Health Coach

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Do you feel like you're always dieting and working out, but not seeing the results you want? You're not alone. Millions of people struggle with common health objectives like better strength or weight loss every year. A health coach can help! Health coaches are experts in helping people achieve their health and fitness goals. They can provide guidance, support, and accountability to help you reach your goals. In this article, we will discuss what health coaches do and how they can help you improve your health!

A bit more about us, Symmetrix Exercise & Rehab a kinesiology studio founded 30 years ago in Vancouver, Canada. We've helped thousands of clients through their health journey and we're focusing more attention on this aspect of our service. Our clients will benefit from a broader, more holistic approach to reach balance and make faster real progress towards better health.

What is a Health Coach?

Health coaching is the application of motivational interviewing by a health professional to help create lifestyle changes leading to better habits and wellness. Health coaching supports you when you want to make a change in your health and improve your life. A health coach is a trusted expert and an accountability buddy to kickstart a change in your behaviour, with the goal of creating self efficacy. In other words with proper health coaching you should see your health coach less and less until you don’t need one anymore.

Health coaches occupy the niche between fitness, nutrition and inspiring motivation, but from a holistic standpoint their expertise can more broadly include mental health, well being and general health motivation. That motivation puts you back in the driver's seat of your health.

The Role of a Health Coach

A health coach is not a doctor! Trust your primary health provider, hopefully they are the one who referred you to for health coach services in the first place. Your doctor is your primary source of care, whereas a health coach facilitates grounded habits in your life for you to make change to compliment the work you’re already doing with medical and allied health practitioners.

Looking for the services of a good doctor, physiotherapist, massage therapist or occupational therapist? A health coach can help you find that. But they will leave the specialized advice outside their scope to the respective experts.

A health coach is like a personal trainer for your life. They're professionals who help people make positive changes in their health. They provide guidance, support, and accountability to help you reach your health goals. Health coaches can help you improve your diet, exercise habits, stress management skills, and more.

Through use of objective measures, health coaches are able to identify areas of your life that would benefit from change in order for you to succeed. They will help you identify small, incremental wins, which will motivate you to continue making small changes towards better health. If you feel stuck in a rut, or struggle reaching your health goals, try a health coach!

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What issues/problems/challenges are addressed with health coaching?

Think of wellness to be optimal control over your body weight, nutrition, blood pressure, and of a healthier lifestyle. If you regularly have challenges in any of these areas, or you seek experience and knowledge to make your journey faster, health and wellness coaching might be a fit. A health coach provides a framework and accountability to help you meet those challenges and reach your health and wellness goals.

Some of the things a health coach may help you with include:

Weight loss
Improving diet through integrative nutrition
Exercise habits
Stress management skills
Managing chronic health conditions such as diabetes or heart disease.
Preventing health problems in the future.

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Who is Health Coaching for?

A health coach helps all sorts of people to improve their health. Engineers, doctors, lawyers, marketers, programmers, managers and leaders are examples of folks who are busy with a career and might not have time to also optimize their health.

Health and wellness coaches in the corporate environment are perfectly trained to oversee corporate wellness programs. A wellness coach helps private companies make sure staff achieve their desired level of physical activity through tips, fitness programs and training. Employers can rely on a health coach for research-backed guidance to keep their staff happy and healthy.

What Does a Health Coach Do?

Health coaching is a very individualized process. It will vary depending on your health goals, personality, and preferences. However, a good health coach follow the same general steps:

Initial Assessment

The health coach will meet with you to discuss your health history and goals. They will also assess your current lifestyle and habits.

Goal Setting

Together, you and your health coach will set realistic goals for improving your health.

Planning

The health coach will help you develop a plan to achieve your goals. This may include changes to your diet, exercise routine, or stress management skills.

Support and Accountability

The health coach will provide support and accountability to help you stay on track. They will also help you modify your plan as needed.

Evaluation

The health coach will periodically evaluate your progress and make changes to your program as necessary.

Health coaching sessions are conducted on a weekly basis for a one hour session. In the initial session, your health coach will identify areas of your lifestyle that need change, and take into consideration your time, lifestyle, levels of motivation and budget to help you achieve your goals. After the health coaching program is completed, your health coach will provide you with a plan that can be used for life.

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Are Health Coaches Regulated?

While “health coaching” has been shown in studies to be useful for improving physical health, the term “health coach” is currently unregulated. That means anyone can give themselves this title. The same goes for wellness coaching, which is why we also have health and wellness coaches.

Regulation is the people’s representation for the profession through the government, usually administered as a college like as doctors, physiotherapists or RMT's. Regulators set the bar for professionals and handle complaints, but to date health coaching remains an unregulated industry.

These laws do not exist for health coaches leaving only the health coach associations who already represent health coaches. They advocate for members and offer their members the title of certified health coach. They are important organizations representing the practitioners to help with their education, marketing and professional rights, and they also accept consumer complaints.

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Certified Health Coach Boards

In Canada the main association is a national board called Health Coach Alliance (HCA). The national commission in the US is the National Society of Health Coaches (NSHC) and the International Association of Health Coaches (IAHC) joins members internationally. The HCA is a sister organization to the Canadian Association for Integrative Nutrition, a well established nutritionist association and a demonstration of how closely these professions are tied.

Health Certification is also available from the American Council on Exercise (ACE), a well established certification board for personal trainers. Again, this link is a testament to the niche that health coaches occupy between personal training and nutrition.

Can a Kinesiologist be a Health Coach?

As long as kinesiologists work within their scope of practice and work in collaboration with their client's professionals health team, they are perfectly suited for health coaching. Members of a kinesiology association carry insurance, abide by a code of ethics and adhere to strict qualifications such as an undergraduate degree and first aid.

So kinesiologists have both a degree and continuing education giving them knowledge around a wide variety of wellness and fitness topics including weight loss, hypertension, aging and chronic diseases. Kinesiologists are trained to use an evidence based approach in their practice. This level of training ensures that you are receiving a service based on the most up to date science health trends.

Do My Benefits Cover a Health Coach?

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Why Choose Symmetrix for your Health Coach?

Symmetrix was voted Vancouver Top Kinesiology studio for 2022 by the Top Choice awards, and our clinical director Dasha Maslennikova was named Kinesiologist of the year in 2021. Our team of health professionals have helped thousands become physically active and achieve a healthy lifestyle.

Kinesiology is the study of human movement, so our kinesiologists are experts in exercise and active rehabilitation. In addition to providing personal training and active rehab to clients, our kinesiologists use coaching to help clients overcome or better manage their roadblocks and impediments for a better life.

As a team of 10 we’ve helped thousands of clients achieve their health goals. Over the past 3 decades our team of kinesiologists have trained everyone from students to olympic athletes. In the years that followed, we earned the trust of attorneys, physiotherapists, physicians and other health practitioners throughout the Lower Mainland. We are proud of our hard-earned reputation of the highest quality service and care for our clients.

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