LAYLA DANIEL
My name is Layla and I'm the in house nutrition coach for Unified Strength Methods. I'm a drug tested competitive female bodybuilder and certified nutrition coach. Whilst I am a fully certified nutrition coach, a lot of my specialist knowledge in nutrition has been self taught through my bodybuilding career coaching myself and working closely alongside athletes. Trial and error and a love for research has led me into handling athletes nutrition from powerlifters needing to diet into a weight class on a tight schedule, to bodybuilders needing to grow.
Aside from nutrition, I have an MSc in Geoscience and Bachelors in Physical Geography and Geology. I love to apply theory to real life and because of this, a lot of my work with athlete nutrition is based on scientific reasoning, and data collection and interpretation.
COMPETITIVE HISTORY
2016 BNBF Southern 1st Place Womens Physique
2018 Like2Lift Strongwoman Open 1st Place
2021 WNBF UK 1st Place Womens Bodybuilding
2021 INBF Worlds 3rd Place Womens Bodybuilding
WHAT IS YOUR COACHING PHILOSOPHY?
Logic and passing on knowledge and understanding. I'm a firm believer that anything you do is made 10,000 times easier if you understand the reasoning behind it. The same goes for nutrition in my books. I aim to work with athletes to reach their highest level possible whilst constantly continuing my education to use with them and apply to their unique scenarios.
With every athlete I work with I explain fully why we make the changes we make and how the proposed changes work towards their goals. No smoke and mirrors, just individualized nutrition backed by science and honesty.
WHAT IS nutrition TO YOU?
Nutrition is not just the food we eat and drinks we drink day to day. Its a tool.
Arguably, nutrition is the most powerful tool after training stimuli if you're speaking to drug tested athletes. I like to look at nutrition as bio-hacking. We have a goal we want to achieve, so we seek to understand the biological processes underlying the functions of our body we want to take advantage of. In doing this, we can adapt and individualize our nutrition to align with our goals and help us achieve them, whether that be body composition improvement, weight gain, muscle growth, sport-specific performance improvement, recovery improvement etc.
Nutrition for me is the mortar that holds the bricks together that make an athlete.
WHAT IS YOUR APPROACH?
My approach to working with athletes is based on having a working relationship. We work together to achieve their goals and be progressive in what we do. I'm not a dictator, I'm there to both advise and listen to help athletes achieve what they want to achieve. I'll always have my opinion and be honest with my athletes about their goals and what steps I believe are achievable, how hard they can expect to work etc.
To summarise, my approach is informative and to the point. We don't waste time, we get right to the work.
WHO ARE YOUR INFLUENCES?
My style of coaching and approach to nutrition has been influenced by a great many people, primarily Scott Stevenson, Layne Norton, Dante Trudel, and Jordan Peters to name a few.