Interview with Georgie Fear

Georgie is Registered Dietitian, pro nutrition coach, athlete, foodie, and Author of Lean Habits For Lifelong Weight Loss. 

Note from Matt: This interview was recorded from Skype call and then transcribed by me. Some sections may be edited slightly for an easier read.

Matt: Really appreciate you sharing this time for this interview Georgie! Can you tell me a little about what led to your decision to make a career in the fitness and nutrition industries?

Georgie: Personal interest started it all. When I was in high school I excelled as an athlete and started to explore nutrition a bit. When you are really interested in something you start talking about it all the time, particularly in health and fitness. I’ve pretty much just been talking about nutrition since I was 15 years old (laughing). At some point I figured that since I talked about nutrition all the time I might as well study it. So I chose nutrition as a focus for college, became an RD, eventually came back for Grad school, and now here we are.

Matt: So you’ve been doing nutrition counseling for over 10 years as a registered dietician. If you could go back in time what would you tell yourself when you were just starting your career?

Georgie: Don’t give people meal plans. When you first become a dietician you think that people just need knowledge. You think that you can just tell people you’re eating too much saturated fat so knock it off! Of course once you try doing this with people you find out that it almost never works. People need very little knowledge, instead what they tend to need is motivation, a reason why, and how to make it work in a sustainable way. I would definitely tell myself no meal plans (laughing).

Matt: Is giving meal plans still something that’s encouraged during the education process and considered the norm for dieticians?

Georgie: I think that most RDs are pretty good about not giving out meal plans. Most dieticians really want to teach people how to eat, but in the health and fitness field where personal trainers, physique coaches, and other variations come into play meal plans are the norm.

Matt: What are the services that you offer currently as a coach and dietitian?

Georgie: Sure. I run a company called One By One Nutrition with my husband Roland Fisher. We offer 1-in-1 coaching as well as a group program. Some people really feel better suited for the group program because they get accountability, a whole group of peers to interact with, and celebrate with when someone is making great progress. Some people prefer to go for the 1-on-1 people. They aren’t interested in the forums and would much rather talk with me on the phone. It’s a much more intimate relationship.

Matt: How big are these online groups that you’re coaching?

Georgie: They range. We tend to take on around 50 people at a time and then break them up into smaller groups of 6-9. We call them SuperFriends Groups. Every few weeks the groups get a new habit and we shuffle the groups. So even though you start with one group of 6-9 people you get to keep on working with new people as you work through the program.

We’ve grown to the point where we have six coaches and about 15 mentors who work with us. The mentors are either just learning how to coach or experienced people who just do this because they love it all. There is a grotesque amount of support for our clients (laughing). I really love what we do. It’s hard to stop talking about it at night.

Matt: When did you make the switch from offline coaching into the online world? What were the challenges that you experienced while switching to a new medium?

Georgie: I made the switch in phases as most people probably do. I did all in-person work when I did nutrition counseling for a hospital with patients who were looking for regular weight loss help and patients who were preparing for surgery or recovering from recent work. I did this up until 2011 and then was offered a job with Precision Nutrition which was all online. At the same time I was running AskGeorgie.com for fun on the side. In 2012 Roland  and I decided to leave PN to start our own company. So, around 2011 was when I faded away from the real world and went into the dark corners of the internet and threw out all my work clothes (laughing). No more white lab coats for me.

Regarding challenges, there is definitely something lost in writing sometimes. My writing had to improve because I made several mistakes of typing things out that you can say in person, but can’t express correctly in writing. A good example is when someone would eat a half dozen cookies. Coaching in-person I might say, “Oh, well can you tell me what you were thinking when you ate the cookies?” In writing that sounds like, “What were you thinking?!?!” The lack of facial expression and voice makes a big difference when you’re doing emails or commenting in forums. Another big challenge was dealing with time zones, which is something you never really think about. I have clients in Europe, Arizona, Bermuda…all these different places. Time zones that don’t seem to change at the same time as the majority of the North American continent does. On top of that, you have to get a colossal international phone plan so that you can call everyone (laughing).

Matt: Oh man. That’s definitely something I was not prepared for at all when we started building StrengthPortal. Talking to someone halfway around the world is really bizarre.

