Create Your Own Grocery Store Tour to Help Clients Shop Healthfully
Many health coaching clients see exponential health improvements from changing how they eat. But unless your clients follow their assigned nutrition plans to the letter, they may not make the healthiest food choices in the supermarket.
It’s partially because shopping can be confusing. Food manufacturers are allowed to make vague and unnecessary claims on the packaging — which often confuses and misleads shoppers.
For example, many shoppers value the term “natural” but mistakenly believe it’s related to how food is grown (e.g. organic) or processed. According to the FDA definition, “natural” simply means nothing artificial or synthetic is added to it.
Adding “gluten-free” to a bottle of water (which obviously contains no gluten) is another example of unnecessary and confusing labeling.
As a health coach, you can help clear the confusion and make shopping healthier for your clients.
You can offer a pre-recorded shopping tour and give it to your clients right within their MBODY360 app. If you already provide shopping tours, this can save you tons of time and add lots of value by recording your tour once and using it over and over again.
Show Clients How to Shop in Each Section
Because shopping trips cover many different departments, it helps to shoot individual videos for each section. You can use your camera phone or a GoPro camera to film from a shopper’s point of view and talk through what you look for when you’re shopping.
Show them where the fresh food versus the packaged food is located. Teach them how to save time by skipping the aisles with processed food and concentrating on the fresh food and ingredients they need.
Point out the best options in the produce aisle, including the wide variety of leafy green vegetables, roots, and fruits. Teach your clients about the Dirty Dozen and Clean 15 food lists from the Environmental Working Group and what it means for foods to be organic, local, and non-GMO.
In the meat department, you can go through the benefits and drawbacks of beef, chicken, pork, lamb, and other meat products. Discuss the differences between organic, free-range, and grass-fed or pasture-raised meats. You can also point out alternative protein sources and discuss their pros and cons.
For the seafood department, you can talk about the pros and cons of different fish and shellfish. Let clients know about sustainable and wild-caught seafood and which foods are overfished.
If you recommend them, discuss the pros and cons of dairy products and discuss what organic and grass-fed mean for clients. You can also go through the dairy alternatives and talk about whether or not clients should try them.
In the bulk aisle, you can show clients different types of whole and refined grains, and compare them to packaged grain products. Show off which whole grains are gluten-free and what that means to clients.
In beverages, you can compare labels for various bottled drinks and discuss whether the ingredients are healthy or not. Talk about different coffees, teas, and other beverages and their benefits and drawbacks.
Define Whole Versus Refined Foods
Many clients think of the term “whole foods” as a brand name — they don’t know what it really means. You can teach clients the difference between refined products and unrefined and what they should consider when eating one or the other.
If you have favorite packaged products that are healthier, you can also talk about why you like them and how you use them.
Break Down Nutritional Labels
What’s in a nutrition label? Many food products look healthy at a glance. But labels can be misleading.
There are more than 61 different names for sugar listed on food labels. Many individual-sized food packages actually contain two or more servings — which means double or triple the calories, fat, and sodium.
You can film a video where you break down the nutrient macros and ingredients of a few different food packages. Show your clients how to be smarter shoppers, especially when they are trying to reduce or eliminate specific ingredients.
Upload Your Shopping Tour to MBODY360
You can add your videos to any of the done-for-you plans, by simply uploading your tour videos to your YouTube or Vimeo account. Then all you need to load the tour into your MBODY360 app are the links for each video.
Your video shopping tour will give a personalized touch to the nutrition plan that you assign to your clients. This powerful tool can also make it easier for your clients to reach their goals and make lifelong changes in how they eat.