LEARN HOW TO BECOME A WEIGHT MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT WITH THE CLIENT'S HEALTH &
WELLBEING AT THE CORE.
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A MESSAGE FROM THE AUTHOR
As you enter into this study, I want you to be fully aware of what lies before
you. If you save people from overweight, you will also increase life-expectancy
and/or prevent the onset of serious debilitating diseases. There will also be
those clients whose life has been long limited in a psychological sense and you
will be able to help them to restore their sense of verve and vitality so they
can again live life to the fullest extent. This will be done through learning
special expertise both technically and in person-to-person relations. With
these words of encouragement, I warmly welcome you to this course of study where
the amount of potential job satisfaction is incalculable.
DR. LAWRENCE PLASKETT
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Course Duration
12 MONTHS
Study Hours
200 HOURS
Course Content
13 SECTIONS
Course Fee
£475
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COURSE OVERVIEW
The Plaskett Weight Management Consultancy course will provide you with a
detailed, systematic and scientifically-based training, fuller than any other we
know of in the field. It will enable you to practise as a well-informed Weight
Management Consultant and most importantly, you will be able to help and support
individuals in their quest to lose weight whilst maintaining health and
well-being.
* Learn the Basic Elements of Nutrition
* You will gain an understanding of the basic elements of nutrition with a
focus on the key nutrients in order to avoid deficiencies when working with
weight loss clients.
* Create Individualised Weight Loss Programmes
* You will develop the confidence to be able to make informed choices from a
wide span of weight loss options and avoid the use of rigidly fixed methods,
thereby delivering programmes best suited to individual needs.
* Become a Skilled Adviser
* You will learn the skills to be able to counsel on a one-to-one basis, we
believe that this favours the resolution of individual circumstances and
problems. You will receive the training to see your clients through every
stage of the process, thereby maximising their chances of success.
* Expand Practice of Current Health Professionals
* In addition to those wanting to set up practice as a Weight Management
Consultant, this course is ideally suited to current health & fitness
professionals looking to enhance their practice.
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BREAKDOWN OF THE COURSE SECTIONS
The Weight Management Consultancy Diploma includes the following 13 sections:
SECTION 1
BASIC SCIENCE SUPPORT
Whilst our main concern will be with weight loss, we need to understand some of
the basic aspects of nutrition. These deal with the key nutrients that we have
to control to reduce weight. They will also help us to understand how to lose
weight without developing deficiencies.
In Section 1, we begin the study of nutrients and foods by looking at the main
bulk nutrients that our diets contain: protein, carbohydrate and fat. Before one
can consider individual vitamins and minerals, one has to know about the
nutrients that make up most of our diets, namely the bulk nutrients. These are
the suppliers of food energy and ultimately help to decide an individual's size.
You will need to understand these so as to manipulate them with skill.
Areas Covered
* What are the bulk nutrients?
* Chemical elements contained in the bulk nutrients
* Proteins
* Carbohydrates
* Fibre
* Fats
* The energy reserve role of fat
* The lipoproteins of the blood
SECTION 2
UNDERSTANDING THE FIELD & NATURE OF THE PROBLEM
This section introduces the basic ideas of the training. The purpose of this
course of training is to enable the student to help others who are overweight or
obese to lose weight, and to do so in a professional manner. At the same time,
it aims to motivate you and empower you to set up a practice as a ‘Weight
Management Consultant’ that will lead to your gaining a good reputation in this
field, developing a panel of satisfied clients and bringing you both status and
income.
Since losing weight is not easy, one has to be aware of all the different
methods and ramifications that are a part of this intriguing subject. The
professionalism comes from knowing a number of different “ways in” to help the
clients and also from being able to develop awareness of the individuality of
each client.
This will put you in a position to find the best and most successful route to
weight loss for each person who consults you. This will mean giving individual
advice, not just the same advice to everyone. By recognising individuality we
earn the client’s trust and appreciation and we also increase the chances of
achieving the fullest possible success by being in a position to find individual
solutions to each client’s problem.
Areas Covered
* The aims of the work
* The clients’ motives
* The clients themselves
* The clients’ knowledge of nutrition
* The place of psychology
* The arithmetical equation of body weight
* Ways of working
* Getting fat is all too easy – we review how it happens
* Definition and classification: criteria for weight normality
SECTION 3
THE THEORY OF THE CAUSES OF OVERWEIGHT & OBESITY
In this section we explore 'The Theory of what Causes Overweight and Obesity'.