So you were kind enough to send me an early copy of your book, ‘Lean Habits’. I read it over this past week and thought it was fantastic. Even though it’s targeted towards the general population can you tell me how coaches using StrengthPortal could benefit from reading this book?

Georgie: The coaches that use StrengthPortal mostly have a background on the fitness and training side, correct?

Matt: Correct. We do have coaches with a blend, some with the Precision Nutrition certification, but the majority of our coaches come from the training and fitness side.

Georgie: Ok, I think it’s actually perfect for people who don’t necessarily have a degree in nutrition, but know how to work with people and have an interest in all sides of this. One of the biggest challenges with being in the fitness industry is that you want to help your clients because you know they need work on the nutrition side to get the results they want. You simply can’t shed body fat with a poor diet. These trainers don’t want to cross the line legally and go into the area where only a registered dietician should be acting. One of the nice things about Lean Habits is that it’s effective, research-based, and within the scope of what a personal trainer can do with a client. It’s not infringing on medical nutrition therapy. You’re simply sharing good advice for wellness and weight loss. You’re not going to risk giving someone a dangerous meal plan. I see things in the fitness industry through magazines or from fitness “gurus” where these 1000-1200 calorie diets are being recommended. All I can think is that someone is going to get hurt from this! So, Lean Habits is a really solid system compared to the other things you see out there. One of the nice things about StrengthPortal that I’m sure appeals to other trainers is that when you have a structure and tools it helps you be your best self. So, if someone has a system of nutrition habits they can use them as tools to help their clients make progress with confidence.

Matt: You talked about this a little bit earlier, but I want to point out that it’s very rare for a nutrition book to avoid meal plans or push a certain type of diet. Could you give me a bit of background what led you to this anti-diet approach?

Georgie: I can’t say that I invented the anti-diet approach. There’s definitely other people doing similar work. Personally, I have seen hundreds, if not thousands, of people with a very similar story. They go on a diet that either works temporarily or never at all and then they go off the diet. It’s not that they have wasted their time, it’s actually worse. After the diet they now have food hangups and have stressed themselves out. Many times their bodies physically, after doing some form of dieting, are less favorable composition-wise and more prone to weight gain. There’s clearly a problem with dieting. If we look at studies that are done on populations to see who gets lean and stays lean it’s not people using MyFitnessPal. People who have been healthy their whole life do things like only eating when they are hungry or not eating when they aren’t hungry. When they have a stressful or upsetting day they aren’t necessarily using food as their go-to. They may go talk with a friend, zone out watching TV, or infinite other things. They tend not to eat for emotional reasons. So, I don’t think that these are immutable habits that someone is born with. I think it’s something that anyone can learn. If someone has come from a background where they eat emotionally, for example, they can learn to practice the habits that people use to stay naturally lean. If one has the patience to learn over time they stick. It’s really not an uncomfortable process and once you see that it’s pretty awesome. So, my anti-diet approach came from studying lots of research and learning from my clients over time.

Matt: You mention working on only one habit at a time several times in the book. This is something our advisor, Coach Stevo, talks about all the time when working with his clients. Could you talk about the danger of taking on too many habits at a time and how it prevents you from accomplishing what you want to?

Georgie: Sure. When we try to take on many things at a time we can’t put all of our focus into any one of them. We end up doing all of them part of the time, none of them all the time, and we never really hit a level of automaticity with any of them. So, inevitably, if we want something to persist the rest of our lives it has to be easy. Practically effortless, if not effortless. The downside of doing one thing at a time is that it takes patience, but the upside is that you don’t hate your life while you’re doing it. It doesn’t stink like a diet where you’re counting the days til it’s over. It’s just gradual change. Usually there are many things that have to change for someone to lose weight. It’s almost never the case where there’s just one habit and the weight miraculously falls off. The typical person, dare I say, will be a mixture of bad habits. They will have occasional overeating, a diet of macronutrients that may not deliver maximum satisfaction, overdrinking on vacation, and various other habits I’ve come across. They don’t go away all at once. We’re going to tackle them one at a time so that each habit is where it needs to be and let the results come.

Matt: So the focus is on building a foundation of habits that can be sustained for the long-term even without you being there.

