Sohee Lee keeps saying adherence beats the perfect diet. Here's how a coach actually engineers that adherence.
Setting up a client's fat-loss numbers is the easy 10% - a calorie target, protein first, sensible macros. The hard 90% is getting a busy, normal person to actually stick to it week after week. Sohee is one of the most level-headed, anti-crash-diet voices on the first half. This breakdown covers her setup in our own words, then adds the part a coach lives in: turning "here are your numbers" into a repeatable habit-tracking and weekly check-in loop that keeps clients consistent.
By Markus Evers · September 2026 · a Coachway video breakdown
the short version
Sohee's video shows how to set up your dieting numbers for fat loss - a calorie target under maintenance, protein anchored first - and stresses that the number is a general starting point that individual response adjusts, not a crash diet to endure. The one thing a coach should do about it: treat the plan as a starting hypothesis and build the accountability loop around it, so adherence is tracked as a weekly habit score and check-in rather than left to the client's willpower.
Sohee Lee - How to Set Up Your Dieting Numbers
Source: Sohee Lee (Sohee Fit) on YouTube - "How to Set Up Your Dieting Numbers". Watch on YouTube. We embed the public video and summarise it in our own words; the video, title and channel belong to Sohee Lee, and nothing here implies her endorsement of Coachway.
Who is Sohee Lee, and why coaches watch
Sohee Lee - who publishes today as Sohee Carpenter - is an evidence-based coach, researcher and author (Eat, Lift, Thrive) with a background in human biology and psychology, a PhD, and a CSCS. She has been a fitness advisor for Women's Health since 2018, and her whole brand is realistic, sustainable fitness for busy people rather than extreme transformations. Coaches watch her less for a novel macro trick and more for the mindset she models: results come from consistency and adherence, there are no good or bad foods, and the point is a plan you can actually keep. She also appears in our roundup of fitness influencers coaches should study - here we go deep on a single idea instead.
What Sohee actually argues (our summary)
This is our summary of the ideas in the video, in our own words - not a transcript. A couple of points lean on her broader, well-documented position on adherence; watch the original for her exact examples and wording.
- 1
Fat loss is an energy-balance problem first. Before any fancy strategy, you set a calorie target under your maintenance. The video is about getting to a sensible starting number, not chasing a magic diet or cutting out food groups.
- 2
Anchor protein first. Protein is the macro she has you lock in before anything else; carbs and fats then flex around it and around personal preference. It's a simple hierarchy a client can remember without a spreadsheet.
- 3
The numbers are a starting point, not a verdict. She is explicit that this is a general approach and that individual numbers vary a lot from person to person. You are setting a hypothesis to test, not carving a law in stone.
- 4
Let real-world data correct the math. Because the calculator is only an estimate, you keep or adjust the plan based on how weight and measurements actually move over the following weeks - not on what the formula predicted on day one.
- 5
Pick numbers you can actually hold to. This is where her wider message lands: the best deficit is a sustainable one, moderate enough to stay consistent with. A plan you adhere to for months beats an aggressive one you quit in three weeks.
Coachway's take
We're fully on board with the setup: an honest deficit, protein first, and the humility to treat the number as a hypothesis. Most fat-loss failures aren't caused by the wrong macro split - they're caused by treating the starting number like gospel and never revisiting it. Sohee's "it's a starting point, adjust from data" framing is the correct default, and it's the part most new coaches skip.
Where we'd add the coach lens: the video is a client-facing how-to, so it naturally stops at the setup. But for a coach, the setup is the opening move, not the game. The value you're actually paid for shows up in the weeks after - reading the trend, spotting the drift, adjusting before a client stalls out and quits. Frame it however you like, but the through-line of Sohee's whole body of work is that adherence, not information, is the bottleneck. Your clients mostly know what to do. They pay you to help them keep doing it.
And here's the trap: adherence is invisible if you don't make it visible. "How was your week?" gets you a vibe, not a signal. If you can't see - concretely - whether a client hit their protein four days out of seven, whether they trained, whether they slept, then you're adjusting a diet plan off a feeling. The coaches who keep clients are the ones who turn adherence into something both sides can look at: a weekly habit score plus a short structured check-in, read against progress that's wider than the scale.
So our version of Sohee's advice is: set the numbers exactly as she says, then immediately wrap them in a repeatable loop - track two to four daily habits, run one honest check-in a week, and adjust the plan off what you see. That loop is the difference between a client who "did the diet" and a client who's still with you in month six.
Turn the plan into a visible adherence loop
Once you've set a client's numbers Sohee's way, the job is watching adherence and adjusting - and that's a tracking problem, not a spreadsheet one. Inside Coachway's client progress tracking, each client logs the daily habits you set (protein hit, steps, training, sleep) and answers a short weekly check-in, so you open one screen and immediately see who's on track and who's drifting - across weight trend, measurements, photos and habit consistency, not a single number on a scale. That's the "adjust from real-world data" step turned into a five-minute weekly routine instead of a manual chase across DMs.
If you're deciding which platform to run this in, our guide to health coaching software compares the tools on exactly these jobs - habit tracking, check-ins and progress - so accountability is a system your clients feel every week, not a promise you make on the sales call.
The habit + weekly check-in adherence template
The operational version of Sohee's message. Set the numbers, then track adherence with a simple daily habit scorecard and one honest weekly check-in. Copy it into your client's notes or your coaching app and adapt the habits to the person.
Habit + weekly check-in adherence template
1. Daily habit scorecard (pick 3-4, tick each day)
- ☐ Hit protein target (grams the coach set)
- ☐ Reached step / movement goal
- ☐ Completed the day's training (or planned rest)
- ☐ Slept the target hours
- ☐ Logged food honestly (even the messy days)
- Score the week: days hit ÷ days possible = adherence %. Aim to keep it consistent, not perfect.
