The Book That Put Language to How I Coach My Clients: Health Doesn’t Happen in a Silo
Your habits have to fit into your life - not the other way around, so let me introduce you to the LEARN and STAR frameworks.
You can’t focus on nutrition and ignore:
Your schedule
Your stress levels
Your environment
Or even your relationships
…as much as you may want to sometimes :)
LEARN Framework
The insight of the LEARN framework (developed by Kelly Brownell) reminds us that everything is connected when it comes to optimal health. This is why I often don’t coach nutrition in isolation - because it doesn’t exist that way in real life. And it stands for:
Lifestyle
Exercise
Attitude
Relationships
Nutrition
You can’t eat a heavy meal or nothing all day and expect to hit a PR (personal record).
If you aren’t ready for change or your partner isn’t supportive of your goals, it makes it really difficult to achieve them.
If you have a game, workout, or are sitting all day long, you need to think about what you’re eating, how much you’re eating, and even when you’re eating to support your lifestyle.
STAR Framework
The STAR framework is slightly different than traditional SMART goals you’ve likely heard of:
Specific
Truly doable
Active (focus on what you’ll start, not what you stop)
Relevant (do you want to achieve this goal, or are you doing it because you think you should?)
Often, the problem isn’t your lack of motivation or willpower - it’s the lack of structure.
At its core, habit-building is simple:
Identify the behavior
Pair it with a cue
Follow it with a reward
A real-life example:
Take creatine daily (behavior) → with breakfast (cue) → log it in a habit tracker to see my streak (reward)
When you only plan when everything is perfect, you won’t make lasting change. Create a structure for the goals you want to achieve.
Think about the most successful athletes - they don’t just train for ideal conditions. They prepare for the 1,000 ways things can go wrong.
That is what makes them successful.
They plan for the hard moments, so when the inevitable happens, they know how to adjust - to their opponent, their environment, or whatever is thrown at them.
That’s real life.
If you’re looking to dig into these concepts further, I recommend reading The Shift: 7 Powerful Mindset Changes for Lasting Weight Loss. You can purchase it through my Amazon affiliate link here.
