Jake loves his greens, and it’s thanks to his mom.
Heather Ramsbottom is an ideal nutrition coach for her son, who’s three, since she’s the nutrition coach and co-owner of the Performance Institute at 8 Rinks in Burnaby, along with husband Steve.
Two years ago, she started the PI Eat Clean blog on the institute’s website. The blog complements the work she does with clients, she says, giving them an extra resource.
“The blog, I would say, gives people perspective,” she explains. “Every week there’s a topic – ‘can you reflect on how your own lifestyle fits into this?’”
Some of the posts include a recipe and a how-to video, with Jake and more recently, his six-month-old sister Jamie. Other posts are more theoretical and educational, Ramsbottom says.
While many people go to Burnaby’s Performance Institute to train and improve their bodies, nutrition doesn’t initially factor into it for some. The blog was a good way to reach those people, Ramsbottom says.
The nutrition coaching program has been modified and improved over the years, she says, and includes weekly check-ins.
“The first two weeks, people are motivated, they’re gung-ho,” she says. “It’s after that initial two-week period where parties happen, social events happen, they want to go back to their comfort zone, basically.”
Having a coach touching base with clients allows them to deal with backsliding without beating themselves up, she adds.
“So that’s where a coach comes in really handy, keeping people accountable, keeping people motivated, and letting people know it’s OK if they have a backslide,” Ramsbottom said.
It is also important to help people come up with a plan that works for them specifically, as nutrition is never simple, she adds.
However, for newbies to nutrition, there are a few blind spots that usually pop up, including portion sizes, not eating enough vegetables, eating too many simple carbohydrates, appropriate sources of protein for their lifestyles, and eating healthy fats, she says.
One of the major negative impacts on healthy eating is often how frequently people eat out, she adds.
“Everyone’s a little different,” she says. “One thing I always talk about with clients is the continuum of nutrition.”
Clients meet with Ramsbottom one-on-one for the first meeting, and she gives them a basic template on the foods they should be eating. The institute also does body composition analysis, to record a starting point, she says, and then, there are once-a-week sessions for a month. These are often done remotely, by phone or Skype.
For Ramsbottom, one of the keys to helping her clients is keeping in mind that they don’t live in a bubble.
“Say you follow a plan you find in a magazine, saying this is what you should do, that’s for an individual,” she says. “We don’t live as individuals. We live as families, we live as people who have social occasions. That’s what’s kind of unique about the coaching plan, is we talk about all that.”
For more on the institute and the PI Eat Clean blog, go to www.pitraining.ca.
