What is a Health & Wellness Coach
Let’s start with what a Health & Wellness Coach is, what they do, and who benefits most from having a health coach.
A Health & Wellness Coach (or Integrative Wellness Coach, as we call it here at Gateway), is a combination of educator, accountability partner, personal hype-man, and guide to overall physical and emotional wellness. Using a variety of strategies, your coach helps you to set and achieve goals, work through stress-management techniques, examine your relationship with food, and create health habits that are sustainable for your life.
Health coaching is for the person who has “tried everything,” who has “fallen off the wagon,” or who is just ready to make “health” a priority and something that doesn’t feel like a chore. Health and wellness coaching can also be for the person who has a steady health routine but is looking to achieve the next level or even maintain the current level.
Coaching is based on your goals, so it can focus on physical aspects of health, better nutrition, navigating food allergies, implementing new regimens for managing chronic illness, or any other goal around achieving overall wellness.
Why Wellness Coaching is Different than Your Average Online Health Advice
So, why would you pay someone to tell you to do what you already know you need to do: eat whole foods, drink more water, get good sleep, and exercise regularly? And can’t you find all the advise you need online anyway?
Good questions!
You would be surprised how many people sit down for their Initial Wellness Consultation and say something like this: “I don’t know why I’m here…I’m an adult! I know what I need to do. But I’ve tried everything and I just don’t know why nothing has worked?!”
Well, the reasons are different for everyone, but it usually comes down to personalization and programming.
First, online advise is usually written for a one-size-fits-most audience. They’ve never met you. They don’t know your health history, your genetics, or your hopes and dreams. Advice without personal context will not stick because your mind has nothing substantial to attach it to. A health and wellness coach approaches goals and concerns by getting to know you as a whole person, including your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health. By assessing your level of wellness in each of these categories, your coach can address all aspects of your health, creating a bigger and more lasting impact on your whole life.
Second, there is usually something in a person’s mental programming that keeps them stuck in a cycle that prevents them from achieving their goals and true potential. Pinterest might give you journaling prompts and recipes, but it can’t talk you through which prompts are actually useful for you or why “keto” might not be for you. While wellness coaching is not the same as therapy or counseling, it can help you uncover issues that go beyond just eating more veggies and hitting the gym once in a while.
Weeding through all of the New Year-New You campaigns, 30-day fitness challenges, 7-day detoxes, and latest weight loss trends can be overwhelming – and frankly, pretty discouraging. Working with an integrative wellness coach means you don’t have to go through all of that on your own. Your coaching will be customized based on what you need to make you successful and to make your habits stick!
Why is Wellness Coaching Valuable
Value refers to the level of importance, worth and usefulness placed on something. Finding value in health and wellness coaching starts with finding value in your health. In our society, this quote is unfortunately too true, too often:
Commitment and Skin in the Game
The best value for both parties comes when the exchange is equal. The patient has to first commit to themselves and that usually means having some skin in the game. We seek out services for areas of our lives in which we have exhausted our own knowledge, or in which we suspect there are blind spots and need help uncovering and dealing with them. This is the value that patients find in coaching services.
Health and wellness coaching at Gateway is based on the foundation of empowered health. The goal is to help people uncover the tools they already possess and teach them how to use them most effectively for what they want to achieve.
If you’re trying to decide if this is a good fit, call the office to set up a 15 minute complimentary phone call with Dawn, our Integrative Wellness Coach. The phone call is a great time to ask questions, obligation free, and explore what your options are.
Call (970) 532-2755 or schedule online.