As many of you know I am attending the Institute of Integrated Nutrition. This is a one year online program to become a certified holistic health coach.
A lot of people ask me, what is a health coach? Where I live, in Canada, health coaches are not as popular as they should be.
A health coach is someone who has been trained in health and nutrition, who supports clients one on one to achieve their health and lifestyle goals. We work with people on the ground level, to challenge their ideas about healthy living, support them to set and follow through with their goals. We help to make small incremental changes, which leads to a transformation which in turn is sustainable, because unlike diets, which don’t stand the test of time, learning new healthy living skills, over a six month period, creates a sustainable change. We are trained to ask high mileage questions, to provoke clients to search within themselves to find the answers to any problems they have. Lots of people think that a wellness coach and a health coach are the exact same thing, while similar, a health coach uses food as medicine to correct problems. The idea of “you are what you eat” plays a huge role in how we help people.
Why are health coaches important?
Today we have an epidemic of health problems! Everyone has been touched by disease in some way. The majority of problems are related to diet or can be significantly improved by diet. It is common knowledge that today’s children will have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. This has never happened before. Obesity is everywhere! I have sat in grocery stores and observed what people are buying. Meat, dairy, processed foods, and highly advertised junk is what we are eating, there is a huge lack of fresh produce, whole grains, and nuts and seeds. So on one hand, we are being inundated with marketing message constantly, and the other we are completely confused by what to eat because the publishing industry is currently controlling our views on healthy living, with extreme diets, in order to catch our attention and sell books. Then to top it all off, it is expensive and hard to find fresh organic produce. This has lead us into sickness. I think it’s fair to say that no one wants to feel sick. We all want to be healthy, but many of us are confused about what to do about it. No kidding when you have whole grain symbols on Lucky Charms, which is the furthest thing from a whole grain. This is where health coaches come into play, we have a lot of information about healthy cooking and living because we are ourselves have gone through the transformation. It is someone who is always in your corner fighting for you, holding your hand through out the process to hold you accountable.
I take this idea one step further, to help clients build backyard gardens to take back control of our food supply along with my coaching. Backyard gardens used to be common everywhere, when we were much healthier. The biggest misconception about gardening is that it take so much time, it really doesn’t. Yes you have to build the garden beds, however once built the maintenance is so minimal. I advocate setting up an irrigation system (from actual irrigation to a sprinkler on a timer) so you don’t have to even water it, which means you are NOT a slave to your garden. Another misconception is the time it takes to harvest, which is silly when you actually think about it. What really takes more time, going outside and pulling something out of the ground and washing it, or getting ready, driving to the store, finding what you want, waiting in line, paying, driving home, and washing the produce. Clearly, we can see that gardening actually saves time and money. This also guarantees you the freshest produce and YOU KNOW WHAT IS IN YOUR FOOD! It builds a deep connection with your food, children are MUCH more likely eat vegetables if they grow them, and being outside in nature has a positive effect on human spirituality, which is essential to healthy living.
So let’s change the world! It is time that we stand together and take power away from huge corporations who don’t care about our well being. We need a healthy revolution and I am dedicated to changing the way people think about food production.
Let’s do something about it!!
Amanda Greenthumb 