Sick of Running Nutrition Challenges? Try This Instead

November 15, 2022 by

January is coming

It’s time to do something nutrition-related for your members. Sigh.

Does this sound familiar?

Cory Kessler, owner of COREFIT in Ohio, used to run a nutrition challenge every January. She charged between $50 to $85 per person for a six-week group nutrition program, and it usually started out with optimism.

Hopeful nutrition math

“If I can get 50 people to sign up, I can make between $2,500 to $4,250 extra this month!” So Kessler would make a nutrition post on social media, have her coaches promote the event in class, and would get five sign-ups right away.

Then, the stress would kick in

Days away from the start date, she’d have only 7-8 people registered. “Why won’t people sign up?! With less than 10 people, will I even break even?”

But because she didn’t know what else to do, Kessler continued to run nutrition challenges twice a year—once in January and again in the summer.

“We’d be lucky to make $1,000, and then we would be back at zero,” Kessler said.

The worst part

While the rare “unicorns” would continue making healthy choices, “the rest quickly fell off as soon as the daily nutrition reminders stopped,” she said. Mostly, it was a lot of work for very little return on investment. Her members predictably gave up post-challenge, and all she could offer them was, “See you in six months.”

Gym owners: Does this sound familiar?

Do you find yourself in a position similar to Kessler? Are you also trying to run nutrition challenges twice per year?

Do you hand out a polished Canva resource that looks something like this:

GOOD FOODS
BAD FOODS
GROCERY LIST
HEALTHY RECIPES

Are you asking your members to hang on with an iron willpower for just six weeks to “get results”? Be honest: do a few keeners stick it out with gusto, while most quietly bow out as life inevitably gets in the way of following a restrictive diet?

The cheat weekend

And after the challenge wraps up? You guessed it, a celebratory cheat weekend as people justify ‘earning’ their favorite treats, only to slip back into old habits as the weight creeps back on.

It goes from exciting to demoralizing, and reinforces a self-identity wrapped up in failure.

Food for thought

Did your members fail, or did the nutrition challenge fail them?

This is why I founded Prosper Nutrition Coaching—to teach coaches and gym owners to roll out nutrition coaching in a way that brings:

Client wins: long-term results to the client
Gym wins: stable, significant revenue for the coach and business

Because you know nutrition coaching has its place. But it can be done so much better than what the nutrition challenge model offers.

Nutrition coaching, done right

Imagine having a thriving in-house nutrition program that includes not just personalized 1-on-1 nutrition coaching, but also mindset and lifestyle coaching. A program where people happily pay hundreds of dollars a month and continue working with their coach for months to years.

Imagine being able to pay your coaches a really great secondary income, where they can book those hard-to-fill midday openings, and can coach via Zoom from anywhere. (Because, I can promise you this: I have never taken on a 5 a.m. nutrition client.)

Bolting on a high-ticket, transformational, nutrition coaching offer is 100% the way to go. But it takes training and a boost in confidence to deliver nutrition coaching at this level.

This is exactly what gym owners and coaches who have rolled out Prosper Nutrition coaching have been able to achieve.

I’ve watched gym after gym generate between $1,000 (low end) to $30,000 (high end) in ongoing monthly nutrition revenue after going through this Certification.

“Stop waiting. Start doing. You’re going to wish you had done it a year ago. It’s been the single best investment I’ve ever made for my business and my members.”