When I tell people that I’m a health and wellness coach, you can see the overwhelm spread across their faces. Their minds race around to all of the possibilities of what this could mean. Most people immediately gravitate to nutrition programming and personal training services. They’re close but, as I’ll explain a little later, just a little off. Most of the remainder of people think, “Oh, life coaching.” Hmm, not the worst comparison in the world, but still not quite right. I’ll address this later too.
First, though, I wanted to share why I feel qualified to describe what health and wellness coaching is. I am a National Board Certified – Health and Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC). This certification is granted by the National Board for Health and Wellness Coaching (NBHWC). I attended a year-long training program at Saybrook University (which I highly recommend!). The training involved numerous hours of supervised peer and client coaching by board-certified professors. Feedback was freely shared and it was some of the best training I ever attended. As a side note, when you’re peer-coaching for a year, you really get to know your classmates. The school’s program is so good though, that everyone who was drawn to it shares the same values. It was such an awesome group to be part of and work with.
Completing this program (or any other training program that is accredited by the NBHWC) is just one of three prerequisites to submitting an application. You also have to complete at least 50 coaching sessions and document them in a log that is submitted with your application. And, finally, you need to show that you have an Associate’s Degree (or higher).
When the NBHWC approves your application, you’re ready to register for the 4.5 hour exam, which is administered by the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME). As if the waiting hasn’t been long enough at this point, once you complete the exam, you need to wait a few more weeks to get the results to see if you passed. This process wasn’t my first professional development journey, nor will it be my last, but I can say it was one of the most rewarding.
Okay, now that the resume portion of this newsletter is out of the way, how do people start to find their way to a health and wellness coach?
People usually find themselves meeting with a health and wellness coach from one of two paths. The first is by referral from a medical professional. The second is driven by an individual’s curiosity to address a health issue and they come across coaching as a resource either by word of mouth or an internet search.
Referrals are still few and far between for a few reasons. I’ll probably dig into that topic deeper in another newsletter. For now, in general, there are simply not enough medical professionals who are aware of what a health and wellness coach does and how services can be billed to insurance (this is still very limited).
What happens when someone comes across the availability of coaching services on the internet? Usually, some skepticism at first. And to be frank, that’s usually healthy skepticism (not to try to toss in a pun there…) And, not many people know about the NBHWC certification to double check that the person with the fast words and fancy website is an NBC-HWC. I mean, no one is legally bound to be certified to be able to say they’re providing health and wellness coaching services. This is unfortunate and opens up a whole lot of potential risk.
Whew, we’ve covered a lot already. We’re finally getting to why someone would want to work with a health and wellness coach.
Most people I speak with are looking for ways to look and feel better. Many have concerns about being there for their families. This means being healthy enough to actively and fully participate in family activities today. And others are seeking a longer life so they can be there for their families in the future, for as long as possible. Basically, people want to be healthy and well for themselves and their loved ones.
At this point, I want to make sure I’m clear about health and wellness coaching services. We do not diagnose or prescribe. Some coaches are medically trained so if they do diagnose or prescribe, they do so under that authority, not as a coach. As coaches (certified coaches to be clear…), we are responsible for being familiar with evidence-based criteria that credible public health groups publish. These would be the Centers for Disease Control or the National Institutes of Health to name a couple. Is this information always straightforward? If you think it is, what corner of the internet have you been hiding in… ? Of course not. Even credible sources sometimes conflict with one another. So we do our best with our best intentions for our clients and their needs in mind.
Once armed with credible information about health parameters and risks, we can be on the lookout for risk factors. This is so that, if necessary, we can recommend that clients seek qualified medical attention to address those topics that fall outside our scope.
What health and wellness topics can we cover? Well, remember, our bodies function as systems (I’m going to revisit this idea in more detail in my next newsletter) so everything works together and interacts with everything else. When our physiology is working well in one area, it can help other parts of our physiology stay healthy or improve. When one part of our physiology isn’t working so great, well, you know, our health and wellness can go downhill fast. The same goes for healthy (or unhealthy) habits. The good news here is that if we start somewhere and can make incremental improvements from there, we can begin to create the conditions for a more holistically-well body and mind.
This means that over the course of several sessions, we might explore the topics of sleep, fitness, nutrition, or stress management. And because evidence suggests that healthy relationships play a crucial role in our well-being, we may also spend time on that topic as well if it serves my clients. Quite a few clients come looking for ways to manage their weight. Dieting has failed them (because it’s generally a bad practice anyway) and they’re looking to make changes to their lifestyle to finally reach their target weight.
As a health and wellness coach, I also work with those who want to manage their diabetes, metabolic syndrome, or high blood pressure. These chronic diseases are diagnosed by my client’s doctors or by another medical professional. You know by now that I cannot, and will not, diagnose. I will also not provide recommendations to adjust any medications my clients might be on. I do not prescribe. But I know enough about these diseases to be able to help my clients create action plans that result in lifestyle changes so they can better manage the disease. I work with my clients to implement non-pharmacological, holistic habits so that they are armed with an arsenal of weapons to attack their disease. This is not a topic I approach lightly. These are serious issues, literally life and death issues here. Being shy about this will not help anyone. So, we figure out ways to attack the disease from every possible angle. This is not a “shock and awe” campaign. This will take time. But we bring every tool to the fight to win the battle.
All of these topics are in my scope of practice. What is not in my scope of practice as a coach is nutrition programming or personal training. Most states require specific training and certification to provide nutrition programming. If I had the appropriate training and certification, I could provide nutritional programming services but as a credentialled nutritionist, not as a health and wellness coach. I am a Certified Personal Trainer (CPT). If a client wants personal training, I can provide it but as a CPT, not in my role as a coach.
When providing health and wellness coaching, it is through the lens of my client’s goals and meeting them where they are. My client’s goals are crucial to driving the focus of the sessions. Meeting them where they are means helping them create a plan they will be responsible for, based on what they know and what they are capable of doing, to achieve their goals. This may, and probably will, change over time so we adjust accordingly. We walk alongside them on their evolving health and wellness journey.
So, again, I feel qualified to speak to health and wellness coaching. However, since I’m not a certified life coach (to be honest, I’m not sure such a thing exists), I don’t have the authority to speak with certainty about what it exactly entails. However, after some research, I found that career, financial, and romantic relationships are topics commonly addressed in life coaching.
I’m not going to say that some of these topics haven’t come up in some of my health and wellness coaching sessions. But when they do come up, the topic is usually anecdotal in a particular health and wellness-related situation. I won’t intentionally spend time addressing the specific topics related to career, finance, or romantic relationships, but because they can be detrimental or advantageous to my client’s health and wellness goals, I’ll acknowledge the issue.
As I draw this newsletter series answering, “What is health and wellness coaching?” to a close, I have one more topic I plan to speak to. So far I’ve been speaking to the foundational knowledge that a trained coach will bring to a session. I’ve found that foundational knowledge is a great start. However, I’ve created an approach to coaching that I feel even better serves my clients. This approach enables my clients to identify more effectively the action steps that will truly bring them closer to achieving their goals.
I hope you’ll stay tuned.
Chris
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