How Much Does It Cost To Hire A Weight Loss Coach?

In this article, I’ll tell you how much you're likely to pay to hire a weight-loss coach and also, alternative options you may not have considered to help you lose weight, some of which are free. You'll also discover why there’s such a huge variation in price and what is actually worth paying more for. 

Hi, this is Michael from weight loss results and I'm a clinical hypnotherapist and weight loss coach helping people like you lose fat and keep it off. 

When you start thinking about getting a coach, you're going to want to know how much it is going to cost me. 

Well, quite often it’s not that straightforward to find out. If you Google weight loss coaches and go and have a look at their websites, in most cases there’s nothing about price, just an invitation to make contact.

I don’t know about you, but when I’m looking to pay for a service I want at least a ballpark figure before I engage. 

In my case, fear not, I’m going to tell you exactly what I charge. I’m also going to show you how to find the right coach to fit your own budget and needs. 

So firstly, do you actually need to use a weight loss coach? Are there other options that might be much cheaper and deliver the results you want?

Accountability partners

How about teaming up with a friend who wants to achieve similar goals? If you support each other and become accountability partners, this can go a long way to helping you reach your goals. It doesn’t cost anything either.

The dynamic created between you and a well chosen acquaintance can be the nudge you need to have that ‘stickability’ through thick and thin. 

For the best success, consider HOW you are going to lose the fat. Later I’ll explain why dieting and even putting a lot of effort into exercise might scupper your end goal.   

Diet clubs

For a lot of people, they’ve been involved in weight loss clubs before, you go there every week, you pay a small amount, maybe £5 or something like that.

They have their own programmes and approaches to losing weight and you've got accountability with the club leader and the other members. I'm a fan of groups, but I’m not a fan of the general approach which is basically the same as everything else - dieting and calorie restriction.

However I'm assuming that if you're listening to me or reading this now, you've been through the weight loss group loop, perhaps quite a few times and that hasn’t worked out for you and you're looking to up your game and do something else that could finally work.

Weight Loss Apps/Online Resources

There are a number of resources that you can find online that may help. There are numerous weight loss apps, calorie/macro counters and online programmes with diet plans.

Something you’ll hear me bang on about a lot when you watch my videos is whatever help you get, whether from a friend, an App or a coach, is if the focus is on counting calories the long term results are probably going to be poor. 

Some of the apps and online resources I recommend go some way to adopting a focus on reducing total carbohydrate and eating real food rather than calorie restriction which doesn’t address two major issues. - Metabolic slow down and dysfunction. Unless these are addressed long term success and health are far less likely.   

One App I quite like is Noom. It’s less calorie focused and to a degree, uses some mindset techniques to help you stay on track. It’s worth having a look at, I think there’s a trial version and access to all the features is about £20 a month.

In terms of online programmes, diet plans and general information, I’m a big fan of Diet Doctors. They use a low-carb approach to weight loss rather than counting calories and this in my experience can work well as a solo option.

The downside is it does lack the sort of support that you'd get working with someone personally, but there’s support in the community, especially useful for asking questions. Last time I looked it was £25 a month.

Counsellors

Let’s look at some alternative specialists to work with.  Consider a counsellor or a therapist. Now this may seem a bit odd but what I find is at least 30% of the people I work with, their main challenge is to do with comfort eating when they're stressed and then they overeat.      

They seem unable to control themselves, even though they know they're over eating. They can't stop themselves. A therapist or a counsellor might be a really good person to work with because whilst they may not have much experience helping people to lose weight, they do help people, day in, day out, manage themselves and direct stress toward helpful behaviours and coach people in the skill of surfing urges. 

They can also explore deeper, unconscious reasons for overeating in a safe and secure environment with you if need be.  If you think this might be a good option for you, there are excellent therapists in most towns and cities. 

Prices in the UK typically range from about £25 to £80 an hour and if they do some sort of ‘brief therapy’ approach, you might only need a few sessions. 

Now, why are some people charging 25 quid and why are some people charging 80 or more?

A number of factors come into play. Usually, location is a big factor. Out in the sticks, with lower rents and perhaps less demand, they are likely to charge less than someone in a big city. 

Experience will also dictate price. A newly qualified counsellor will be keen to fill their week with clients and need to build up experience. The therapist who has been working for over a decade should have a full week and command higher prices. 

