Appreciate your coaches and their time...especially when they're giving you FREE service. 

Riki Rant about selfish non-paying clients from riki long on Vimeo.

Long overdue but here it is. My weekend at the East Regionals and how I try my best to stay consistent with tracking my macros when out of town. Hope you enjoy!

It seems these days everyone is a fitness and/or nutrition coach, and you don’t have to be certified to do so. You’ve got abs? Boom, coach! You qualified for the Reebok CrossFit Games Regionals? Coach. You cut a weight class in a few weeks? Mother facking coach status.  I’m not going to lie, its easy money and anyone can do it. However, just because someone cut a whole weight class, doesn’t mean they should be coaching. Maybe it’s their passion, and well hell, you’ve gotta start somewhere. What is a fair price though?

As I stated in the beginning, it seems like everyone is a coach these days. They all charge differently too. Is it because of qualifications, certifications, or experience? It’s all of the above and then some. You can find coaches charging for macro setups ranging from $10 to$75.  For custom macros setup, I charge $40, my monthly coaching is $65, and I do detailed nutrition planning for $100 per week (or $350 per month). “$100 per week? What the fucking fuck, Riki?!” 

When I first started coaching, I coached for free. In fact, my first ever client was Regionals competitor and Miami Surge Gridder, Nicole Capurso. We’re good friends in real life and one day she text me to help her cut weight for a National weightlifting meet. I coached her for free because everything I did with her was trial and error; after all I had only been practicing the flexible lifestyle for three months at this point. Luckily I educated myself enough that we successfully cut her down a full weight class. And guess what, almost a year later she is still walking at competition weight and eats like a 300 pound man because we have successfully reversed her. After success with Nicole, I then began coaching some members at my gym, I charged them $20 flat for a macros setup and to help them along the way. Proud of everyone’s success with my help, I posted it on social media. Nicole even posted a blog about me helping her. That’s when the emails and social media messages started rolling in. My services were being requested from all over the world!

I have been living the flexible lifestyle for well over a year now, but I didn’t begin remote coaching until this past October. In the last six months, I have gained more experience working with all types of clients; autoimmune diseases, vegans, picky eaters, the list goes on. Since October, I have calculated well over 400 sets of macros, which does not include my monthly or weekly services. I have become a reputable coach and the demand for my expertise is high. I am a busy sponsored athlete and nutrition coach. My job as an athlete is to train and compete, it is literally in my contracts. My job as a nutrition coach is to make sure that my clients are successful flexible dieters, and that they reach their goals. My personal goal is to teach them how to properly fuel their body while reaching their own.

 My detailed nutrition planning (the super expensive one) takes a lot of time, most of my day almost. I only take about 10 clients at a time for this. I don’t just go on Excel and give you a cookie cutter program; I literally go into your MFP account and use the foods that you eat daily because I don’t want you to fail. If you fail, I fail. As you can see on my ‘Products’ page, there is currently a waiting list for this program, because yes it’s that awesome. This is why I charge as much as I do.

There are definitely coaches out there that will fit your budget, and perhaps they have more time to spare.  Ask yourself this though, “Why does a Mercedes Benz cost more than a Kia?” You get what you pay for. We “expensive” coaches don’t just pick a number out of our asses. Supply and demand.

I want to mention though, I do have a handful of clients that I am helping at no charge. I genuinely want to help people establish a better relationship with food. I also mentor aspiring coaches. If you are interested in a mentorship program, you can email me.