2. Weekly check-in questions (client answers)
- ☐ What was your habit adherence % this week?
- ☐ Which habit was hardest to hit, and what got in the way?
- ☐ Bodyweight trend (weekly average, not one day) + any measurements/photos.
- ☐ Energy, hunger, sleep and mood - 1 to 5.
- ☐ One thing that went well, and one thing you want help with.
3. Coach adjustment rule (you decide)
- ☐ Adherence high + progress on track → hold the plan, reinforce what's working.
- ☐ Adherence high + no progress for ~2-3 weeks → adjust the numbers (this is Sohee's "starting point" in action).
- ☐ Adherence low → fix the habit or the plan's difficulty first; do not cut calories to compensate for a plan the client can't follow.
- ☐ Note the change and the reason, so next week's read has context.
HABIT + WEEKLY CHECK-IN ADHERENCE TEMPLATE (via Coachway) 1. DAILY HABIT SCORECARD (pick 3-4, tick each day) [ ] Hit protein target (grams the coach set) [ ] Reached step / movement goal [ ] Completed the day's training (or planned rest) [ ] Slept the target hours [ ] Logged food honestly (even the messy days) Score the week: days hit / days possible = adherence %. Aim to keep it consistent, not perfect. 2. WEEKLY CHECK-IN QUESTIONS (client answers) [ ] What was your habit adherence % this week? [ ] Which habit was hardest to hit, and what got in the way? [ ] Bodyweight trend (weekly average, not one day) + any measurements/photos. [ ] Energy, hunger, sleep and mood - 1 to 5. [ ] One thing that went well, and one thing you want help with. 3. COACH ADJUSTMENT RULE (you decide) [ ] Adherence high + progress on track -> hold the plan, reinforce what's working. [ ] Adherence high + no progress for ~2-3 weeks -> adjust the numbers (Sohee's "starting point" in action). [ ] Adherence low -> fix the habit or the plan's difficulty first; do not cut calories to compensate for a plan the client can't follow. [ ] Note the change and the reason, so next week's read has context.
Sohee Lee, sustainable fat loss and adherence - FAQ
Who is Sohee Lee and why do coaches follow her fat-loss advice?
Sohee Lee - who now publishes as Sohee Carpenter - is an evidence-based coach, researcher and author (Eat, Lift, Thrive) with a background in human biology and psychology, a PhD, and a CSCS. She has been a fitness advisor for Women's Health since 2018. Coaches follow her because she is one of the clearest anti-crash-diet voices online: her message is that sustainable results come from adherence and consistency, not willpower or extremes, and that there are no good or bad foods. That framing is a coaching philosophy as much as a nutrition one, which is why it travels well into how you run a roster.
How do you set up dieting numbers for fat loss?
In our reading of Sohee's video, you start with an energy deficit - a calorie target under your maintenance - then anchor protein first and let carbs and fats flex around it and around personal preference. The key point she keeps making is that the number is a general starting point, not a verdict; individual responses vary a lot, so you confirm or adjust it against real-world data over the following weeks rather than trusting the calculator. For a coach, that means the setup is the easy part and the weekly follow-up is the actual job.
Why does adherence matter more than the perfect diet?
Because the best plan is the one a client actually follows. Sohee's documented position is that most people already know roughly what to do - the gap is consistency, not information. A moderate deficit a client sticks to for months beats an aggressive one they abandon in three weeks, and a flexible approach with no forbidden foods is easier to hold to than a rigid one. For coaches, this reframes the work: your leverage is not a cleverer macro split, it is the accountability system that keeps a normal, busy person consistent between sessions.
How do you track client adherence week to week?
Track behaviours, not just the scale. Pick two to four daily habits that drive the outcome - a protein target, a step count, training sessions, sleep - and have the client log whether they hit them, so you and they can see a weekly adherence percentage. Then run a short structured weekly check-in that asks what got in the way and what to adjust, and read progress across several signals (weight trend, measurements, photos, energy) rather than one number. Doing this by hand across a roster is where most coaches drown, which is exactly the job progress tracking and check-in software is built for.
More on nutrition and adherence
- · Layne Norton on why adherence beats diet type - engineering the adherence that actually drives fat loss.
- · The full roundup: fitness YouTubers coaches should study.
Keep the roster consistent
all guidesLayne Norton on Why Adherence Beats Diet Type, Broken Down for Coaches
Dr. Layne Norton argues the best diet for fat loss is the one a client can actually stick to. Here is how a coach turns adherence into an accountability system with habits and weekly check-ins - plus a copy-paste check-in template and habit scorecard.
Read the guideHabit Coaching for Clients: A Coach's Playbook (2026)
Habit coaching for clients is a repeatable system, not a pep talk: choose one keystone habit anchored to something already in the client's day, have them log it daily while you review weekly, and set a minimum-viable floor so a streak survives a bad day. The operational playbook that pairs with the frameworks deep-dive.
Read the guideWeekly Check-In Questions for Fitness Clients (2026 Bank)
A curated weekly check-in question bank for online fitness coaches: the questions worth asking across adherence, training, nutrition, sleep, stress, progress and blockers, the reasoning behind each, and how to build a fixed core of 8 to 12 that clients answer honestly. Distinct from the check-in template and the reply-message guide.
Read the guideFree tools for this: One-Rep-Max Calculator · Warm-Up Set Calculator · Protein Calculator
Make client adherence something you can actually see
Sohee's right that adherence is the whole game - so stop tracking it in your head. Coachway keeps each client's habits, weekly check-ins and progress in one screen, so you spot the drift early and adjust before anyone stalls out. Start your 14-day free trial and run your next check-in inside it.