In theory, with experience comes better and quicker results. Ask around for recommendations, look at online reviews, however, I’ve found the best therapists do the least marketing of their talents. They have clients coming out of their ears. Word of mouth is the best marketing. 

Dietitians and Nutritionists

Another alternative is to work with a great nutritionist or dietitian if you can find the right one. Again, my main problem is they mostly use the calorie restriction approach to lose weight and play by the “balanced, ‘healthy’ diet” book. Most believe it’s the only way to lose weight and methods like low carb and time restricted feeding are considered potentially dangerous.

If you want to work with a dietitian or nutritionist, try and find a low carb advocate. There’s a huge amount of growing evidence this leads to better outcomes, but there’s pushback from entrenched views in the healthcare community, the diet industry, the food industry and the pharmaceutical industry.

It’s almost as if there’s some vested interest in keeping you fat and ill. Search for ‘LCHF’, ‘Ketogenic diet’ and intermittent fasting specialists.

It’s also important to find out how much involvement the dietitian will have in supporting you on your journey beyond a consultation and a diet plan. The variability in ongoing support between dietitians can be high.

Be aware that registered dietitians are regulated. They work from evidence based research (albeit out of date). Nutritionists are not regulated and they are more likely to incorporate complementary therapy in their weight loss approach.  

Anyone can start up tomorrow as a nutritionist though, so do your due diligence on their competency. Whilst it might seem a safer bet to go with a dietitian, I have met some exceptional nutritionists and some lacklustre dietitians. 

Expect to pay from £40 to a few hundred per hour for a dietitian or nutritionist. 

Hypnotherapy

A great option, (even if I say so myself) is to find a clinical hypnotherapist, ideally one that specialises in weight-loss rather than a generalist. 

Typically, prices could be anything from £30 up to literally hundreds of pounds per session.

Clinical hypnotherapy brings the body, conscious and unconscious mind together. Forming good habits and letting go of the bad ones becomes easier. 

Feeling able to cope gets easier. Being consistent gets easier. Combined with the right approach to fat loss, marvellous things can be achieved that before seemed impossible.

It may sound too good to be true, but we’ve all experienced fleeting moments when everything seems to flow and seems effortless. Just imagine having that ability on tap.  

Experience and specialism will affect prices hugely.

Expect to pay far more for someone who is qualified via a respected training organisation with decades of experience in weight management, compared to someone who has completed an online course and calls themselves a hypnotherapist. Yes, that does happen. 

That said, there are some excellent, enthusiastic newbies who are well trained and eager to help you reach your goals at the lower end of the price spectrum. Just do your research and know what you are getting for your money. I would highly recommend any member of the BSCH. 

Something worth mentioning about prestigious locations and addresses that some hypnotherapists seem to have a bit of a thing for.

High fees might reflect the therapist’s monthly rent bill more than their track record in getting client results. Now there’s nothing wrong with swanky offices, it’s their business, but it’s your money. 

If you're a hypnotherapist based in a Cornwall surgery, it’s probably going to be a lot cheaper than someone renting a side room in Harley Street. 

Like counselling,  Clinical Hypnotherapy is typically a ‘brief therapy’. You may have anything from 1 to 6 sessions to help you change the way you think and behave. This may continue beyond 6 sessions, especially if new challenges become apparent. But usually, the time spent with the Hypnotherapist is to help you become self reliant, become stronger, understand yourself better and then take responsibility for yourself and your weight as quickly as possible. 

Weight Loss Coach

So now, let's look at hiring a professional weight loss coach and the investment required.

Let's make a distinction here. I'm not talking about a generalist coach, a life coach. Someone who doesn't specialise in weight management. For the reasons I have mentioned previously about experience, a weight loss coach will have worked with many more clients over time, specifically on weight loss issues.

Let’s say you did work with a life coach, they could be charging £20 per hour for someone who has no formal training and little experience, up into the multiple hundreds for an experienced, co-active trained coach. Believe it or not, I know of one ‘Life Coach’ who commands hundreds of thousands per year to work on whatever problem you want. 

Weight loss coaches who are experienced, in demand and getting referrals from their happy clients soon fill up their diary. So expect to pay a premium to work with them 1 to 1. 

Many successful weight loss coaches won't actually charge by the hour, there will be a monthly subscription and that can range from around £100 up into the thousands per month.

At some point, the in demand weight loss coach runs out of hours in the week. To give themselves a pay rise they either need to keep bumping up their fees or find a better model to reach more people and offer them better value without simply swapping time for your money.

