise or movement based focus – which I know has dominated most trainers’ professional experience to date – to a client or person centered approach. A place where the client’s comprehensive needs are considered, not just their movement needs. A place where clients aren’t just told to exercise but guided in their movement choices, nutrition choices, and, in many cases, how they organize their lives. In essence, as fitness professionals, the future will bring a movement from teaching exercise as our core competency to changing lives as our higher calling. Because our clients don’t actually hire us to learn how to move. They hire us to help them feel better about their lives; about the way they look, about the way they feel, about the way they perform. Yes, exercise can help with this. But exercise alone isn’t sufficient. We all know this. We’ll get into this concept more in a minute. But, for now, I’d like to give you a little background about myself, my team, and what we do. Then we’ll talk about 6 important paradigm shifts that will change the face of the industry in the next 5-10 years. About Our Team Precision Nutrition is one of the world’s largest private nutrition research and coaching companies. And we focus on three things:
• nutrition research (both real-world and laboratory experiments) • nutrition coaching (using the results of our experiments to help people improve their lives) • nutrition certification (teaching our systems to other fitness and nutrition professionals)
In this article I’ll speak mostly about coaching. Specially, one of the programs we’re most proud of, our Lean Eating Coaching Program. Through this program, we’ve coached over 8,000 clients in the last 4 years, clients who’ve lost over 160,000 pounds. These clients are men and women of all ages, living in over 100 countries. And in addition to coaching them, we’ve also collected rigorous data on everything from genetic make-up…to personality profile…to program compliance…to results. The before and after transformations Lean Eating are life-changing and jaw-dropping. Here are just a few of the thousands of examples:
• http://www.precisionnutrition.com/fat-loss-stories-girls • http://www.precisionnutrition.com/fat-loss-stories-guys
Precision Nutrition, Inc www.precisionnutrition.com [email protected]
Interestingly, despite the amazing before and after pictures, the thing we’re most proud of is how well our clients can stick to the program. Indeed, people only take their life-saving cancer, diabetes, and heart disease medications 55% of the time. (Gasp! So much for the magic pill we’re all looking for). However, Lean Eating clients follow our exercise and nutrition recommendations over 71% of the time. Huh…30 seconds a day swallowing a pill vs. hard exercise and broccoli. Seems like an easy choice, right. But we still beat the pills. How are we able to accomplish this? Well, it comes down to the first paradigm shift I’d like to talk about… Paradigm Shift #1: The Use of Change Psychology The Precision Nutrition team is made up of some really bright men and women who have Masters’ degrees, PhDs, RDs, MDs, and countless certifications. In essence, our academic training has revolved around a deep understanding of the human body. How it digests, absorbs, and assimilates. How it moves. How it responds to exercise. And how it responds to stress. But here’s the reality most fitness pros don’t want to face. We don’t work with physiological machines. Instead we work with human people. People whose limiting factors almost always extend beyond physiology into the psychological realm. So it’s only when we start paying close attention to change psychology that we’re able to make a really meaningful difference in someone’s life. Now, a review of the field of change psychology goes beyond the scope of this article. However, to learn more about the field, I recommend the following 6 books, which have been instrumental in the development of my personal thoughts, and in the development of our coaching programs.
The Power of Less, by Leo Babauta Truly an outstanding little book describing the author’s analysis of his own growth and change. If you want to understand how change happens and how new habits are actually formed in the real world, there isn’t a better book than this one. A short read, chock full of simple, practical — and often counter-intuitive — insight into the transformation process. We recommend it to all our Lean Eating clients, and if you want to learn how to coach people who are struggling with change, you’d do well to read it too. Motivational Interviewing, by William R Miller & Stephen Rollnick Most trainers and coaches are utterly lost when it comes to talking to clients, or understanding how to help them change. Spend some time eavesdropping on a conversation between a trainer and a client in a commercial gym and you will likely hear either a) the trainer trying to impress the client by sharing everything he or she has ever learned about fitness in one breathless soliloquy, or b) the client talking about what they did last weekend. That’s a shame, and a missed opportunity. Because few people realize how important the dialog between coach and client really is, and what a key role it plays in the transformation process. Motivational Interviewing is a very specific style of dialog designed to provide clients with a safe place to contemplate change — and all coaching, whether with elite athletes or with rank beginners, is about facilitating change. The truth is that, in general, the way you speak to your clients is either encouraging change or deepening resistance, and if you haven’t read MI, you’ll be surprised to learn that much of what you’re doing has the effect of actually making change LESS likely. Read this book and start using bits of it with clients today; if you don’t, you’re doing your clients a major disservice.