We look at the underlying reasons for this current epidemic scale of the problem
in developed societies throughout the world. Understanding this will give you
an insight into what needs to be done.
The Weight Management Consultant clearly needs to understand as fully as
possible the causes of obesity in order to be able to formulate good advice. It
is necessary to understand that, although the ultimate cause is always eating
more than the body requires, that factor is modified by many subsidiary factors.
One, that always interests clients, is whether or not one may be predisposed by
one’s inheritance to put on and retain weight, so we deal with this question.
Areas covered
* Relative effect of genetics and environment
* Hormonal disturbance in obesity
* Slower than normal rates of energy expenditure
* The role of fat cells
* Role of the enzyme lipoprotein lipase
SECTION 4
THE HEALTH CONSEQUENCES OF EXCESS WEIGHT
It is well known that being overweight or obese increases the chances of
contracting chronic illnesses. This section examines the types of illnesses
involved and the way that their incidence is affected by body weight.
From the standpoint of a Weight Management Consultant, the use of this
information is to present clearly the vital benefits that your work can bring to
your clients in terms of freedom from illness. This knowledge can augment your
job satisfaction, especially when you can see the client’s health condition
improving as weight comes down. That can be expected to happen sometimes, but of
course not always.
So, potentially this information can serve to inform your clients about the
degree to which slimming down from an overweight or obese condition can help
them to avoid very negative health consequences. By passing on parts of this
data to some carefully selected clients, you may perhaps either improve their
flagging motivation, or increase their satisfaction level with their early
results or with the efforts they are making.
Areas covered
* The connection between overweight and ill health
* The risk of early death
* Illness and death from cardiovascular disease
* Illness and death from diabetes mellitus
* Illness and death from hypertension
* Illness and death from respiratory problems
* Illness and death from gallbladder disease
* Illness and immobility from arthritis
* Illness from gout
* Illness and death from cancer
SECTION 5
FIRST PRINCIPLES OF CORRECTING EXCESS WEIGHT
In this section we approach the practical side of the Weight Management
Consultant’s job.
The greatest skill required of the Consultant is that of formulating the advice
in a way that combines efficacy with client acceptability. The mistake most
often made in the approach to weight reduction is to employ only one method yet
in pursuing reduction in a person’s weight, it is best to come at the problem
from multiple angles simultaneously.
The person’s diet may well have to be the first and foremost approach however,
the main alternative approaches involve several different ways of preventing
excess food materials from being stored, leading to overweight.
If control of the diet is the only method one employs, then so much depends upon
strict dietary control that the will and the motivation of the client may be too
severely tested. However, an approach in which dietary control takes pride of
place, but is supported by a number of other approaches, is more likely to find
client acceptability and is therefore more likely, ultimately, to be successful.
In this section we list these “prevention of storage” approaches before dealing
more fully with the diet.
Areas covered
* Strategy of weight control
* Reduction of food intake
* The use of balanced hypocaloric diets
* Strategies for reducing food intake in practice
* Using foods intended to increase metabolic rate
* Mixtures of the various strategies
SECTION 6
REDUCING WEIGHT THROUGH DIET & DIETARY COMPOSITION
The principal purpose of this section is to understand the scope that we have to
reduce food calories in the diet without necessarily reducing the total weight
of food consumed. It looks closely at understanding and measuring food energy.
Working in this way with diet is kindest to the clients and makes fewer demands
upon their efforts and their will to succeed.
Areas covered
* Understanding food energy
* The make-up of daily diets
* What does the body have to do with tis energy?
* Water content of foods
* The differing energy contents of food dry matter
* Substituting low-calorie for high-calorie foods
* The first stage of calorie reduction
* Combining diet with exercise
* A further stage of calorie reduction
SECTION 7
SELECTING INDIVIDUAL FOODS
The previous section talks mainly about the first principles of reducing calorie
intake while keeping the weight of daily food dry matter level. This is done
mainly by varying the extent to which each food class contributes to the overall
diet; we simply reduce the proportions of those food classes with the higher
calorie content.
This section now looks within food classes to pick out those foods that,
individually, have lower calorie content than the average for foods within the
class concerned and make the best contribution to an individual client’s diet.
This is a further step to calorie reduction without loss of food bulk.
