I have a fat loss client, a late 20s nurse weighing 113kg who wants to lose pretty much half her weight. She is not honest with herself, nor me, about her diet which is causing some difficulties.

In the consultation I asked her where I think she’s slipping up with her diet, what her guilty pleasures are, and she said she eats too many tangerines.….I suggested filling out a 7 day food diary as honestly as possible. And then I saw under the hood, lots of refined carbs, donuts every other day.

I told her to try cutting out junk and processed food for 21 days, like a challenge, tick it off on a calendar to create a sense of achievement and adherence. I gave her an example meal plan for free. I told her to look at different cuisines, like Middle Eastern for example, and see how they’re able to make vegetables and whole foods taste so good. She said she’s doing this and eating a lot healthier, salads for lunch most days.

I prompt her to report her weight on the app once every 2 weeks which she generally ignores because she says she doesnt want to look at the scale, until last week when she reported weight for the first time since we started training together (3x a week HIIT, weight lifting and cardio) and daily step count of 10,000.

We’ve been training together for about 9 weeks and it says she’s only lost 2kg, which is really slow considering her starting point and how soon she wants to get to her ideal weight (a years time). I dont think she’s being honest about her diet, how do I achieve better honesty with her?

I try to be a really kind and trustworthy coach, but it may be worth mentioning that I think my look intimidates people and makes them maybe assume that I judge fat people (sub 15% bf female, visible abs, big delts etc).

I’ve thought of saying something like ‘I think my clients actually have to work harder than me. I have quite good genetics, I enjoy training, healthy eating is habitual for me. Whereas my clients are the ones who really have to work hard, by overhauling lifestyle habits that might have been ingrained for years, they start right at the beginning of their training journeys which is a vulnerable place to be, have major cravings they have to fight, etc. I understand how hard it is so please share any difficulties you’re having’