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Switch, by Chip and Dan Heath They say that change is hard. Yet if that’s true, we sure don’t act like it. Every day, people are happily embarking on new career paths, getting married, having kids, and more. And these are huge changes. So why can’t you convince your clients to eat less processed food and more veggies? Well, that’s what authors Chip and Dan Health investigate in this excellent book. From their research, it’s clear that change isn’t always hard. Rather, when the two sides of our brains – our rational and our emotional brains – act in harmony, change can be effortless. Of course, there are specific steps that must be taken in every change effort. And in Switch, the Heath brothers will walk you through each of them, sharing an exact blueprint for helping others change anything about themselves. Crucial Conversations, by Kerry Patterson et al. Always pandering to a client is a sign of weakness in a coach. But so is berating them or being completely insensitive to their needs. A great coach must be able to hold clients accountable, and that inevitably means discussing difficult things (eating habits, behavioral patterns, problems with a spouse, compliance issues, etc.). But how do you learn to call a spade a spade without offending someone — or more to the point, how do you actually deepen a relationship with someone while explicitly discussing things that they may prefer not to hear? Crucial Conversations is the best book I’ve found on the topic, and I’ve read quite a number. The authors describe a step-by-step process, from recognizing when the discussion is getting critical (i.e., becoming aware of the emotions at stake) to being honest without being hurtful, to settling an issue and moving forward in agreement. Putting even just one or two of their techniques into practice with your clients will make you a far better coach. The Blackmail Diet, by John Bear This is a really hard one to track down, because it’s been out of print for so long. I just happened upon it a few years ago in a used book store and picked it up for $2 based on the name alone. What a title. The book itself doesn’t disappoint. The author, a PhD graduate from Michigan State who had battled with obesity and dieting most of his adult life, has an epiphany: obesity is a problem best solved psychologically. (Note: I disagree with that assessment, and of course I’m simplifying his position, but it’s quite true that coaches and people in general pay far too little attention to non-physiological factors involved in body transformation.) So he comes up with a plan: he signs a contract with a lawyer and puts $5,000 in escrow (i.e., at the mercy of the lawyer and completely out of his control). The contract states that if in a year’s time he doesn’t lose 70 lbs, the lawyer is legally obliged to give all the money to the American Nazi Party. Well, of course, for most sane people that’s an entirely unacceptable outcome, and sure enough a year later he had lost the full 70 lbs. He goes on to describe all kinds of similar weight loss experiments revolving around the same concept: people make a legally-binding pledge to either lose weight or face an unpalatable consequence. Now I’m not suggesting that you work this into your practice. But it’s a fascinating read for a coach, with two very important lessons: 1) when people have enough leverage on themselves, anything is possible; 2) clients have to make decisions and commitments when the motivation is high that will have lasting impact when the motivation wanes — which it inevitably will.
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Influence, by Robert Cialdini A classic collection of psychology experiments and anecdotes examining how influence actually works. Cialdini weaves a solid argument that people are hard-wired to look for very specific cues before they are convinced of something. Well, your clients will be examining everything about you and your practice, even in ways you might not have anticipated. For example, people look for social proof before adopting a new idea; in short, they ask: has this worked for anyone else? I’m always shocked by how few coaches can demonstrate the value of their work, either with case studies, with before/after pictures, or better yet, by directly introducing a new client to an older one who has already gone through the process. I highly recommend picking up this book if only to understand the thought process your clients go through when evaluating your services.
As an aside: if you aren’t documenting your work with clients, start now; and if you are but want to generate more impressive results to show off, I’ve got the book for you:
The Essentials of Sport and Exercise Nutrition, by John Berardi & Ryan Andrews As an author, I’m obviously biased, but if I may say so myself, this is the only book on nutrition you will ever need. A completely new 500-page academic textbook that Ryan Andrews and I wrote from the ground up, because frankly nothing like it existed. I’ve spent the lion’s share of my academic and professional careers pulling pieces from the dozen or so different fields of study involved in body transformation, from molecular biology to food science to behavioral psychology, just to name a few. And this is the text I wish I had when I started my career. To be an effective fitness professional — and by that, I mean to be able to help someone build their ideal body through exercise, nutrition and supplementation — you don’t need to master all of those fields. In fact, delving too deeply into any particular one of them at the exclusion of the others leaves you open to the hammer and nail problem (“If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”). But you do need to master the parts of each of those fields relevant to body transformation.