Areas covered
* Different foods within any given class have different calorific values
* Choosing foods within food classes for calorie reduction
* Specific recommendations for individual foods within each class
* Care needed in using the information
* Calorie contents of the “more suitable foods”
* Dietary results from substituting individual foods
* The necessary provision of dietary fat
* The quality of dietary protein
* The quantity of dietary protein
* Choosing foods for overall dietary suitability
SECTION 8
BUILDING YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF FOODS INTO DIETS
In the Sections that have gone before, we have noted several key strategies
aimed at reducing the client’s intake of calories.
This section gets down to the key job of building and structuring a diet to help
each particular client - the aim now is to address the actual prescribing of
diets to enable you to build upon the principles already learned and to give the
client a workable diet that can achieve his or her aims.
Areas Covered
* The adjusting and re-balancing of the food classes
* Calculating the food replacements
* Targeting individual foods
SECTION 9
FIRST LOOK AT CONDUCTING CONSULTATIONS
This section takes you through managing the consultation, helping you to
structure the activity to provide a satisfactory experience for your clients.
This is the basis for a good approach to weight reduction.
The section culminates in the provision of example diet sheets with guidelines
according to food classes and guidelines according to mealtimes and considers
the benefits of both.
Areas Covered
* The consultant’s surroundings and manner
* Direction of the early conversation
* Collection of the dietary data
* Weight-loss ideas come to you during the data collection
* Identifying the largest food contributions to overweight
* Balancing the food classes
* Writing down the guidelines
* Substitution of individual foods
* Reduction in the food bulk eaten
* Integrating the entire diet
* Example diet sheets
SECTION 10
COUNTING CALORIES. BENEFITS OF EXERCISE. THE KETO DIET.
In section 10 we cover the method of calculating the calories in everyday life.
We look at the benefits of exercise for suitable clients and discuss more
specific diets such as the ketogenic diet.
Areas Covered
* Calculating the calories
* The benefits of exercise
* The ketogenic diet
SECTION 11
PROMOTING GOOD HEALTH. UNDERSTANDING DRUG TREATMENTS. FOLLOW-UP GUIDELINES.
Brings us to the section where we set about designing slimming programmes that
are not only effective at weight loss, but also promote good health. To give you
an insight into the potential problems, we also look at the drug treatments
given for overweight by doctors. We also take you through the guidelines for
follow-ups after the first consultation.
Areas Covered
* Slimming programmes to promote good health
* Understanding drug treatments for overweight
* Follow-up guidelines
SECTION 12
USE OF SUPPLEMENTS TO PROMOTE LOSS OF WEIGHT
This section deals with non-food substances, or supplements that with help with
weight loss. It looks at how they actually achieve this and discuss their
effectiveness and safety implications for the individual. These include some
micronutrients, herbs, enzyme inhibitors and sequestering agents.
Areas Covered
* Inhibition of fat absorption
* Changing body composition
* Substances encouraging increased thermogenesis
* Appetite suppressants
* Enzyme inhibition
* Prevention of fat synthesis
* Nutrients that may accelerate metabolism
* Appendix 1 – some abstracts of key articles
* Appendix 2 – summary of modes of action
SECTION 13
MANAGING
This rather substantial last section deals with a fuller and final part on
“Managing the Consultations”. This further develops your consultation skills
and objective setting in weight management practice.
It also addresses the tricky question of compliance and weight regain and how to
avoid it.
Finally, it looks at “Running your Practice as a Business” to ensure that you
have a grasp of the business principles that you will need.
Areas Covered
* Managing the consultations – basic methodology
* Note on progressive reduction in energy needs
* Construction of the overall prescription – different components
* Running your practice as a business
* Appendix (more about why the slimming process slows down)
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TESTIMONIALS
Here's what students have to say about the course
MRS E. MARRIOTT
UK
“The Plaskett course in Weight Management Consultancy has been a really good
introduction into the importance of nutrition and balancing food groups to make
up a healthy diet plan for those who are obese and wishing to lose weight. It
would be good if you want to do it for your own understanding or if you are
looking for a step into a professional qualification or practicing yourself. The
tutors communicate with you and give you detailed feedback on assignments and
the work is achievable within a year, quicker if your apply yourself. There is a
lot of information in the course surrounding basic nutrients, composition of
foods and on how to set up and run your own practice”.