Despite rapid advancement in medical sciences, diseases such as obesity and diabetes continue to plague the general public. As a result, many people are spending a huge chunk of their healthcare budget on treating chronic illnesses. Health coaches provide a preventative solution. Most people are unaware of the facts surrounding healthy living, which leads to misinformed behavioral modifications. According to this resource by IAWP, a health coach understands how to curate personalized health plans consistent with individual needs.
Whether you’re looking to lose weight or gain muscle, a health coach can nudge you in the right direction and make sure you’re committed to your objectives. Essentially, health coaches motivate people to make small, manageable lifestyle changes, which improve their chances of living a long and healthy life. If you’re struggling to find or follow a suitable health plan, here’s how a health coach can help you get on the right track:
1. Increased Personal Care And Time
In a conventional healthcare setting, doctors and physicians are unable to give you the attention you deserve. A long line of appointments and a slew of other obstacles stand to significantly shorten your time with healthcare providers.
Moreover, even though diet and health share a very strong link, many medical professionals lack appropriate nutritional knowledge, especially in the domain of whole foods, which paints an incomplete picture for patients. Certified health coaches, on the other hand, have the time and skillset to help patients make smart nutritional choices and provide holistic treatments.
2. Boosting Confidence And Self Esteem
Self-limiting beliefs are a huge impediment for people trying to meet their fitness objectives.
From the moment people are born, self-limiting beliefs taint their confidence. Unfortunately, even outside the health industry, these stumping beliefs are a real problem. Even geniuses like Einstein had to deal with self-limiting issues like low self-esteem at some stage.
The biggest problem with self-limiting beliefs is unawareness. These beliefs are often reinforced by people more experienced and accomplished than you, which compels you to think that they have no resolution, and you shouldn’t even bother to correct them.
A health coach can help you think otherwise. By cultivating daily goals, opening your heart to a host of possibilities, and seeing beyond the narrow lens of your limiting negativities, a health coach can help you see the light at the end of the tunnel.
3. Customized Treatment Plans
Everyone has a unique biological portfolio–there’s no one-size-fits-all nutrition plan. Your health coach is well aware of this truth and spends a lot of time understanding your unique needs, past nutritional history and wellness objectives, along with any previous experience with exercises and diets. This helps them narrow down a health plan targeted at your unique situation, and increasing your chances of producing favorable outcomes.
4. Personal Accountability
Health coaches are masters at effectively policing your progress. You’ll always have someone standing by your side who holds you accountable for your wrongs and celebrates your achievements. Although you still share a client-employer relationship with a health coach, accountability gives it more of a personal touch.
The problem with most health relationships is that people spend a lot of money on programs and fad diets, only to realize that they’re not disciplined enough to make the best of their investment. With a health coach, you don’t have to worry about this concern.
Part of a health coach’s job is to keep you focused on your goals. A health coach understands that making healthy choices is the easy part – it’s what follows that requires more brainwork. Many clients, such as businessmen and entrepreneurs, that health coaches manage have arduous commitments; however, in spite of this, health coaches show them how to strike an optimal work/life balance.
5. Positive Reinforcement Through Psychological Techniques
Health coaches often employ motivational interviewing to reinforce positive thinking. In motivational interviewing, a health coach asks a series of open-ended questions designed to help individuals reach their own conclusions or reasons for making a positive change in their lives.
Instead of a doctor decreeing, “you need to change your eating habits,” a health coach might request, “Do you think your life will take a positive turn if you changed your eating habits?” This positive psychology, which has been the subject of a wide body of scientific research, has been corroborated in multiple studies. When individuals are given the freedom to set their own terms for changing their habits, they are better placed to succeed than when they are blatantly instructed.
6. Nutritional Expertise
The world of nutrition is a mindboggling buffet. Misinformation is rampant on Internet platforms when it comes to determining what to eat and what to discard.
A health coach steer clears from unreliable sources and bases their assumptions on scientific evidence and research. Coaches are well-versed in the physiological requirements of the human body and the food it requires to function optimally. This makes them better placed to debunk nutritional myths and recommend a balanced diet comprising of foods that provide actual dietary value.
Moreover, a health coach isn’t just a coach but also a mentor. Educating clients to understand the building blocks of good nutrition so that they can take independent nutritional decisions is one of the fundamental duties of health coaching. This education plays a pivotal role in empowering people suffering from nutritional deficiencies and general malnourishment.
A coach also goes one step ahead and recommends health and nutrition tips tailored for a particular exercise. For example, if you’re engaged in high-intensity weightlifting in the gym, a health coach might recommend a diet plan rich in proteins for muscle recovery and growth. Sometimes, you might also be advised to take supplements.
Final Thoughts
Is a health coach worth the investment in a world already crowding with nutritional and medical experts? Yes, definitely! With a health coach, you’re in prime position to develop an intimate relationship, far exceeding the normal doctor-patient relationships you’re used to in healthcare facilities. A good health coach will use positive psychology to empower your thoughts and hold you accountable for your choices as an impartial third party.
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