That’s what the Precision Nutrition Certification is about: turning trainers and strength coaches into true fitness professionals — into elite body transformation experts. Because in the 3-5 hours you have with a client each week (if you’re lucky), you can either teach them to exercise or you can guide them to the body they never thought they could have. The two are very different things.
In the end, these books have influenced our team in some very important ways. If you read through each of them over the next year, and put what you learn into practice, I promise you’ll be a completely different kind of fitness professional a year from today. But don’t rush out and get them all at once. As we’ll discuss in a minute, change has to be done slowly, one habit at a time… Paradigm Shift #2: Working on One Habit at a Time Taken altogether, the exercise and nutrition strategies we often ask our clients to do can seem overwhelming. That’s because trying to do all of them at once is too much to take on at any one time. Despite our misconception that humans are good multitaskers, most folks can only focus on and properly do one thing at a time. So, if you want to improve as a coach, do less. (With the caveat that you should be doing only the really important things while ignoring anything that’s not important – at least for now.) The best practical application of this advice? Adopt only one new coaching action for a month or so. Only
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add in another action once you’ve mastered the previous step. Your goal for each client should be the same: to lead them progressively towards the desired change. Just like you’d teach a complex movement skill progressively, instead of all at once, lifestyle skills have to be learned the same way. Truly, it’s far too easy to give clients too much information and too many tasks in the beginning. After all, good nutrition and fitness habits are seamlessly integrated into your life. It’s easy to forget that clients will take many self-conscious, hesitant, difficult steps in the beginning. As Leo Babauta argues in his book The Power of Less, give out one clear task, and 85% of clients can stick to it. Add a second task, and adherence drops to less than 35%. Three tasks – pffft. Now you’ve got less than 10% success. So start with one habit; ideally a habit that’s small, manageable, and as practical as possible. When in doubt, simply take your one assigned task and reduce the difficulty by half. If you want clients to eat 2 vegetables a day as their first task, start with 1 vegetable instead. Any tasks you assign must also be clear and specific. “Eat better” is no help at all. Even “eat more fruits and veggies” is too nebulous. So put a number on it. For example:
• Instead of “Work out more”, say, “Do 5 minutes of interval exercise today”. • Instead of “Eat more vegetables”, say, “Eat 1/2 cup of vegetables with each meal today”. • Instead of “Improve your posture”, say, “Get up from your chair every hour today.”
In addition to asking too much of our clients, another reason we don’t always have the type of success with clients we should is that we often don’t ask – we tell:
• Take two of these a day. • Eat 2 servings of this every day. • Exercise 5 hours this week.
How well do you respond to being told what to do? (We’re guessing not well.) Usually, our clients aren’t ignoring our suggestions out of spite. Most simply don’t think these actions are possible for them. Truly, a diehard carnivore might find “eat 5 vegetables a day” as momentous a task as climbing Everest. So, why not ask for your client’s feedback before dishing out advice? Really, when’s the last time you asked: On a scale of 1 to 10, how confident are you that you can do what I have asked? In our practice, we ask this of each client. Not only does it help us shape our advice. It also enlists the client in the change process. For example, if their answer is less than a 9 or 10, we know they won’t be able to do what we’re asking. So we make the task easier. In fact, we keep simplifying, clarifying, and reducing the difficulty until they can give us a heartfelt 9 or 10 on the confidence scale. This almost always leads to positive momentum and eventual success. In the end, one of the key principles of change psychology is this one: do less. Ask your clients to adopt only one new habit at a time. Make sure the habit is small, something they can do daily, and is easy to understand/measure. Finally, make sure your clients can answer 9 or 10 on the confidence scale. (If not, make the habit easier).
