Stop Playing Food Police With Your Clients

Let me tell you about Sarah. Three months into our coaching relationship, she swore she was eating 1200 calories daily. Her food log? Pristine. Her results? Nonexistent.

I spent weeks wondering if she had some rare metabolic disorder or if she was just... well, let's be honest... lying to me.

Turns out, I was asking the wrong question entirely.

The Great Calorie Mystery (That Isn't Really a Mystery)

Here's what every fitness professional has experienced: A client insists they're following their meal plan to the letter, but the scale won't budge. Half the coaching community screams "liar!" while the other half suggests thyroid tests.

Both sides miss the point completely.

The real issue? We've created a coaching culture that demands perfection in an imperfect world. And when our clients can't deliver that impossible standard, we turn into food detectives instead of actual coaches.

Quick reality check: When was the last time YOU tracked every single bite for two weeks straight? Including that handful of your kid's goldfish crackers or the "taste test" while cooking dinner?

Yeah, thought so.

Welcome to Diet Amnesia (It's More Common Than You Think)

Sarah wasn't lying. She legitimately believed she was eating 1200 calories because that's what she intended to do. Monday through Wednesday? She nailed it. Thursday she got a little loose with portion sizes. Friday night dinner with friends turned into wine and appetizers she somehow didn't count because "it was just social."

From her perspective, she suffered through restrictive eating most of the week. The discomfort was real. The hunger was real. So obviously, she must be following the plan, right?

This is what I call "diet amnesia" - our brain's tendency to remember our intentions more clearly than our actions, especially when those actions involve food guilt.

Why Playing Food Police Backfires Every Time

Traditional coaching advice says to "gather data" and "look at the numbers together." Sounds reasonable, except it completely ignores basic human psychology.

When you position yourself as the calorie auditor, your client automatically becomes the defendant. They're already feeling like they're failing - now they have to prove their innocence to you too?

That's not coaching. That's interrogation with a wellness twist.

Here's what actually happens when you play food police:

• Clients get defensive and share even less
• They start "performing" for you instead of being honest
• The coaching relationship becomes adversarial
• Everyone gets frustrated and nothing changes

I learned this the hard way when I lost three clients in one month because I was too focused on their numbers and not enough on their actual experience.

The Plot Twist: Maybe Calories Aren't the Real Problem

What if I told you that obsessing over calorie accuracy might be the exact thing preventing your clients from losing weight?

Stick with me here.

When someone is stressed about tracking every morsel, feeling guilty about normal human eating behaviors, and constantly fighting their hunger cues, their body stays in a state of chronic stress. And stressed bodies? They hold onto weight like it's their job.

Plus, ultra-restrictive eating almost always leads to rebound overeating. It's not a willpower problem - it's biology.

So what's a coach supposed to do?

A Better Way Forward (That Actually Works)

Instead of turning your client relationship into a courtroom drama, try these approaches:

1. Acknowledge the Struggle (Without Fixing It)

"It sounds incredibly frustrating to feel like you're working so hard without seeing results. That would stress me out too."

Notice how this validates their experience without immediately jumping to solutions? Sometimes people need to feel heard before they can start changing.

2. Get Curious About the Whole Picture

Instead of "What did you eat on Thursday?" try "How are you feeling about this whole process? What's working? What's making you want to throw in the towel?"

You might discover that work stress is affecting their sleep, which is affecting their hunger cues, which is affecting their food choices. Way more useful than calorie CSI.

3. Focus on One Simple Thing

Forget the food log for a minute. What if your client just focused on eating protein at breakfast? Or taking three deep breaths before meals? Or going for a 10-minute walk after lunch?

Small, sustainable changes beat perfect tracking every time.

4. Normalize Human Behavior

"Most people eat more on weekends. That's completely normal. Let's figure out how to account for that instead of pretending it won't happen."

When you normalize the behaviors your client feels guilty about, they stop hiding them from you.

Real Talk: Sometimes You Need to Fire the Scale

I have clients who don't weigh themselves for months. Instead, we track things like:

• How their clothes fit
• Their energy levels
• Sleep quality
• How they feel about their relationship with food

Revolutionary concept: What if health improvement didn't require constant self-surveillance?

Your Challenge This Week

Pick one client who's "stuck" and try this: Instead of reviewing their food diary, ask them what's been the hardest part about their health journey lately.

Then just listen. Don't offer solutions. Don't suggest apps. Just listen.

I bet you'll learn more in that 10-minute conversation than you have in weeks of reviewing their tracking data.

The Bottom Line

Your job as a coach isn't to catch your clients in food lies or turn them into perfect tracking machines. It's to help them build a sustainable relationship with food and movement that works in their actual life - weekend dinner parties, stressful work weeks, and all.

Question for you: What would change in your coaching if you stopped focusing on what your clients are doing "wrong" and started supporting what they're doing right?

Drop a comment and let me know about a time when stepping back from strict tracking helped one of your clients make progress. I'm genuinely curious about what's working for other coaches out there.

And if you're a coach reading this thinking "but how will I know if they're making progress without data?" - trust me, I get it. Results matter. But maybe it's time to expand your definition of what progress actually looks like.

Maya Chen is a wellness coach who believes sustainable health habits are built on self-compassion, not self-surveillance. She helps fitness professionals create coaching relationships that actually work in the real world.