Learn more about Nutrition Coaching

You only spend a few hours per week in the gym – what you do outside of the gym is just as important for your long-term results as what you do in the gym.

Get some help cutting through all the noise and confusion and get your nutrition handled.

Cut through the noise and develop a better relationship with food

A lot of the information available about nutrition is confusing and contradictory. Learn what really matters.

Todd Nief, Founder – South Loop Strength & Conditioning

Most folks have some sort of intuition that they “should” be eating better.

However, there’s a lot of information out there. Some of it is good, some if it is bad, and some of it is just misapplied.

Maybe you’ve tried counting your calories, counting your macros, or used a “points”-based system.

Maybe you’ve religiously dialed in your food quality trying everything from vegan to paleo.

Or maybe you’ve been overwhelmed by all of the conflicting advice out there, said “I just need to figure it out,” and done nothing.

Through this trial and error process, many people develop an extremely negative relationship with food.

Dietary choices become moral choices, and we start feeling guilty whenever we “cheat” on our diet. We flip-flop back and forth between extreme discipline and extreme indulgence.

All the while, we never actually feel good about our food choices or our progress in the gym.

It’s not about reading more blog posts or “getting serious” and making massive lifestyle overhauls that inevitably end up lasting only a few weeks.

It’s about understanding that behavior change has more to do with psychology and habit than it does with information, and filtering through all of the noise to focus on the things that matter to you and your goals.

Our nutrition coaches know best practices and have mastered the gory details of the science behind nutrition coaching. But, the real value comes from the coaching relationship and helping our clients develop a better relationship with food.

Here's What To Expect

Performance Improvement

You’ll have more energy in the gym and get the most out of each training session when you fuel properly.

Long-Term Health

Training hard is fun, but a lot of people are looking at a longer time horizon. If you want to be able to continue to train long-term—or go for a hike or a long bike ride at the drop of a hat—then understanding how to eat is crucial.

A Better realtionship with food

Many of our nutrition coaching clients are seeking body composition change (and that’s ok!). However, they often find that, through coaching, they develop a better relationship with food—which can help get that body composition change they’ve been chasing.

Here's How We Do It

Regular Check-Ins

Accountability and feedback go a long way in nutrition coaching. Change isn’t just about information and discipline, it’s about developing sustainable strategies and habits.

Evidence-based protocols

Nutrition content online can be a roiling sea of misinformation and confusion. Our coaches are steeped in the research and understand what really matters and what’s a waste of time.

Individualized Plans

Despite what diet books and faux medical professionals on Instagram say, there’s no one-size fits all plan that works for nutrition. Our coaches are experts at individualizing plans for busy professionals and high-performing athletes alike.

Meet Our Nutrition Coaches

What People Are Saying

My experience working with Dan improved my physical performance and how my bods looks. But, Dan also helped me improve mentally in the gym and with how I understood my relationship with food. Not only do I feel and look significantly better than when I started, but I also gained lots of confidence in myself both in and out of the gym.

I was hesitant to try nutrition coaching because I thought I would get cookie-cutter advice (eat veggies, buy Tupperware). He tailored his advice to my specific tastes, work schedule, and whims (e.g., eliminating dairy halfway through). He thoughtfully dispelled many toxic ideas I had about food, weight loss, and food guilt. I completed our coaching with tangible movement towards my goals and with a much healthier relationship with food. His coaching should be rebranded as food therapy!

Dan's nutrition practice is unmatched. He builds a foundation of accountability, encouragement and education that makes any body composition, performance or lifestyle goals attainable. Dan meets you where you are and provides considered guidance that is tailored and focused on your goals. He makes nutrition approachable and easy to understand, but he can also nerd out on any nutrition or fitness topic you've seen in your social media feed by providing statistically significant scientific evidence.

Are you just going to tell me to eat out of Tupperware or that I can’t have carbs anymore?

Many people hesitate to inquire about nutrition coaching since they’re worried that they’ll be told to never look at a slice of bread, pack all their meals for the rest of their life, and stop eating at restaurants with friends.

Instead, we recognize that nutrition coaching is all about making real world decisions and understanding trade-offs.

If you’re a bodybuilder about to step on stage for a professional contest in a few weeks, you may want to eat all of your meals out of Tupperware.

For other people who are working professionals who want to maintain a social life, we are able to help people understand which choices actually matter for improving results in the gym—and which ones are just causing unnecessarily stress on the weekends.

I don’t want to lose weight—I just want to perform better. Is there a nutrition program for me?

We have several nutrition coaching clients who perform at an elite level, including CrossFit Games competitors, former professional athletes, and national team members in various sports.

If your goal is to maximize your performance, then dialing in your nutrition is a crucial.

Our coaches are able to create customized plans for athletes whose top priority is performance.

I don’t care about my performance—I just want to get leaner. Is THERE A NUTRITION PROGRAM for me?

Many of our nutrition coaching clients are focused on health, longevity, body composition, and developing a better relationship with food.

While the tools that we use for these folks may differ slightly from the tools we use with performance-focused athletes, the fundamentals of human psychology and physiology don’t change,. Our expert coaches are able to work with people pursuing a variety of goals.

Are your programs actually individualized?

They sure are.

We do occasionally run group coaching programs, but you won’t find any templated diet programs or generic meal plan PDFs here.

While these generic templates can be a helpful starting point for some people, we often find two major issues with templated programs.

Some people really struggle to follow through on a plan without feedback, accountability, and help navigating the inevitable obstacles that come up.
Others ruthlessly execute on their plan—ignoring screaming signals from their body that something isn’t right and that they are potentially underfeeding themselves relative to their training goals.

Both of these scenarios are recipes for disaster, so we focus on individualized feedback and developing a relationship with your coach.

Do I have to count calories?

Not necessarily. While counting calories or counting macros can be very effective for some individuals, others find it tedious and unsustainable. Others can also find that counting their food can trigger negative behaviors.

While we do recommend that some of our clients do detailed food logging—particularly those focused on performance or those who have a strongly analytical disposition—we help others develop alternative strategies that are more sustainable and less burdensome.

What if I’m vegan/paleo/keto/etc?

Our coaches are able to work with people with a variety of dietary restrictions.

We tend to avoid making recommendations for specific diets and prefer to focus on the habits and behaviors surrounding food. We are still able to work with people who have dietary restrictions for ethical, religious, or other reasons.

Are you going to make me buy supplements?

Nope. Our coaches are able to provide detailed supplement recommendations and evaluations if that’s what you’re after.

However, we are not going to try to sell you complicated supplement packages.

Supplements can be useful for some individuals, but they are rarely the most important aspect of a nutrition program.

What if I just want to do a consult and ask some questions? Do I have to commit long term?

We have several different options for coaching—including detailed, one-off consultations and ongoing coaching relationships.

If you’d like to learn more about our coaching options or if you’d like to speak one-on-one with a nutrition coach, please email us at info@southloopsc.com.

I have a medical condition. Can I still get coaching?

If you have a medical condition, it’s important that you work with an RD (Registered Dietitian). One of our coaches, Laura, is a Registered Dietitian, so we’d be happy to set up a one-on-one conversation with her to see if she’s able to help.

DON'T WAIT FOR THE PERFECT TIME

There’s no such thing as a perfect time, and you’ll learn more and get more out of coming in to chat with one of our coaches than you will in hundreds of hours of continued research.

Besides, your first consult is on the house.

We’re happy to invest in spending some time with you so that you can find out if we are who we say we are (since we know lots of people have been burned by disingenuous marketing in the fitness industry in the past).

Come see what it’s all about.