Some weight loss coaches, myself included, offer packages that  support clients by giving them additional resources beyond 1 to 1 time. This can include telephone or email support through the week, online content to inform and help with specific issues a client can work through themselves.

In my 6 month coaching programme for instance, clients learn self hypnosis, a highly useful skill for weight regulation and life in general.    

Some coaches include online forums, private FB groups and even in person seminars/conventions in some far away location (remember them?).

These packages can range from a few hundred pounds, right up into the tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds for a programme.

I know weight loss coaches who work with people over 12-months and the investment required is well over £100,000. Now for 99 percent of people, they are going to fall off their chair when they hear that, but for some people, it will be worth it to them. 

Obviously, they're going to have the resources to afford it and they're going to get an immense amount of support through a variety of channels to get the result they must have.

How much do I charge?

Currently, it’s £6k for my six-month 1 to 1 coaching programme. £3k for my 6 month group programme.

Why six months? Some of my clients are going to reach their goal within the six months and that's great. It’s then a question of coaching them to maintain that fat loss so that it becomes a life long result.

In my experience, everybody has bumps in the road, life intervenes, it’s normal. It’s coaching clients through these periods that’s the secret sauce to losing fat and keeping it off no matter what life throws at you in the future. 

For those who need to lose a lot more weight and it's going to take longer than six months, maybe we'll work together for another 6 months or we will switch to a group programme or another resource that best suits their needs.

This is only going to appeal to a few people and that’s fine.

I’ve written this article so that you have a better awareness of alternative specialists to weight loss coaches as well as price ranges associated with them. I also want you to get the best value for you and your budget and that may well be with someone other than me.

Group coaching

Over the years I've become more and more an advocate of group coaching. This can be more affordable than working with someone on a 1 to 1 basis. In fact, some of my clients who have been through my 6 month coaching program, join this programme as well as new clients who want access to results orientated weight loss coaching at a lower price point.

A few years ago, if someone had said to me group coaching can deliver results as good as 1 to 1 coaching I’d be extremely sceptical. I saw 1 to 1 as the gold standard in therapy, giving 100% of your attention to clients. You have that intimacy and privacy that facilitates change.  I just wasn't convinced. But I was missing a trick.

You see some people will actually get better results working in a group. And of course being more affordable, for some, they will be able to access high level, results orientated weight loss coaching for the same price as something that may not offer anywhere near the same value. 

Group therapy has been successfully used for decades, quite often with extremely difficult issues, like addiction.

Results can be impressive if the right structure, boundaries and environment are in place. 

This is why you need a highly skilled coach. I often see online ‘support’ groups/pages on social media that, whilst set up with the best intentions, become toxic, enabling places because the admins are completely unaware of the pitfalls of not creating a safe, solution orientated culture or they simply cannot provide the time, skills and focus required to keep the group healthy.

If done right, there’s something almost magical about a group of people working toward the same outcome. 

Positive, unconscious  forces are at work. You’ll see other group members wrestling with the same problems you have, you become aware of the common themes that present obstacles and you will see objectively how those people work through those challenges, grow and change. 

You’ll also interact directly with the group coach at some point and of course the rest of the group will benefit from that interaction too. 

A rising tide lifts all boats. 

Group coaching is typically more affordable. Certainly, in my 6 month group programme it’s half the price of my 1 to 1 package. Yet I’m still interacting with you, helping you achieve the goals you want. 

Investing in Yourself

One final point. An important one. The cost to improve your wellbeing isn’t just about spending money. Realise for success, time and energy need to be invested too. A good weight loss coach will tell you this up front. It might not be what you want to hear but no amount of money thrown at the problem will solve it alone.

You need to be prepared to become the person you need to be to reach your desired weight and maintain it going forward. Have you reached the point where you are prepared to do that now?

I hope this has been useful. If you have any questions please get in touch. You can ask questions through the comments or email me directly.

Decide today that you're going to take some positive action towards losing weight. The people who succeed, implement what they learn quickly, they take some form of action toward their desired outcome.  

That might be getting in touch with someone to potentially work with. It might be a friend, it might be a local counselor or therapist, hypnotherapist, dietitian or weight loss coach. But start today. If nothing else, make the decision today on what your next action will be toward your goal.

Don't kick the can down the road, start right now. Seize the day!