Georgie: Yeah. It becomes a little bit automatic over time. I’m just not a fan of suffering. There’s not point to it at all. Diets or fitness plans don’t work any better because they make you suffer. If you can be comfortable it’s better because it’s much more likely that you’ll continue to do it. Changing one thing about your diet doesn’t alienate you. You’re not dealing with points or worrying about how many carbs you’re eating. If you do a complete life overall you can kinda get homesick for the old way that you lived. If you change one thing you’re still eating the majority of things the same way. There’s only one small difference. It’s comfortable and not a disruption to your life.

Matt: When you first started implementing these Lean Habits into your coaching what were the most effective strategies you found while working with clients who had bought into the misleading short-term solution marketing propaganda that’s so common in the health/fitness industry?

Georgie: I think the biggest key there is to explain everything up front really well. For example, people that are shopping for assistance with weight loss goals are not reading my site thinking that they will lose 30 pounds in 30 days. Every once in a while I start a new client who asks where their meal plan is and I know they didn’t read my site at all. I appreciate their enthusiasm but they probably just saw my picture and clicked purchase (laughing). Most people that have gotten to the point of contacting me through my site have read something by me and get it already. Moving on from those unique client cases I’ve had, it is a very real thing to get impatient and I think that it’s a natural human tendency. When a client has been working diligently and changing habits for 2,3,4 weeks and still hasn’t seen a pound drop it’s only human to think, “When is this going to happen?” That’s one of the toughest times for the coaches, including myself, because we just want to hold their hand and tell them to hang in there. We throw analogies at them, whatever it takes. If they get through this changes will come. I often use analogy of fixing a car. If you have a car that’s not running it could have five or six different problems with it. Flat tire, transmission, etc. I know nothing about cars (laughing). Anyways, the point is that if you fix one thing the car may not run, but you can’t just give up. You have to get all the problems fixed for things to start to go. As a coach you just have to provide a lot of support at that point and explain things rationally. Let’s say that someone is working on not eating past satisfied. Most of us are used to eating until we are satisfied, sometimes full, and sometimes overfull where you have to loosen your belt. If I’m talking with someone for two weeks who’s been working on not eating until they are stuffed and they don’t think it’s working I may ask if they think that the alternate would work? Is eating until you’re completely stuffed ever going to help them lose weight? Most of our clients can see that this will not be the best strategy in the long-term. Common sense will win when nothing else does.

Matt: I want to talk a little bit about the online coaching industry. Over the past few years fitness and health professionals have finally been able to create scalable businesses online to leverage their expertise and help more people than before. How do you see the online coaching industry developing over the next few years?

Georgie: I think that it’s going to continue to grow as more and more people are interested in having coaches to help them with various areas of their life, not just health and fitness. I think people on the whole are realizing the benefit of working with a professional who can do what you want them to do. One of the concerns that I have, and something that I’m sure you hear all the time when talking to coaches, is that fitness professionals are always looking to get more certifications to learn and improve. I’m hoping that there is a clearer stratification of what certifications qualify someone to really do a good job versus what certifications can be gained through $99 and a quick test. Hopefully the education continues to improve and the certifications that are garbage will filter out.

Matt: Last question for you. You’re going to be releasing your book in the next few weeks, which is awesome, but what else are you going to be working on this year?

Georgie: So the release is April 7th which I’m super stoked about. As for me I’m always happy to keep on working with my clients. I’m continually training more coaches so that they can be the best that they can be. It’s tough because I have two loves, working with clients and helping coaches. I’m torn (laughing). In addition to that I’m always trying to write more on AskGeorgie.com. It’s just all coaching all the time. I may put together another proposal for another book, but I’m still having so much fun with Lean Habits that I’m not quite sure what I’d follow it up with. Maybe a manual for coaches, The Coaches Edition of Lean Habits, or something. We will see. I’ll put the first one out there first and hopefully the response is favorable.

Matt: Please let me know if you ever do start putting together a coaches edition! That’s another book I’d love to read.

Big thank you to Georgie for sharing her time and personal story. If you’d like to check out Georgie’s book and social links I’ve added them for you below:

– Link to Georgie’s Lean Habits Amazon page (non-affiliate)
– AskGeorgie.com – Personal Website
– OneByOneNutrition.com
– Twitter @GeorgieFearRD