Simply put, health coaching will help you achieve your health-related goals by making lasting behaviour changes and integrating healthy habits into your lifestyle. Health coaching has been proven to be effective for a broad variety of health issues, including weight loss, stress reduction, and improving diet, sleep, physical activity and overall self-care.

 

We live in a time where there is more health information available than ever before. We seem to know everything we need to know to live a healthy, happy life. Yet, we don't necessarily make good use of this unlimited access to information. There is a gap between what we know and what we do. 

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As Chris Kresser explains in his article "The Health Coach Revolution", "people want to feel good, avoid chronic disease and live a long life. [...] They want to perform better at work, enjoy their relationships, and be well enough to get the most out of life. But there’s a big difference between wanting the benefits of being healthy and consistently engaging in the behaviours that lead to health. [...] Most people know that eating poorly, not exercising, not getting enough sleep and engaging in other unhealthy lifestyle habits is not good for them. Yet they continue these behaviours anyway, or they chase quick fixes that don’t last for more than a few weeks."

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What we often need is an ally, a coach on the side that motivates us to implement and maintain healthier habits, and holds us accountable. This is where health coaching comes into play.

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As put by Peter Grinspoon, MD, "just as a sports coach can help an athlete develop and excel at a sport, a health and wellness coach can help anyone excel at living their life [...]. The coaching process is similar to talk therapy in that it involves two people discussing ideas and issues, but it is different in that the person who is being coached is in the driver’s seat, creating their goals as well as the strategies on how to arrive at these goals".  

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While health coaches do not diagnose, treat or cure, they can empower their clients and help them achieve self-determined health and wellness goals. They support them in making lasting changes and hold them accountable. 

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Rather than assessing a problem and giving advice, health coaches work with clients in a more collaborative way and encourage them to come up with their own solutions.