As a personal trainer, you will have clients who struggle with obesity and come to you for help maintaining a healthy weight. Behavior modification is a way you can help clients monitor their weight and get healthy. With a balance of goals and rewards, you can help clients modify their behavior to help them lose weight and reach their fitness goals.
Do Identify the Objective & Plan Accordingly![Trainer_Client]()
Before you begin working with your client, ask them what they want to accomplish. For example, in addition to losing weight, do they also want to learn how to eat healthier and what exercises are best for them? Plan their fitness regimen around their individual objective by identifying each goal and how they will reach it.
Don’t Set Unrealistic Goals
When helping an obese client lose weight, drastically changing their lifestyle with an unrealistic goal like working out every day won’t help them get the results they need. Creating an unrealistic goal will make it impossible for clients to reach it and will leave them feeling overwhelmed.
Instead, set a realistic goal based on each individual client’s needs with “baby step” goals that lead up to the main objective. These smaller goals will help your clients reach milestones and give them small rewards.
Do Have Clients Self-Monitor Their Behavior
Having your clients self-monitor their behavior will help them objectively look at their lifestyle and environment. For example, do they eat out more than at home? What do they usually eat? How much exercise do they get?
To help clients monitor their behavior and help you create a fitness plan, have them keep a food and exercise journal. Keeping a journal will help both you and your clients identify what they need to change and how well they are sticking to their goals. Check their journal once a week and work with them to offer advice and encouragement.
Don’t Neglect Assessments
The only way behavior modification can work is if you regularly assess your clients and verbally praise them for reaching their smaller goals. By hearing verbal acknowledgement, clients will remain interested and keep up with their fitness regimen.
During these assessments, it’s important that you remember to adjust their training as they need it and balance consistency and variety. That way, clients remain interested and will be more likely to reach their goals.
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