A health coach is a coach who empowers clients to adopt as well as sustain healthy lifestyle behaviours that can prevent, mitigate as well as even reverse chronic diseases. Rather than programming a workout routine or creating a diet plan, health coaches use the science of behaviour change in order to enhance a client’s strengths and autonomy. They act as a guide in their quest to achieve self-determined health goals.
What Do Health Coaches Do?
Health coaching isn’t just about one diet or a single way of living. Instead, health coaches focus on bio-individuality. This is the idea that we’re all different and have distinctive dietary, lifestyle, emotional as well as physical needs.
This means that health coaches don’t believe in a one-size-fits-all approach to health and wellness. Instead, health coaches are responsible for working with clients in order to help them discover how to fuel their bodies as well as become the healthiest, happiest versions of themselves through a holistic approach.
Health coaches also concentrate on holistic health beyond the plate as they tackle wellness through primary food. At the heart of the health coaching is the idea that there are areas of your life that impact your long-term health just as much as the food you eat – your relationships, career, spirituality, and physical activity.
What Techniques Do Health Coaches Use?
A key technique which is utilised by health coaches is motivational interviewing. During this process, a coach will ask open-ended questions which are intended to assist their client state his or her own reasons for change. Instead of a doctor saying, “You need to lose weight,” a health coach could ask, “How could your life be different if you lost the weight which you’ve been trying to lose?”
The notion, which has been proven to be highly effective in many research studies, is that individuals who are shifting for their own reasons, on their own terms, are far more likely to thrive as compared to when someone is telling them what to do. The latter is less motivating and is more expected to instil resistance to change.
Positive Psychology Is A Cornerstone Of Health Coaching
Whereas traditional psychology has concentrated on what is “wrong” with individuals – as well as what needs to be “fixed” – the health coaching philosophy concentrates on what has, can, and will work better for you. This means that rather than rooting around for problems to dwell on, a health coach will work with you in order to harness your strengths so that you can improve the health behaviours that you want to address.
What Happens During A Health Coaching Session?
Teaming up with a health coach means that you’re partnering with a person who asks powerful questions, actively listens, helps you to strategise so that you can reach your goals. A health coaching session can take place in person or online. This gives you flexibility within your busy life.
In your first official session, your health coach will take you through a wellness vision. This type of session is an exploratory process of your ideals, best experiences, core values, and strengths. A compelling vision identifies what people want rather than what they don’t want.
Based on this, together you will form long-term (3-6 months) and short-term (weekly) goals over the course of working together. You’ll work with a health coach for a minimum of three months, ideally six months, so that long-lasting, quality changes are made.
Contact Trifocus Fitness Academy
Does becoming a health coach sound like something that you’d be interested in? If it is then you should really do our Health and Wellness Coach Course. For more information, please follow this link.
