Functional Medicine Health Coaching

“ Be Heard. Get Better. Enjoy Life. ”

In the past two decades, the term Coach has gained widespread recognition and acceptance in a variety of fields ranging from business, health, fitness, nutrition, lifestyle and wellness.

So what does a health coach do?

Simply speaking, health coaches help you implement the plan prepared by the clinician. A health coach meets you where you are on your health journey and helps you progress towards your goals. A health coach teaches or guides his or her clients to make wellness related behavioral changes, creating programs for them to reach their health, fitness and wellness goals in a manner that best serves the client’s needs.

In today’s modern world, a health coach is in a unique  position to bring understanding to the complex lifestyle factors in helping the clients enhance their wellbeing and also provide support as they strive and reach their lifestyle, health and sometimes their weight management goals. A health coach’s tools in this pursuit are motivational skills, positive psychology, excellent listening skills and a whole lot of empathy.

In other words, a health coach is a

• Health promoter
• Health Educator
• And an active partner in bringing each client’s potential up to the surface

Accordingly to many popular studies, there are four important factors related to health improvement and a health coach can help clients thrive in each of those areas : -

1. The ability to enjoy everything - A health coach uses his or her attentiveness, communication, motivational skills, fitness, nutritional knowledge and other techniques to encourage clients to broaden the scope of activities that they enjoy doing and in the process help clients remove inner barriers that prevent them from fully enjoying their lives and help them find their inner motivation to want to experience life to the fullest and healthiest.
2. The ability to choose freely - A Health Coach helps clients understand his or her options they have and help them discover which of those options feed their personality and their desire without imposing anything on their clients, so the clients have the freedom of choice.
3. The ability to grow - Maslow in his pyramid of needs describes essential growth steps. A Health Coach builds on this by helping their clients engage in challenging but very rewarding activities which’ll leave them with a sense of autonomy, competence and being skillful at life. It’s a feel good feeling all around,
4. The ability to see meaning - A Health Coach helps the client see worth in their lives and value in accomplishing their health related goals. The coach brings focus to enhancing, preserving and maintaining lifestyle and health as well as preventing illness.

Depending on the situation and the client, a health coach can be an advisor, assessor, a counselor, a demonstrator, friend, facilitator, researcher to find facts, a fitness instructor, a mentor, a chef, motivator, organizer, planner or a role model. But mostly, a health coach’s goal ultimately is to guide clients to find realistic and viable solutions to their problems by giving them the knowledge, skills, tools and confidence they need to participate fully in their own care and well-being.

Functional Medicine Health Coaching at Dr. AnshulGuptaMD

We understand that making changes necessary to get you on your healing journey is not easy. Our Functional Medicine health coaches make it easier for you to reach your goals by providing the right support that you need on this journey. We want every client that is part of our family to walk away feeling empowered, successful and feeling motivated to keep moving forward.

Our health coaches are specifically trained in the key concepts of functional medicine. They bring expertise in nutritional science, fitness and exercise, stress management techniques and they constantly seek out new information. On the coaching side of things, they’re trained to be militantly positive, excellent listeners, communicators and motivators. They lead by example and are passionate about understanding their clients and building long term relationships with them.

Health Coaching in our practice is a four step process : -

We listen - Listening forms the very backbone of coaching and at AnshulGuptaMD, it begins with the doctor himself. Your story is critically important to us – not only because we want to get to know you personally, but because it may hold clues to your health struggles or disease risks. We spend significant time in meaningful communication with our patients, asking questions, and deeply listening

We Plan - After a detailed evaluation, the doctor prescribes a personalized treatment plan consisting mainly of dietary and lifestyle changes. Our health coaches step in to help you prepare an implementation plan. The health coach spends time listening to how you feel about the plan, explaining the plan where needed and understanding any barriers that may affect your ability to adopt the plan. And together you’ll arrive at strategies to put the treatment plan into action.

We Support - The best laid plans go awry. If you hit a roadblock or need any kind of assistance ,we’re here to support you and help you find a way out of your tight-spot. One of the primary roles of a health coach is to be of support to clients in-between their doctor’s appointments. We’re with you every step of the way, cheering for you and holding you accountable.

We empower - Through our various interactions, our health coaches seek to support you in building the confidence to take control of your health management through understanding your condition and the treatment, and seeing how to make realistic changes that can help you manage your health related goals. Self-efficacy is the pathway to sustained wellness and our health coaches provide you with the tools so that you can continue to implement and maintain behaviors that support your health.