What The Heck Is A Health Coach?

So, why work with a health coach? Is it the right option for you? And like, what the heck is a health coach even anyways?

Health coaching is on the rise as wellness continues to grow and become more trendy and important to our generation. We’re noticing toxic chemicals in our personal care and food supply. We’re seeing the largest companies in the world take massive action in an effort to win consumers back. They are reformulating to offer safer products and developing restaurants or grocery store brands making healthy food more convenient. So, I wanted to dive into this topic to explain in more detail about what I do. This is how a health coach can be of service to ya!

Ok so what I always say first is to think of a health coach like hiring a fitness coach. This person is there to help you stay accountable and guide you to make positive changes that support your nutrition and overall health.

As a holistic health coach certified through the Institute of Integrative Nutrition, I work with clients in an ongoing coaching plan to support their goals and find balance. While dietary nutrition focused on whole foods is discussed, there’s a larger focus on non-food forms of nourishment as well. These are things like career, relationships, physical activity, and spirituality. I assess a client’s overall well-being and together we come up with recommendations to help enact basic health-supportive modifications. You can learn more about why I decided to attend the Institute of Integrative Nutrition here.

We focus on not only nutrition, but also things like physical activity, relationships, career, spirituality, and more. These elements can impact markers of health like stress, weight, and energy levels. The relationship between food and lifestyle and how they BOTH affect health is the main focus. 

For example, you can eat a perfect diet and work out daily, but if you have a stressful job or are in a relationship that doesn’t serve you, you won’t reach your full potential for health and wellness. A few years ago, I realized I was following a pretty “perfect,” 100% clean diet, but was doing a terrible job managing the stress and anxiety from my career in ad sales. This was just one of the things blocking me from being able to clear up stress-induced stomach pains and terrible breakouts. I could be eating all the kale in the world and it wouldn’t make a difference with the symptoms I was often struggling with and that were keeping me up at night!

Through working with my own health coach this last year, I’ve been able to carve out dedicated time to reflect on the symptoms I’m experiencing on a day to day basis, figure out certain triggers that aggravate these symptoms, and put together a plan of attack made up of lifestyle changes, rather than just turning toward another prescription drug.

So, you may be thinking- ok cool this sounds great. But how do health coaches differ from nutritionists, dieticians, and even therapists? 

Let me caveat that I 100% believe that all these highly educated individuals could be the right choice for you, even to work in tandem with your health coach if it makes sense for your situation. But here is just a brief description to let you know how the work with a client would differ:

As IIN shares, “nutritionists or dieticians diagnose clients’ nutritional imbalances and concerns using the process of identifying a problem, cause, and symptom in order to support pursuit of a treatment plan. They tend to make specific nutrition recommendations, often using food components such as calories of energy, grams of protein, and milliliters of water, based on activity level, stress level, and body composition.” In a nutshell, the best way I can describe it is that they focus solely on food. They are not trained to address the individual from a holistic perspective to identify other areas of their life that could be impacting overall health.

When it comes to therapists, they often explore one’s past to examine unhealthy thought patterns and influences. An Integrative Nutrition Health Coach focuses primarily on the present and future. Health coaches highlight your strengths and help you to make immediate lifestyle changes to work toward your goals.

Alright guys, so that’s it! Interested to know if the support from a holistic health coach could be a fit for you? Check out my list of services HERE. I would absolutely love to support you in reaching your health goals. 

Until next time!

XOXO,

Dani