5 Things a Health Coach Can Teach You

Health coaching can be one of the most important program components of any wellness, support group, or integrative medicine program as it is the key to empowering patients to take greater responsibility for their lives and health. A Health Coach teaches much more than what to eat in order to achieve good health. They’re trained to help clients set goals, identify and overcome roadblocks and track their progress. Essentially, a Health Coach is a master of habit change. Holistic Health Coaching is an investment in long-term healthful living and can lead to true lifestyle adaptation.

Varying Cooking Styles

It’s not simply what you eat that can influence your health; it’s also how you prepare it. Healthy eating does not mean, “bland and boring”. There are various cooking styles a health coach can teach you; raw, juice, blend, steam, stir-fry, water sauté, soup, quick boil, bake …you name it! While a health coach is not a personal chef, they can teach you an array of cooking techniques to create a desired effect for a specific goal or condition. A Health Coach will teach you the basics of marinating with herbs and spices.

The Healing Power of Herbs & Spices

The most prominently used (and abused) flavors are typically salty and sweet. Extra salt and sugar are added to almost all processed foods. This has had a negative impact on our overall health, and can be witnessed in our high rates of both heart disease and obesity. Beyond adding flavor, basic spices provide a punch of nutrition in their own right. For millennia, spices have been exalted for their medicinal and healing qualities. Dried herbs, seeds, root, bark, and fruits are valued for their rich phytonutrient content and health-boosting properties. Cinnamon, vanilla, cumin, basil, turmeric, ginger and thyme (to name a few) are hailed for their anti-inflammatory, anti-depressant, anti-viral and even antioxidant properties.

A Better Understanding of Your Relationship with Food

Do you even enjoy what’s on your plate most of the time? A Health Coach helps clients reach a better understanding of what, how and why they eat the way they do! Surprisingly, many clients adhere to fad diets, fall prey to food marketing influences and eat as they were “taught” growing up, rather than eating what they enjoy. Clean, healthy eating does not have to be restrictive. As a whole, our dietary habits are strongly influenced by our environment, emotional state, cultural and societal programming more so than what our bodies actually crave! Many clients come to their coach for advice on emotional binge-eating and how to take control during times of high stress or sadness.

To Live Deliberately

Health is much more than “eating right and getting fit”. Holistic living encompasses all aspects of being; mind, body and soul. A Health Coach can teach you to live with intention. So many of us accept a life that is not to our liking – a life that includes too many things that we don’t know how to manage or control. The art of living deliberately requires deciding how we want to live our lives and taking the steps to practice accordingly. A Health coach can provide guidance on how to stop living on autopilot; to study, plan, prepare and live authentically.

Balance

This is last on the list, but may be one of the most important lessons I’ve learned in the process of becoming certified as a Health Coach. Balance is not only the key to good health, it’s the key to a happy life. Implementing strict guidelines only offsets balance whether it be in your personal life, relationship, career, diet or exercise regiment. It’s okay to indulge in sweets and guilty pleasures from time to time. The key to good health? Live intuitively, authentically, with balance and kindness and the world is yours!

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