Over the past 6 months we have been debating how to bring a codified, realistic, and holistic nutrition system to Verdant.
There are a lot of good programs out there and, understandably, they all have a slightly different take on nutrition. We actually have had Verdant members use all of the major and popular programs (WAG, RP, etc.) and they have all been very effective.
The issue is that most of the programs involve some kind of counting, either calories or macronutrients. Unfortunately, the problem is that no one can keep doing meal sheets, calorie/macro counting, or meal plans their entire life. We’ve found that the our students have great short-term success and then when the goal has been reached they don’t want to continue a program that requires so much time and effort.
Long-term meal plan usage and implementation just doesn’t happen and anyone that is selling a counting system on a regular basis should know that. Measuring and counting food is not a sustainable way of life for most people.
At Verdant my objective is always to set people up for success and we have found that meal plans are not doing that long-term. After speaking with other industry professionals I found that most trainers put the onus of meal prep, planning, counting, and timing on their clients simply saying that the client isn’t making the time to do the necessary work. That seems like a serious cop-out to me.
All of this being said, we’ve found that meal plans and/or counting calories/macros is a really effective way of getting our athletes prepared for specific competitions or to hit specific goals in a given timeframe. If the goal is to be prepped, lean, and dialed in for a specific date in the future we can help with a counting method. A lot of our students have done RP. We like RP, but the one thing I hear the most from our students that do RP is that it’s too hard to eat at the right time and it’s too hard to keep measuring every day. Again, it just isn’t realistic for everyday life.
For most people what works best is making small changes to your approach over a consistent period of time so that the “diet” is actually habit based. Like anything else, learning about what you need to do is going to work long-term BETTER than quick fix meal plan sheets or macro counting. We are beginning to send out this sheet to our newest members, we think that this has most of the tools you’ll need to begin losing weight and supplementing a healthy lifestyle.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sending a few articles on nutrition and the pros and cons of current programs that are currently available to you. Hopefully, these articles help educate you on what is out there and how you can improve your nutritional lifestyle.