What is a Health Coach?
A health coach is a specific type of mentor, motivator, and guide that focuses on helping people improve their overall health. This includes coaching people through lifestyle changes, self-care, goal setting, improving eating habits, working on weight loss, increasing physical activity in fun ways, teaching stress management skills, and navigating chronic disease/conditions.
Health coaching offers a unique perspective in the health field, as coaches use motivational interviewing and client-led methods to inspire healthy lifestyle changes. It’s related to life coaching in the methods and style of coaching but focuses specifically on creating healthy changes in an individual’s life.
Health coaches aren’t doctors or dieticians and they don’t diagnose or treat diseases.
They can complement medical care by coaching clients through lifestyle changes prescribed by a physician or dietician (such as those designed to help reduce blood pressure or treat obesity), or simply offer accountability and inspiration for those who are ready to feel more vibrant by improving their health behaviour.
What Does a Health Coach Do?
Health coaches provide health and wellness support as a mentor from a preventative and positive psychology perspective. Health coaches help clients improve their food and lifestyle choices to meet their individual health goals, prevent health conditions, and the worsening of any existing chronic conditions.
Menstrual cycle irregularities and problems, obesity, and diabetes are just a few of the chronic conditions that health coaching can help. People with these conditions receive assistance understanding their diagnosis and treatment plan as well as support with distressing emotions that can come from having one. They also have someone to hold them accountable for making changes in their health.
Health coaching isn’t a program that applies a one-size-fits-all to everyone. It’s about catering things to the individual and their own unique dietary, lifestyle, emotional, and physical needs.
