What Matters Most When You’re Trying To Lose Weight?

I’ve had a really interesting week…and even found some proof for my suspicions of my previous post.

Firstly, we’ve had my 2 year old twin nephews & my stepsister staying all week – now there’s an experience! The cutest little buttons in the world and SO cheeky.

Secondly, the sale of our flat completed smoothly (bit of a non-event in the end) and we’re now over the final major hurdle which could have stopped our overseas trip.

And thirdly, Tanja (stepsis) and I have been having some really interesting conversations. Tanja is trying to lose weight – and so far doing really, really well. In the name of research, I grilled her about several different things to do with weight loss and what matters most to her in her quest.

Questions like…

• If you were to hire a personal trainer or coach to help you lose weight, what would be the most important thing they could say to you?
• Is cost an issue when it comes to losing the weight you want?
• How could I convince you about the value of using your own personal trainer/health coach rather than going it alone?
• Are you really bothered about my qualifications & how exactly I would help you?

And you know what? Her answers were just as I suspected.

Answers…

“Yes, I can definitely help you lose the weight you want” = must figure somewhere in the first couple of sentence for her to listen more to what you say.

“No, cost isn’t really an issue, even though I don’t have lots of spare money – as long as you convince me you can help me.”

“Ask me to calculate how much money I’ve spent (wasted) on gym membership so far and not got anywhere.” Note: This is a great one – most people have spent well over £1,000 on gym membership and are still exactly where they were before they joined from a health/fitness/weight loss perspective.

“Absolutely not bothered about your qualifications, as long as I get a confident feeling that you know what you’re doing. In fact, I don’t know what most of the qualifications are so I really don’t care.”

“Yes, I’d want to know that you were going to help me lose weight in a ‘healthy’ way that wouldn’t compromise my health – but I don’t want to hear about all the assessments and la-di-dah you might do with me…at least not until we’re doing it, then I might ask what’s going on!”.

Plenty of messages to take from that if you’re a personal trainer, CHEK professional, nutritionist, health coach and want to know what people want from you when it comes to losing weight.

Don’t overcomplicate things. Tell people what they want to hear.