Health coaching is a collaborative professional relationship between coach and client with the end goal of achieving positive lasting change in your health status. Coaches are in the change business. Whether you work with a health coach, life coach, business coach, relationship coach, what you are engaging with them over is a change to your current circumstances.
From a health perspective this can mean many things. It can mean fat loss, increased fitness, more energy, improvements in illness and/or illness prevention just to name a few. I am often asked, “What does a health coach actually do?” Many assume I will provide meal plans telling them what to eat. Or a fitness plan, telling them how to workout. Many think I will be helping them overcome an illness of some kind.
Comparing what health coaching is to what it isn’t.
To set the record straight, let me be crystal clear. I am not a “dietician.” I will not put you on a diet. Conversely, I want to help you stop dieting and just teach you HOW TO EAT. So, we are going to stop dieting and start eating. We will discuss food, nutrients, how your body responds to food and what to do about it. We will develop a plan together. You will literally relearn how to eat and stop dieting.
The most important thing I can do as your coach is to teach you how to make movement and activity a natural part of your day so it is as second nature as brushing your teeth. Because I am a personal trainer, I can provide a fitness program to follow, but that isn’t coaching, that is a tool. To paint a picture, a fitness plan can tell you what to do, but as your coach I am going to work with you to identify what habits you need to learn to use the tool effectively. A tool you won’t really use isn’t particularly helpful is it?
I am not a doctor so, I am not going to cure or treat your illness. Let’s let your doctor worry about treating your illness. We are going to work on not letting your illness define you and work towards being a healthy person. Together we will build the habits healthy people have. We will practice the behaviors healthy people practice. We will learn to make the choices healthy people make. The degree to which these changes (there is that word again) leave your illness in the dust so it no longer defines you, remains to be seen. I can say that every client I have worked with has found that actively living as a healthy person lives, has made any illness they are experiencing less of a burden.
What is the true value of health coaching?
A coaching relationship is one that enables you to change when change is hard. Let’s face it, change is hard and if you are not willing to do the “work of change” because it’s hard then, well, nothing changes. This is where real coaching makes the difference. Coaching is a very different relationship than anything else you have experience with. I am not the boss. Telling you what to do is not my job nor will it solve your problem. I will just be perpetuating the same paradigm that has led to repeated failure in the long term.
How many times have you said to yourself, “I know what to do. Why can’t I seem to do it? What is wrong with me?” At the end of the day the choice is really yours. YOU ARE THE BOSS. I know that is both liberating and scary because at the end of the day, the buck stops with you. You can’t blame anyone else, but at the same time, the power is honestly and sincerely yours.
As your coach, I am here to help you:
~ Set goals, prioritize them, and break them down into achievable steps.
~ Help you identify what challenges you may face in achieving those goals and formulate a plan to overcome them.
~ Understand all your choices in achieving your goals.
~ Identify and weigh the consequences of those choices.
~ Determine which choice is MOST in line with your true values and what you want MOST.
~ Help you procure the resources you need to act on that choice.
~ Support you in seeing it through in the face of adversity and celebrate every win.
~ Graduate you from my care when you are ready to set off on your own. I aim to work myself out of a job, but will be here if you need me. Always.
This is the exact blueprint to living your life by design and it starts with having a healthy body in which to experience that life.
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