With the holidays approaching, stay at home orders back in place again in some areas, and social distancing as the new norm, people need fitness professionals to help support their health and well-being. Now is the perfect time to begin planning your weight loss programs to support your members, clients and partners virtually.

Here are 5 steps to follow for your next fitness + wellness program:

1. Determine the details. Before rolling out any program it’s important to fine tune the details. For a weight loss program, specifically a virtual one, it’s essential to decide what the goal of the program is. Virtual programming needs a smart balance of accountability and flexibility. What may have worked best onsite, might now work as well for a virtual program. Do you want your clients to lose weight, get more active, eat better or build better habits? Think through those details to make sure your program is successful in helping others meet this goal. Tip: The Active team has found that goals around building healthy habits, moving more and eating better have been more successful for our clients at this time, rather than focusing on a number on the scale. 
2. Provide the tools. Make sure that you have virtual tools in place to support your participants and help them instill healthy habits. This may be an app for tracking weight, software to build and send routines, an exercise video library for participants to browse workouts, nutritional education, meal plans, or even various promotion of discounts and deals you have with preferred vendors on things like equipment, supplements, heart rate training, etc.
3. Coach your clients. No matter the goal of your program, you want to provide accountability and support for your clients. We recommend 2-3 touch points each week of your program. Emails, social media content, LIVE videos, group pages and one-on-one meetings have all been tools that Active has leveraged. These coaching opportunities could be all virtual or you could even leverage a hybrid model of onsite and virtual offerings for those clients that feel comfortable. Discuss leveraging your coaching and personal training staff for free virtual consultations, assessments, coaching or even training sessions. This will increase the value of your program and also provide opportunities for your staff to increase visibility and program sales.
4. Reward success. Get creative on how you define and reward success. Participants tend to be a little more private when it comes to weight loss programs, so it may be smart to award for things other than the amount of weight lost. 
5. Gather your results. Make sure you gather results and feedback from your participants. This could include a weekly survey to see how participants are feeling or an overall program feedback survey. Survey results help you as an organization to improve as well as provide validity to your programs moving forward.

If you would like help creating a virtual weight loss program for your fitness center, The Active Team can help. Contact us today.

Active's Director of Wellness, Karah Ehrhardt, has been with the organization since its inception and has been a part of the greater fitness industry for 15 years now. She is passionate about meeting individuals where they are by providing our sites and members with the tools, resources and products that help support their health and wellness journey.

Karah is staying safe at home with her loved ones spending time chasing around her toddler and experimenting with new recipes in the kitchen!