Precision Nutrition, Inc www.precisionnutrition.com [email protected]
And don’t forget to practice what you preach. When trying to make changes in your own life, do the same. Less. One habit at a time. Find the minimum effective dose… Paradigm Shift #3: Finding the Minimum Effective Dose Keeping in line with doing less theme, there’s a concept in the pharmaceutical industry known as the minimum effective dose and it specifies the dose of a drug required to produce a therapeutic response. (By extension, the minimum effective dose concept represents the minimum dose required to produce the desired response). Of course, all physiological responses have a minimum effective dose. And, typically, for best results, the minimum effective dose should be observed. Take sun exposure, for example. If the minimum effective dose for a suntan was 20 minutes of sun exposure every other day, if you want to get tan, you should spend time in the sun for at least 20 minutes every other day. But let’s say you want to get really tan. Should you then up the dose to 60 minutes every other day? Would that lead to 3x the tan? No way. Instead, you’d probably get burnt on the first day and need to stay out of the sun for a full week or two. And that’s not an effective way to improve your tan. The lesson here? Although this is counter-intuitive for a lot of people, exceeding the minimum effective usually slows down your progress, rather than speeding it up. In other words, more is not better. This is true in pharmaceutical prescription (too much will likely make you sick), sun tanning (you’ll get burnt), exercise training (you’ll damage too much muscle tissue), dieting (you’ll likely create too much of an energy deficit) and more. While this makes sense, in the fitness industry I’m pretty confident we don’t know what the minimum effective dose is for many of the things we recommend. For example, what’s the minimum effective dose of:
• exercise volume for fat loss? • hypertrophy work for muscle gain? • strength work for power lifting totals? • plyometric work for power development? • endurance exercise for increased AT? • energy deficit for fat loss? • nutrition habits for compliance?
We don’t know because many of us have never been incentivized to find the minimum effective dose. After all, most fitness and strength professionals got into this field because we love to exercise ourselves. So, the idea of finding the minimum amount of exercise doesn’t fit. Heck, many of us would like to find ways to do more exercise, not less. (As a side note, this is why I think a lot of us get mad when we see research studies comparing things like 1 set of exercise to 3 sets of exercise. We think the 1 set comparison is the lazy person’s approach. The shortcut. The magic pill that we know doesn’t exist). Maybe it is. But maybe not. So we shouldn’t get mad at researchers for trying to discover the minimum effective doses in different areas of our field. After all, every legitimate field of study looks for efficiency points in their area. These are the points where you get the most output for the lowest input. The biggest bang for your buck, as they say. If we hope to further the fitness industry, we’ll need to begin to discover these efficiency points in our field. Here’s one example. I recently worked with a client named Marsha. She’s a 28 year old woman who was
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5’6” and 150lbs when we met. She played co-ed sport 2x per week, either volleyball or soccer. But had never intentionally trained. Her goal was weight loss. Because Marsha was working 2 jobs, was heavily involved in a host of volunteer experiences, was planning a wedding, and admitted to not enjoying “gym exercise” very much, I built her program with the minimum effective dose in mind. Here’s what her program looked like.
Day 1 – 10 minutes Close-grip push-ups x 10 Inverted rows x 10 Kettlebell swings x 20 Rest 1 minute Repeat 5 times Day 2 – 6 minutes 2 minute walk 15 second treadmill sprint at 8mph and 12% incline 15 seconds rest Repeat 5 times 2 minute walk Day 3 – 10 minutes Close-grip push-ups x 10 Swiss ball crunches x 10 Air squats x 20 Rest 1 minute Repeat 5 times Day 4 – 6 minutes 2 minute walk 15 second treadmill sprint at 8mph and 12% incline 15 seconds rest Repeat 5 times 2 minute walk
She did this program for 16 weeks. And at the end of the 16 weeks, Marsha had lost 20lbs of body fat and dramatically shifted her body composition. She did this with a shockingly low exercise volume. If you do the math, in 4 months she exercised for a grand total of 8 hours. 30 minutes a week. Of course, if you’re savvy you’re probably wondering if we made any nutrition changes? Yes, of course we did. But, in the spirit of keeping this simple, I gave her the following nutrition suggestions:
• Weeks 1 and 2: I asked her to simply eat each meal slowly and have about 4 meals each day. No other changes.
• Weeks 3 and 4: I asked her to also begin eating lean protein, legumes, and lots of veggies w/each meal.
• Weeks 5 and 6: I asked her to also start avoiding white, starchy carbs, fruit, and calorie-containing drinks. In addition, I added one day each week where she could eat whatever she wanted.
