Not another diet.
Ever head the expression “you can’t out-train a bad diet?” Or, “abs are made in the kitchen”?
They’re cliches because they’re true. No matter how hard you go in the gym, that hour won’t make much of a difference if you’re sabotaging it with poor decisions during the other 23.
And just as a coach’s expertise, guidance and support will get you the best results in the gym, customized direction from a nutrition coach is the safest—and fastest—way to meet your overall health and fitness goals.
“I wouldn’t be able to do the workouts that I’m doing now without the nutrition part of it,” said Jen Demao, an Arsenal training and nutrition client. “I’m 45 years old, and I have more energy now than I have had in years.”
A Habits-Based Approach
Arsenal’s nutrition program, led by coach Lizz Sadowski, offers flexible nutrition plans customized to your individual goals and needs—as well as the accountability, education and support you need to achieve them. You won’t get a diet and a list of forbidden foods; instead, you’ll get one-on-one guidance on how to adopt healthy habits that make you feel your best.
Lizz started the nutrition program at Arsenal after working for 15 years in the medical field—and a lifetime of dealing with many of the same struggles her clients do.
“I have always been the kind of person who’s tried one bad diet after the next just trying to lose weight and be a little healthier,” she said.
She’s also experienced the pitfalls of constant dieting: swinging wildly from success to failure and becoming obsessed with her diet. At one point, she carried a food scale with her whenever she went out to eat.
“It was such a sad way to live,” she said, “and if I wasn’t eating that way and logging every bite, I was eating like an unsupervised five-year-old.”
It wasn’t until she gave up on diets and started focusing on how food made her feel that she got the results she wanted. Today, she uses her experience to help her clients have similar transformations.
“I really dive into the psychological aspects of your behavior surrounding food,” she said. “So everything in balance, really getting into tune with your body’s own natural hunger and fullness cues and just the ‘why’ behind why you eat when you do.”
What to Expect
It begins like this: You, the client, will sit down for a 60- to 90-minute first appointment with Lizz to discuss your goals, take baseline biometric measurements with the InBody scanner and map out a plan.
“It is 100 percent customized like to individuals, so no one really takes the same path,” Lizz said.
And the plan won’t look like a food journal and a trendy diet to follow. Most clients, she said, start by building general awareness of what they’re eating and why. Then, they take small steps to incorporate healthier habits.
“So for the first two or three weeks, we may just work on you’re going to pause for 10 seconds before you eat and ask yourself, ‘Am I actually hungry?’” Lizz explained. “And then once you have that mindfulness built up, then you can start to take some action with what you’ve learned about your body.
Clients have a weekly check-in with Lizz to discuss how the week went and set new goals in addition to a monthly in-person meeting to retest biometrics and review long-term goals.
“And by focusing on the consistency of building one habit at a time, hopefully over the span of three, six or 12 months, they will then walk away with this subset of habits that will really help maintain long-term progress,” she said.
You’re Not Alone
Accountability is the key component.
“You can go and Google anything on the internet to tell you what you should be doing with your nutrition. But what they’re paying for is me,” Lizz said. “They’re paying for someone who knows their deeper ‘why’ of why they want to make this change in their life and who cares enough to make sure that they’re on the right path to get there.”
In addition to weekly check-ins, clients can feel free to communicate with Lizz any time they have a question or just need some support.
Jen reported that both the individualization of the program and the regular accountability have been instrumental in her success.
She started the nutrition program a few months after beginning training at Arsenal. Though she’d seen some progress after starting to work out, she knew it wasn’t enough. Her body wasn’t recovering well after the workouts, and her stressful job left her exhausted each day—yet she didn’t sleep well. She suffered from anxiety and was taking prescription blood-pressure medication.
The first thing Lizz did was ask Jen a bunch of questions.
“What time do you get up in the morning?”
“How is your energy throughout the day?”
“What do you eat for breakfast?”
“And they used that as the basis to work with me,” Jen said.
Lizz designed a nutrition plan based on Jen’s work schedule, preferences and fitness goals. And whenever one of those things changed, she adjusted the plan. If Jen had any questions, Lizz was just a text message away.
“They’re always available, which is amazing,” Jen said.
Proof in the Pudding
Nine months after starting nutrition coaching, Jen was “blown away” by her results.
“It’s an unbelievable difference,” she said. “My energy level is great. My sleeping is a million times better.”
She’s even off the blood-pressure meds.
“My doctor is impressed,” she added.
More importantly, the success is the result of sustainable habits and lifestyle change, not restrictive dieting.
“They learned my habits; they learned where I was doing things right first and then built on those for me,” Jen said.
And that’s what any client can expect from the Arsenal nutrition program: customized direction based on goals and sustainable habits.
“One thing I always tell my clients is I’m taking away the ‘track,’” Lizz said. “You know, some people are like, ‘Oh, I fell way off track this weekend.’ But in this program, there is no track. You’re just eating and you’re just living and you’re gonna mess up some days. And hopefully, I’m helping people learn from their mistakes and learn something about their habits and how to improve them—and take away the stress behind eating.”