FROM A NUTRITION COACH: JILDA
As nutrition coaches, we have the privilege of building close relationships with our clients as we help guide them towards their goals - be those related to aesthetics or fat loss goals, performance goals, or goals of optimal health. Along the way, as we work on building a better relationship with food and our habits, we get to share parts of our stories that are relevant to our coaching styles. We’re taking time this year to share more about us, our nutrition journeys and transformations, our road to becoming nutrition coaches and educators, and the amazing clients we have the privilege of working with.
HOW I BECAME A NUTRITION COACH
At the risk of sounding cheesy, I was my own inspiration! After initially learning about flexible dieting on my own in 2013 and going on to work with a 1:1 nutrition coach for the first time in 2015, I was able to see how fine-tuning my nutritional approach transformed my relationship with food and my body. In 2017, I was given the opportunity to become a coach at the company I had been receiving coaching through and obtained my Precision Nutrition Level 1 certification.
MY FAVORITE PART OF BEING A NUTRITION COACH
Connecting with people from all walks of life who have the common goals of self-exploration and improvement and witnessing their wins and “lightbulb moments.” I leave every interaction I have with a client inspired by their willingness to show up for themselves despite the myriad of hurdles that life can throw at them.
MY OWN PERSONAL NUTRITION JOURNEY
Like all girls raised in the 90s, I was bombarded with the media’s message that all women should have flat stomachs and thighs that didn’t touch, which certainly wasn’t criteria that my body fit. In elementary school, I was teased regularly for being bigger than all of my peers, but I used my size to my advantage as a multi-sport athlete and my parents did their best to help me fit in with my friends as much as possible when it came to the clothes I wore (which wasn’t easy since I couldn’t shop at any of the same stores). It wasn’t until I reached high school and decided to move away from athletics in favor of academia and other electives that I became overly preoccupied with my appearance. This -- no doubt stemming from the perfectionist personality I had had my whole life -- ultimately culminated in me being diagnosed with anorexia my junior year and, soon after, bulimia and binge eating disorder.
Having gone from 108 lbs at my lowest to 200+lbs at my highest all in the span of 2 years, I recognized that I didn’t feel good in my body at either of those extremes. Although my body had settled back at a more natural setpoint in my eating disorder recovery, I was still finding myself wanting to keep a finger on the pulse of any and all fad diets under the guise of figuring out what was “most optimal” for my health, even (and especially) once I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease in 2009 during my sophomore year of college. Multiple hospital stays and harsh medication side effects made me realize that my quality of life depended upon me re-envisioning my definition of health. I took up strength training at a local gym and quickly fell in love with how it made me look and feel. Then, on the recommendation of a friend in 2012, I walked into a CrossFit gym for the first time and became instantly enamored with the competitive community atmosphere.
Although a strict paleo diet helped to get and keep my Crohn's disease in remission, my progress with both training and body recomposition had long been at a standstill. In 2015, I became acquainted with flexible dieting and tracking macros and experienced a tremendous amount of success across the board by adding foods I had loved and missed back into my diet in quantities that aligned with my goals. Wanting to fine-tune even further, I hired a nutrition coach in hopes of realizing my goal of becoming the best athlete I could be while still prioritizing overall health.
Even though I’ve moved away from competitive CrossFit and found a passion for training more specifically for hypertrophy and aesthetics as life has gotten busier, continuing to expand my knowledge within evidence-based nutrition for both myself and my clients remains my top priority.
MEET MY CLIENT: A.B.
A came to work with me in July 2022 with the primary goal of building muscle and strength while training for a powerlifting competition that September. Having only ever known tracking her nutrition to be about eating in a calorie deficit, we opted to support her strength and muscle gain goals by establishing a strong baseline at maintenance and focusing on fine-tuning habits that ensured she had the stamina to thrive at her full-time nursing job and being a superhero mom to her four kids. For us, this meant finding easy-to-put-together meals and snacks that could be go-tos and navigating especially full weekends spent mostly out of the house.
After a very successful meet, we shifted into a fat loss phase, ensuring we could still make her busy, social weekends as low-stress as possible on the nutrition front by eating at maintenance those two days. By December, A had seen considerable body composition changes and we opted to maintain through the holidays. In late January, we picked back up with our same deficit approach with the goal of leaning out a bit more before heading back into maintenance for a longer, more permanent stint.
Feeling confident in the knowledge and habits she’d gained, A took the reins herself in March and has continued to thrive in both training and life.
We are committed coaches who work with committed clients and love nothing more than helping our clients find a sustainable approach to nutrition that allows them to work towards their goals without white-knuckling their way through yo-yo diets. Learn more about our KLN team here!