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That’s it. No calorie calculations. No complicated rules. Just simple nutritional steps and 30 minutes of exercise per week. You can get much more efficient than that. Now, I’m not suggesting this plan would work for everyone. However, it should make you think. Maybe you’ve been making some invalid assumptions about what’s required of your fat loss clients to make progress? Maybe you’ve even been asking too much of your clients? Maybe by asking less of your clients, their compliance will increase and you’ll see better long-term results? In the end, finding the minimum effective dose means going in the opposite direction most of us are inclined to go. It means doing less, rather than more. It means figuring out the most important inputs and going hard on those critical things. It also means figuring out the least important inputs and eliminating them altogether. On the training side, on the nutrition side, and on the lifestyle side. But to do that, it means becoming more than a personal trainer, it means… Paradigm Shift #4: Grasping the Concept of Training+ Despite what it says on our business cards, we are not “personal trainers.” No, you and I transform bodies. We use things like exercise and nutrition to change lives. And that truth is much more powerful. So, as we enter the future of this industry, we’re going to need to embrace the concept of training+. In other words, yes, we’ll still do training. But we’ll also be expected to do other things like:
• Use physical therapy techniques to do movement screening, prehab, and rehab activities. • Use manual therapy techniques to help clients with mobility, flexibility, and tissue quality. • Use nutrition and lifestyle coaching to help clients eat better, sleep better, distress, etc. • Use exercise science metrics for screening clients and measuring progress.
In fact, even some of the big club chains like Equinox and Lifetime Fitness are beating us to the punch, offering all these things in-house, in the personal training environment. And while many independent personal trainers like to hate on the “big box” clubs, these chains are setting a standard that we can learn from. (Make no mistake, with big clubs like these already using the concept of training+; it’s just a matter of time before you’re expected to start including it in your practice too). Since physical therapy and manual therapy techniques are already here, the next big area is going to be the inclusion of nutrition in the personal training environment. We all know that training and nutrition belong together. So, why have we kept them separate? Maybe it’s that nutritionists have always felt like food was “their domain.” Trainers always felt like training was “their domain.” And neither group felt like they had the power to integrate the two. But, guess what…once upon a time, physical therapists and trainers felt the same way. Trainers never used any physical therapy techniques like functional movement screening, or dynamic mobility drills, or prehab exercises. And physical therapists never used training techniques. But about 5-10 years ago that all changed. Physical therapy techniques started being incorporated in the personal training environment. So we embraced things like movement screens and corrective exercise. Now, in the gym, we screen our clients, help them with muscle imbalances, and help them avoid injuries. This transition wasn’t easy, of course. In the beginning, guys like Gray Cook, one of the developers of the Functional Movement Screen, was sent nasty letters from physical therapy groups for sharing some of their techniques with personal trainers. Some even threatened legal action saying it was outside of the trainers’ scope of practice and it would hurt the field of physical therapy if trainers stole business this way.
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But we see how far that got them. Nowadays if you’re not using some basic therapy techniques in the gym as a trainer, you’re considered obsolete. And the therapists’ fears about trainers stealing business? That never really materialized. Heck, now there’s a greater cross-talk between industries leading to more business for both therapists and trainers. Collaboration usually works that way and is often better than territorial competition. Nutrition is shaping up the same way. Nowadays, threats from the ADA about scope of practice and stealing business are falling on deaf ears. And nutrition is going to follow the same path as physical therapy. In the next 5-10 years, using basic nutrition techniques in the training environment will be an expectation. And if you’re not using them you’ll be left in the dust. (As you probably know by now, we at Precision Nutrition are offering a nutrition certification course for fitness, strength and nutrition professionals called “The Precision Nutrition Certification Program.” The program has a single purpose: to teach the new breed of elite fitness professionals the art and science of nutrition coaching. If you’re interested in learning how to effectively implement nutrition into your personal training program, please check it out). However, as your build out your gym or fitness center-based model, be careful not to ignore this next trend… Paradigm Shift #5: Embracing Mobile Training Why are people so enamored with mobile devices like iPhones and iPads? It’s not just because they look cool. In reality, it’s because they are allowing us to take a traditionally fixed activity (computing) and bring it out into the world with us. Literally, we now have supercomputers