Before clients start on a training programme at Scott’s Personal Training, we begin with a consultation that can last up to 3 hours. In this consultation, we will go through all the relevant details – personal, health, structural health, corrective exercise, exercise history and goals. We get to know our clients, we listen to and understand their specific needs and advise and educate on training and nutrition, devise nutritional programmes and do the required body composition analysis.

Many people like to believe that as long as they exercise, they can eat anything they like. Others think that supplements alone will keep them healthy and achieve results. The truth is that supplements or exercise alone cannot be relied upon to stay healthy and get results!

You cannot out-train a bad diet!

Some people may be eating healthily with a good diet but are still not getting the results. This is because it needs fine tuning and understanding all three elements for eating correctly for sports nutritional programmes: frequency & timing, quality and quantity.

Nowadays, most people use apps on phones and watches to count calories when trying to change their diet to achieve their health and fitness goals. These apps only cover the quantity – and even then, the quantity must be broken down into the correct ratio of protein, carbohydrate and fat. If you’re aiming for a healthy body, a change in body composition or performing better in training or sport, it’s a lot more complex than just counting calories.

Most clients’ primary goal is to lose weight. Losing weight is not always a good thing; most people going on weight-loss diets lose muscle tissue, which is very damaging to the body and usually unsustainable – and most put weight back on after. Fat loss should be your goal, not weight loss. Fat loss is very complex; it’s not as simple as just doing exercises and cutting calories. If you want to do it the correct way, keeping your body healthy without the expense of losing muscle tissue, then it’s important you really understand the process, which you will learn in the consultation.

Scientific research confirms that diet affects performance. There is no one-size-fits-all diet: everyone has different nutritional needs. Some athletes/exercisers require more calories, proteins, carbs, fats, vitamins or rehydrating than others, and each sport or type of training has its unique nutritional demands. A personalised nutritional strategy can help support any training programme, whether you’re training to alter body composition, for fitness or competition, it can promote efficient recovery between workouts, reduce the risk of illness or overtraining or help achieve peak performance.

To ensure results for all our clients, it’s essential that we educate about nutrition and devise the appropriate nutritional programme to suit the individual’s specific goals. Although our coaches monitor our clients’ nutrition, it’s crucial that clients have a good understanding of nutrition, as it’s something that they need to be implementing themselves every day. Once educated, it’s easier to follow their personalised nutritional programme, the key to their health and vitality, and to achieve their specific goals.

The consultation also consists of the required body composition analysis which might involve weighing, skinfold measurements, tape-measuring and photos. These can help monitor progress and help with devising food programmes.

Clients always feel well educated and motivated once the consultation has finished, and ready and inspired to start their new training programme.