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Welcome to Issue 27 of My Newsletter.

Nutrition practice rarely happens in perfect conditions.

The client forgets to track their intake.
The athlete forgets their race fuel.
The video consultation freezes.
The food option you planned is not available.
The team bus is delayed.
The athlete feels sick before competition.
The client turns up stressed, tired, and not ready for the conversation you planned.
The app data is missing.
The presentation slides fail.
The athlete says, “I forgot to eat.”

And yet, in many situations, you still have to help.

You may need to adapt the plan.
Simplify the message.
Switch the format.
Make a quick decision.
Protect the outcome.
Or, sometimes, stop and reschedule properly.

This is an underrated part of applied nutrition practice.

It is one thing to know what the ideal plan should be.

It is another thing to know what to do when the ideal plan is no longer available.

When the plan breaks

This week, I was reminded of this in a different setting.

I had a podcast recording arranged for We Do Science.

The guest was ready.
I was ready.
The preparation had been done.
The research had been read.
The questions had been shaped.
The background listening had been completed.
The recording slot was protected.

And then the technical issues arrived.

The session had to be rescheduled.

At one level, that was frustrating. I had invested hours into the preparation. But it was not wasted.

The preparation helped me learn more about the topic. It gave me new ideas for future episodes. It helped me identify related themes and possible guests. And it also exposed weaknesses in my own recording setup that I can now fix.

A spare microphone.
A more robust internet backup.
A 30-metre network cable from my office to the router.
A clearer pre-recording checklist.
A better Plan B.

The lesson was simple:

Preparation is not only about preparing for things to go well.

It is also about preparing for what you will do when they do not.

Why this matters for nutrition practitioners

For nutrition-focused fitness professionals, nutritionists, coaches, and sport nutrition practitioners, this matters every day.

Because your work is not only about knowing the evidence.

It is about delivering useful support in real conditions.

Online consultations.
Busy clients.
Training days.
Competition days.
Travel.
Work schedules.
Food availability.
Apps.
Wearables.
Meal plans.
Tracking tools.
Client motivation.
Technology.
Human behaviour.

All of these can fail, shift, or become messy.

A client may not complete the food diary.

So what do you do?

Cancel the session?
Guess?
Use a 24-hour recall?
Focus on habits?
Review meal structure?
Work from the patterns they can remember?

An athlete may forget their planned race fuel.

So what do you do?

Panic?
Blame them?
Find the closest available option?
Reduce the complexity?
Adjust the pacing expectation?
Protect the main performance goal?

A video consult may fail.

So what do you do?

Lose the session?
Move to phone?
Send a voice note?
Switch to a shorter priority review?
Follow up with written actions?

A meal plan may collapse because the client’s week changed.

So what do you do?

Tell them to try harder?
Or help them build a flexible fallback?

This is where applied practice happens.

Not in the perfect version of the plan.

In the moment where the plan meets real life.

The danger of fragile plans

A fragile plan is one that only works under perfect conditions.

The food diary has to be complete.
The client has to be highly motivated.
The athlete has to have every product available.
The technology has to work.
The schedule has to stay predictable.
The meal prep has to happen.
The training week has to go exactly as planned.
The client has to remember everything.

That may work for a while.

But fragile plans break easily.

And when they break, the client or athlete often thinks they have failed.

Sometimes the practitioner thinks the client is not compliant.

But perhaps the plan was too fragile.

A good plan should have structure.

But it should also have tolerance.

It should be able to survive imperfect weeks, busy days, travel, missed meals, forgotten snacks, poor sleep, low motivation, and the occasional technical failure.

That does not mean lowering standards.

It means designing for reality.

Plan B is not second best

Many people think of Plan B as a weaker version of Plan A.

But in practice, Plan B can be the thing that protects consistency.

For a fat-loss client, Plan B might be a default meal option when they have no time to cook.

For a HYROX athlete, Plan B might be a simple pre-training snack when the ideal meal timing is impossible.

For a runner, Plan B might be an alternative carbohydrate source if their usual gel is unavailable.

For a team sport athlete, Plan B might be a recovery option they can actually consume on the bus.

For an online client, Plan B might be a phone consult when the video platform fails.

For a practitioner, Plan B might be knowing how to run a useful consultation even when the tracking app data is missing.

Plan B is not a lack of professionalism.

It is professionalism.

It says:

If the ideal option fails, we still know how to make the next best decision.

Delivery is part of the intervention

Practitioners often focus on the recommendation.

Calories.
Protein.
Carbohydrate.
Meal timing.
Hydration.
Supplementation.
Recovery.
Behaviour change.
Food quality.
Body composition.

But the recommendation only matters if it can be delivered, understood, and applied.

That means delivery is part of the intervention.

How will the client remember this?
What will they do if they forget?
What happens when food availability changes?
What happens when training moves earlier?
What happens when the restaurant menu is limited?
What happens when the app stops working?
What happens when the athlete is anxious and cannot eat the planned meal?
What happens when the client has a difficult week?