in our pockets with voice communication, written communication, navigation, and entertainment capabilities. Not to mention access to the entire web. Ahh, the freedom. Who wants to sit at a computer all night after being stuck at one all day? So, for all of you who scratch your heads over the success of a mobile exercise device like the TRX suspension system – and I know lots of you wonder how the hell those little straps and handles are generating nearly 100 million dollars annually for the TRX company – wonder no more. The TRX is like the iPhone of fitness. It’s mobile exercise. It’s a gym you can carry in your pocket. You can now work out in the park if you want. At the beach. In your hotel room. Wherever. Of course, gyms will never be obsolete. However, mobile training is catching on because people like the freedom of working out – even if it’s occasionally – in different places other than their gym. I see people doing conditioning with “battle ropes” on the beach. I see people pushing prowlers in their neighborhoods. I see people with kettlebells and med balls at the park. And outside of CrossFit gyms all over the world, they’re doing Olympic lifts in parking lots and alley ways. So puzzle no more over the success of suspensions systems or kettlebells or battle ropes. These devices simply tap into a bigger cultural phenomenon. The same one that’s caused you to fall in love with your iPhone. And more devices like this are coming. Be ready. And speaking of new devices… Paradigm Shift #6: Employing New Technology The personal training field is behind the times in scary ways when it comes to technology, in particular digital technology. However, this isn’t going to continue for long. New mobile phone apps and web sites are springing up every day to help us organize our fitness and health lives.
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Here are just a few examples of emerging technologies that you can include in your practice today.
Meal Snap This mobile phone app lets you take pictures of the meal you’re about to eat. Then it tells you what food was in your meal and estimates how many calories you ate. Jawbone Wristband This wristband tracks your daily activity, sleep patterns, and meals – also allowing you to create fun personal and social challenges – all using the Jawbone wristband and your mobile phone. Body Media Fit This arm band also allows you to track daily activity, sleep patterns, and calorie intake. It works with both an online and a mobile phone interface. Fitocracy An online interface which allows you to turn fitness into a social game. Earn points for workouts, unlock achievements, and tackle special challenges. Stickk And online interface that allows you to create “commitment contracts” which bind you into achieving a personal goal. You first select your goal, next set the “stakes”, then get a referee, then add friends for support. It’s kinda like the Blackmail Diet. The Habit Factor This mobile phone app that allows you to create, monitor, and track habits on a daily basis. It’s super simple but very effective. Fisikal This online and mobile client management system that automates many of the administrative features most fitness pros hate including: scheduling, bill collection, and more. It also streamlines client communication and client management. This allows you to spend more time coaching and less time administrating. ithlete This mobile phone app can be used in conjunction with a heart rate monitor for tracking heart rate variability. Sleep Cycle This mobile phone app uses your phone’s built-in accelerometer for tracking sleep patterns based on night-time movement. Zeo Sleep Manager This sleep tracking device measures EEG activity to determine sleep quality, including duration and time spent in REM, light, and deep sleep. 23 and Me This online web interface provides information on your ancestry, disease risk, carrier status, drug response, and unique traits, all based on your genetic profile, which is collected through a saliva sample you send away to the lab.
These are just a few of the cool technologies emerging in the health and fitness space. Of course, technology can never replace the insight of a trained, empathetic coach. And it never well. However, what it can do is help good coaches do more coaching and less administrative and tracking activity. And that’s a
Precision Nutrition, Inc www.precisionnutrition.com [email protected]
huge advantage. In fact, we employ a lot of these technology best practices in our Lean Eating coaching program. It helps us spend more time changing lives (and less time working in Microsoft Word and Excel). Wrap-Up In the end, these are just a few trends I think will influence the next 5 years of the fitness industry. If we carefully and thoughtfully start shaping them in the right way, we can elevate our field from a hobby to a legitimate profession in which the best practices exercise science, nutrition, and change psychology are consistently used in the best interest of our clients. Remember, we’re not here to tell people how to exercise or eat. We’re here to create a safe place for our clients to consider change. And the change they’re looking for has little to do with sets, reps, and calories. Instead they want to feel better. About their bodies, about their relationships, and about their lives. About The Author Dr John Berardi is part of the Precision Nutrition team, a group of nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle professionals dedicated to helping people achieve lasting personal change through diet and exercise. To find out more, click here.
