begin to dig: Lean Eating Progam: Human Support is KEY for Good Eating Big Sig Part of Diet Success

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Lean Eating Progam: Human Support is KEY for Good Eating Big Sig Part of Diet Success

Follow @mcphoo The holidays usually mean food, unusual eating, making body composition goals

seemingly risk slipping further away. If achieving such goals has been important to you, or for someone you love, and a trial to date, a simple question may be, despite the difficulty of actioning what to do, do you feel firmly that you know how to achieve your body comp goals and/or how long that process will take? Or if you want to help someone undertaking this process, do you know how?

If you're not 100% sure, you may want to connect with the Lean Eating program, or gift it to someone you love. Here's why: knowledge and human support make the difference for real and lasting diet success. Yesterday i offered a pointer to what real people look like who have made real progress on body comp goals

you can still vote for your fave transformation: the women finalists

as a result of two things:

great nutrition practice info and
great support.

Let me underscore the effect of mentorship/support/guidance was seen to have with folks trying to diet. Full disclosure: this survey described below was run by the folks at Precision Nutrition, but the results have been seen in other diet/change contexts.

A few months ago we ran a survey of a sample of Precision Nutrition members. We asked them a number of different questions, some of which were to ascertain their level of fitness, some of which were to test their nutritional knowledge, and some of which were to determine their access to mentorship and social support.
The results were fascinating.

We wanted to know how much of an impact mentorship and social support actually have on a person’s ability to reach their physique goals.

So we asked people to rate their happiness with their own physique on a scale from 1 to 5, like so:

Extremely unhappy – I’m nowhere near my goal and I doubt I can make it.
Unhappy – I’m far from my goal but I’m willing to do something about it.
Ambivalent – I’m working toward my goal but I’ve got a ways to go.
Happy – I’m close to my goal and making progress.
Extremely Happy – I’ve achieved my goal and I’m working on maintenance now.

We then looked only at the people who answered [5. Extremely Happy] in order to measure the impact of various factors on their success.

What stood out immediately was the fact that there wasn’t a significant difference in nutritional knowledge between the people who had achieved their goals (the 5’s) and the people who were still working on it (the 3’s and 4’s).

The people who achieved their goals knew their stuff (you have to, of course – success is not an accident), but so did many of the “in progress” people. In other words, you need to understand nutrition science – but it isn’t enough to get in great shape.

But then we looked at the response to this question:

“Have you ever had regular mentorship from someone who was in the exact shape you wanted to be in?”

Note: In this context, regular mentorship is defined as constructive and impartial feedback and direction, on a near-daily basis, for a continuous period of at least 3 months.

And check this out:

77% of the 5’s said “Yes” (37 out of 48)

Only 17% of the 3’s and 4’s said “Yes”

And less than 5% of the 1’s and 2’s said “Yes”

That’s a remarkable difference! Think about what that means for a second: you need to know a lot about exercise and nutrition, that’s true; but most of all, you need to find someone who’s where you want to be, and lean on them for help

DO you have the Support You'll Need? It may be that you may have a fabulous community or at least a few important people in your world who can provide great info and super support for your goals in nutrition. Way to go. THose people all need seasonal cards.

For folks who either have willing folks but without the knowledge (or potentially not great knowledge beyond their own experience) or have great knowledge but lack support - may even be in an environment that will be somewhat resistant to change, well, there are programs that offer this. The one program i know of, and trust, and where as i posted yesterday you can see the kinds of real people results that occur, is Precision Nutritions.

I'm bothering to post about this program again because the Lean Eating Program is about to get ramped up again (last summer's review here), and, as before ,there's a waiting list to get into it. They're opening up an early pre-sign up to get on the next list for the new year (you know, when we all get a little sensitive about post beast/feast effects)

Here's a quote from one of the people who did the program, and wrote about their experience on my first post about the Lean Eating Program

I joined the program to get thru tax season without gaining another 15 pounds! I go from working 40 hours a week to 76 (avg) for 2.5 months during tax season. Usually, I put nutrition and training on hold. "I'm too busy."

The LEP taught me how to get organized, prioritize, and keep on track. Working 76 hours per week, I still had the time to train 5 hours per week, plus make all of my own meals and take them with me each day. I went from a tight size 8 to a loose size 4. :) And during the process, I was happy about it. (Training makes me feel good, and eating PN style gives me energy. Great combination!)

Tax season this year was much easier on my family. I was happy and energetic, instead of wiped out and irritable. :)

and you can also still vote for your fave transformation: the men finalists

Here's the Executive Summary of the program:

Group coaching program for women who want to become lean, fit and healthy the PN way
6 month duration
Taught by world-class nutrition instructor
All resources online and downloadable, 24/7
Private support forum with guaranteed responses
Daily instruction, weekly seminars
Monitored action tasks and assignments
Results guaranteed: 100% satisfaction or the course is free
Plus, win $10,000 if you achieve the best transformation in the group

The main part of the program is that it is not only the Precision Nutrition approach, but it is
6 months of coaching - en direct, from wherever you are right now, to get to where you want to go. Plus, beyond that regular personal coaching, there is a huge network of passionate people to support your success ( a place where i like to hang out, actually, because of the great expertise there - athletes, trainers, coaches, folks with doctorates in all areas of well being - and all incredibly nice. I can't get over this: folks are so NICE).

Anyway, i hope if you know someone who you think might benefit from this approach, you might encourage them to put their name on the waiting list. Something just for your well being (or theirs) for the New Year. And you ARE worth it.

THis just isn't one of those 12 weeks is all it takes to change oh, everything, to get results type approaches. A six month/26 weeks space is realistic NOT just to get on some kind of diet, but to get one with the type of habit changes that may be needed to support building up practices that support progress. Really, its' so not about the food. Food is good and important, and we learn an awful lot about it with PN, but more than anything else the PN approach is about habits. We know how challenging it can be to change existing habits, especially about something as loaded as food.

Which brings me back to support and coaching. Especially if you or someone you know has been yo-yo'ing around dieting with whatever approach, here's time to think about the fact there's nothing wrong with you; we are wired in certain ways with respect to food, and it takes effort and support and knowledge to rewire these habits. Changing habits isn't inate knowledge, either. Understanding this - that it's not us the eaters who are screwed up - is half the battle; getting knowledge but also the support and good guidance on retuning and building up knowledgeful habits for what will work FOR THE LONG TERM for us, is a key part of the other.

Vote Your Support. If you'd like to show support for those real people who have participated in the Body Comp Competition of the Lean Eating Challenge, please vote for your faves here: