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Chapter Goals:
- Find the right nutritional recommendations that work for the client’s needs and goals.
- Determine the expectations and goals with achievable results given the circumstances and their capacity.
- Use individualized dietary recommendations regarding personal preferences, tolerances, and demands from training.
- Monitor and evaluate the diet approach and give strategies based on the outcomes.
Programming Introduction
Programming is the action or the process of scheduling. We use these seven integrated steps to achieve these principles of programming:
- Set a goal
- Find the total energy requirements that the client has
- Set the target for protein
- Set the target for fat
- Set the target for carbs
- Make these numbers apply to the person individually, meaning their food and habits.
- Monitor, evaluate, and adjust when needed
Set a Goal
This is the first step to programming for people. Goals can be many different types: these are weight loss, weight gain, or a combination of losing fat and gaining muscle.
Weight Loss
Most people looking to change their diet have the main goal of losing weight in the form of fat.
Just a loss of one kilogram of weight has been shown to reduce the risk of getting diabetes by 16%.
Setting Deficits for Weight Loss
The two main things to consider: are the amount of weight loss wanted and the time frame they want it done in.
The more weight loss wanted and the short frame of time, the larger the energy deficit will need to be.
Weight Gain
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Many clients may also aim to increase their muscle mass and, as a result, increase their weight in general. The goal is also usually to manage the amount of fat gained.
Simultaneous Fat Loss and Muscle Gain
This is also known as body recomposition. It used to be thought to be impossible, but it is possible with some very specific things met.
The requirements are generally seen as enough protein, some resistance training, and a slight calorie deficit.
It will be a slower gain of muscle, but it can happen.
Improve Exercise performance
Some clients will not have goals relating to their weight on a scale or even increasing their muscle mass. This is more often seen in athletes.
It would help if you had a firm understanding of an athlete’s different performance goals. The programs need to be made to increase their athletic potential and optimize their energy expenditure.
Determine Total Daily Energy Expenditure
The TDEE, or total daily energy expenditure, is made up of three parts:
Basal metabolic rate – the rate at which the body uses energy at rest to keep the body going. This is like breathing and staying warm, for example.
Thermic effect of activity – this is the energy expended during all forms of activity.
Thermic effect of food – this is the amount of energy that is expended for us to digest and metabolize food.
We use various equations for finding the basal metabolic rate, but it is impossible to find the exact rate. These are very close.
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Regarding the thermic effect of activity, we use different numbers based on the activity level.
Set the Protein Target
This will be based on everything we learned in the protein chapter. We use those protein targets based on our activity, our bodies’ size, and everything else discussed.
Set the Fat Target
This is seen as 20 – 35% of the calories in an adult’s diet. This can vary depending on the goals of the client or any diet they are doing.
Set the Carbohydrate target.
The carbohydrate target will equal the total daily calorie goal subtracted from both the protein and fat calories we set in the previous two steps.
The carbohydrate calories should be compared to any carb goals they have.
Translate the Numbers to Food and Habits
After determining the macronutrients and calorie needs, we will put this into an individualized approach and find the foods and habits we need to form. We evaluate the clients on a scale of quantitative and qualitative things.
Monitor and Evaluate
This is the final step for programming. Monitoring is observing and checking the progress or the quality of a thing over some time. Evaluating is done by assessing a planned and ongoing program’s needs, design, implementation, impact, efficiency, and sustainability.
Monitoring and evaluating are done in these steps:
Do a baseline readiness assessment
All progress is relative to the starting point of the person. This form should be accompanied by motivational interviewing and other forms of good coaching to help understand them more.
Make a set of data to look at and the outcomes to look for
Making a list of goals and behaviors for tracking is what should be done. Things like eating slower, drinking certain amounts of water, or sleeping goals are good to have.
Set some guidelines for the collection and monitoring of the data
There should be clear instructions made for how everything is to be recorded.
Make intervals for those check ins
These should also be clearly set.
Gather the required data and look at the results found
These may be in the form of pictures, graphs, charts, or even written reviews. Keep everything simple and easy to understand.
Evaluate everything along with the client
We should use the teach-back method to really nail this part of the process. This measures the understanding of the clients by having them say it to you in their own words.
Work together then to make the next iteration of the evaluation and monitoring.
This is a repeat of the process, which will be better the next time and perhaps see more results.
Case Studies
Make sure to look through the studies throughout the book and analyze them well.
Tyler Read
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