These are not minor details.

They are the difference between a plan that looks good and a plan that works.

The sports nutrition version

Sport provides plenty of examples.

A match goes to extra time.

What is the fuelling fallback?

A player misses the pre-match meal because of nerves.

What can they tolerate instead?

A runner’s usual gel is unavailable.

What is the replacement?

A team arrives late at the hotel.

What food options are ready?

A hot day increases fluid needs.

What changes?

A player has gastrointestinal discomfort.

What is the simpler option?

An athlete forgets their bottle.

What is the backup?

These moments are not glamorous.

But they matter.

Because performance nutrition is often about protecting readiness when conditions are changing.

And many recreational athletes face the same issue, just in different settings.

The everyday athlete training after work also needs a fallback.

The client travelling for business needs a fallback.

The person trying to lose fat while managing family life needs a fallback.

The athlete preparing for an event needs a fallback.

The practitioner who helps them build one is more useful than the practitioner who only writes the perfect version of the plan.

When to adapt and when to stop

There is an important distinction.

Adapting does not mean forcing delivery at all costs.

Sometimes the professional decision is to stop, reschedule, or re-plan.

If the consultation cannot be done safely or effectively, reschedule.

If the athlete needs clinical input beyond your scope, refer.

If the podcast recording quality would be unusable, rebook.

If the client is too distressed or distracted for the planned session, change the session objective.

If the competition-day strategy is no longer viable, simplify and protect what matters most.

The key question is:

Can I still deliver value well enough?

If yes, adapt.

If no, stop professionally, communicate clearly, and fix the system for next time.

That decision protects trust.

Reputation is built when things go wrong

Most people understand that things go wrong.

Technology fails.
Food options disappear.
Plans change.
Clients forget.
Athletes make mistakes.
Schedules shift.

The issue is not whether something goes wrong.

The issue is how you handle it.

Do you stay calm?
Do you communicate clearly?
Do you protect the client’s time?
Do you have a useful fallback?
Do you avoid blame?
Do you learn from it?
Do you make the system better next time?

This is part of your reputation.

Clients and athletes do not need you to be perfect.

But they do need to feel that you are prepared, professional, and useful when things become messy.

That is where trust is built.

Figure 27. When Plan A Fails. Good preparation includes knowing what to protect, what to simplify, what to switch, and when to reschedule.

Build fallbacks into the plan

One of the simplest ways to improve nutrition support is to include fallbacks from the start.

Not just:

Here is the plan.

But:

Here is the plan, and here is what to do if the plan does not happen.

For example:

If you cannot eat the full pre-training meal, use this snack.

If you forget your packed lunch, choose one of these options.

If you cannot track, take photos.

If you cannot take photos, write three simple notes.

If the planned dinner is not available, prioritise protein, vegetables, and a carbohydrate portion.

If you miss breakfast, here is the simplest recovery option.

If you feel too nervous to eat before competition, use the lower-volume option.

If the video call fails, we move to phone.

If the athlete forgets their gel, use this alternative.

This kind of planning does not make people less accountable.

It makes them more capable.

Because it gives them a way to continue instead of collapsing at the first disruption.

Preparation is rarely wasted

Another lesson from this week is that preparation is rarely wasted.

Even when the event does not happen exactly as planned, preparation still develops you.

The client cancels, but your case thinking improves.

The athlete changes goal, but your planning becomes sharper.

The presentation is postponed, but the material is better next time.

The consultation takes a different direction, but your preparation helps you respond.

The podcast recording fails, but the research still produces ideas.

Preparation builds capacity.

It helps you see more.

It gives you options.

It makes adaptation easier.

The work is not always wasted just because the moment changes.

Applied Practice Takeaways

Before your next client session, competition plan, or important delivery, ask:

1. What is most likely to go wrong?​
Food access, timing, motivation, tracking, technology, travel, appetite, or communication are common weak points.

2. What outcome am I trying to protect?​
Do not protect the plan for its own sake. Protect the value the plan was meant to deliver.

3. What is the simplest useful fallback?​
A backup meal, alternative snack, phone consult, photo log, simplified checklist, or post-session follow-up may be enough.

4. When should I adapt, and when should I stop?​
If quality, safety, scope, or trust would be compromised, stopping or rescheduling may be the better decision.

5. What will I change afterwards?​
Every failure should improve the system. Add the cable, create the checklist, build the backup option, clarify the process.

The practical point

Nutrition practice does not happen in perfect conditions.

Clients forget.
Athletes improvise.
Technology fails.
Schedules change.
Food options disappear.
Life gets messy.

That is not the exception.

That is practice.

So the job is not only to create a good Plan A.

The job is to know what to do when Plan A fails.

Adapt where you can.

Simplify when needed.

Reschedule when quality would suffer.

Learn every time.

And build plans that help people keep going when real life gets in the way.

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To better practice,
​Dr Laurent Bannock