WHAT DOES A HEALTH COACH DO?

Hi babes!!! 

As some of you know - this is my first post in QUITE a while because I've been so insanely busy over the last few weeks between school, personal training, my "job job" and of course...health coaching. I looked back through my DM's and tried to round up some of the most recently asked questions from you guys and it made me realize that one of the big ones you guys have been curious about it health coaching!

Which made me SO excited because I'm actually obsessed with it and writing about it seems like a breeze for me. 

You guys have been asking things like: 

What does a health coach do?

Where did you go to school for health coaching?

Was it hard to while you we're also handling a busy schedule?

Plus so  much more. So let's dive into everything!

I'll explain in better detail what exactly a health coach does, the benefits of health coaching, cost, and how to start creating a career from it!

Okay so, 

What exactly IS a health coach?

I love answering this question because when I say that I'm a health coach, everyone assumes that I'm a nutritionist. Becoming a nutritionist takes more time and money spent on school. You're looking at a few years at least to become a nutritionist where as becoming a health coach only takes 6 months! 

So what I like to say is that, a health coach and a nutritionist could actually work together.

The job of a health coach is to try and teach clients new healthy habits.

We are your accountability partner and we are here to change your old way of thinking as well as your unhealthy connections to food. 

You could go to a nutritionist who gives you a flawless plan to follow but if at the end of the day, you still have the bad habit of snacking on junk food, stress often and sleep too little, then your plan is still going to be almost impossible to follow correctly and you'll wonder why you're not losing the weight. 

Our job is to make eating and living a healthy social life easier for you.

We talk about everything from how long you should make each meal last, how much you should chew, when you should and when you shouldn't eat, how to recognize when your hungry and when your full, plus tips on how to actually stop eating once you feel full. After focusing on your mindset, stress levels and sleep patterns, I also talk about the importance of thermogenic foods like protein and fiber and I like to do an entirely separate program that just focuses on the macros (carbs, proteins, fats) and practice the benefits of food logging. 

So on a typical week I'll talk to 3-5 different clients individually for 45 minutes to an hour, and the discussion is led by me asking questions about the previous week, how the "homework" went and after listening to how the client is feeling, I introduce new information. 

How do you become a health coach?

I wanted to become a health coach for two years before I finally took the leap 8 months ago. ALTHOUGH - I felt very lucky for how I ended up going to the school that I did. 

I started researching schools online a while ago and the first one that popped up was:

The Institute of Integrative Nutrition:

I thought that sounded great and I had a friend that went to school with them and she said she loved it so I started looking into their program. (Keep in mind, my friend that went there didn't become a health coach.)

It seems like when you Google "Health Coach" their page pops up in the form of ADs for most of the first page. I personally like to click on the first site that is NOT an ad because then I know it's there because it's popular and not because someone is paying for it to be there. But maybe that's just me. 

Anyways - after almost paying to go to this school, losing my credit card, then taking more time to do some research about IIN, I found some things that I didn't really like. 

First of all, the vibe of the school comes off as VERRRY marketed. Like, there's so much marketing going on. Even when I called them to talk about the school, one of the first things they told me over the phone was that I could become a sort of representative for the school...ehhh. No, lol, I want to become a health coach...that's why i'm calling. 

Anyway - then I come to find out that "in 2013, three women filed a federal class-action complaint accusing Rosenthal (the founder, director, and primary teacher or IIN) of discriminating against female employees on the basis of sex, pregnancy, and marital status and retaliating against employees who complained [11].

The chilling details included these allegations:

• Under Rosenthal's direction, the company considered female employees' maternity status in reviewing their performance.
• In 2012, acting on Rosenthal's instructions, the comppany's human resources department collected information and created a chart projecting the likelihood that each female employee will become pregnant.
• The company has fired or demoted employees who took maternity leave.

(The above allegations are not mine, nor did I write them. Please refer here for more info).

So I scratched that, and started looking at:

DR SEARS WELLNESS INSTITUTE:

Which seemed okay, but they only had three packages that you could sign up for. 1 being for families, the other being for kids and the other being for maternity. Or you could do the pack for all three but I was thinking, where do the girls in my demographic fall into that? I want to talk to girls like me! Lol, so I kept looking. 

Then I came across:

HCI (HEALTH COACH INSTITUTE): (WINNNER!!!)

2 women started the program and they just seemed very up front about everything and very relatable. I liked that the program was something I could use for helping women my age and I loved how organized everything was. 

How much does health coaching cost?

So depending on if you pay everything up front or if you pay in chunks, the price will change. I wanted to pay the minimum which was around 4 thousand dollars so check it out, here's what I did. 

I saved up $4,000 grand and then, instead of just depositing it into my bank and paying with my debit card, I went to chase and checked to see if I was eligible for their Chase Sapphire Card. I wanted this card for a while because you can get some great travel points BUT they will only honor the 50,000 points at sign up IF you spend 4,000 dollars on the card in like the first three months of opening it or something AND pay it off. 

So I got my card, used that to pay for school, then paid off the card right away. This saved me a couple thousand since I didn't do it in payments, (they end up charging you closer to 5,500 I wanna say if you go the payments route), AND I got 50,000 travel points that basically turn into cash if I want to book a flight. (Not $50,000 dollars worth though, that would be sick haha. I think it's around $500.00 dollars in flights).

How do you make money from health coaching?

So what's great about the program is that HCI also SERIOUSLY PREPARES YOU! By the time you graduate class (which can be done in 6 months but they give you a year to complete it), you have a cleanse that you can sell as well as a 90-day program template. This allows you to start practicing on clients so you're not lost and as you start training more, you can adjust the template to what feels comfortable to you and you're way of teaching. 

This also gives you the opportunity to create A SECOND 90-day program on your own so that as a client starts getting towards the end of their 90-day transformation, you can ask them if they would like to renew and do a second program with you. 

This is ideal because at this point, you've talked to this person every week for 12 weeks so you start to really feel like friends, and it's weird to just STOP talking. And then this is ALSO great because it can be hard finding new clients, so why not just keep a relationship with the ones you currently have if you enjoy working with them?

Was going to school hard with a busy schedule?

Honestly - no. New videos were released online every Monday and you had all week to watch like . videos. Then we were supposed to get in touch with someone from school (which was super easy because they have a whole website and facebook page where you can connect with the other students), and do the homework for the week with them.

If anything - this is where I saw people mess up. People that didn't stick with the same work buddy each week or who didn't make it a priority to get the homework done each week would end up falling behind and I'd assume it was hard for them to catch up and practice what they we're learning because when they were stuck on say week 3, most of rest of the class would be on week 7 or something. 

SO - just keep that in mind. Find someone ideally in your same time zone who seems reliable and schedule your time to talk with them every week before you're done with that weeks session. 

This way you hold each other accountable and get more shit done!

I think that pretty much covers the basis. If you guys have any further questions, please leave a comment here or on this picture on my instagram!

If you decide to sign up for HCI , make sure you use my code!! It's right here > 

R8UNI4I4

All you have to do to get started is click the link below!

https://www.healthcoachinstitute.com/getstarted?referral_code=R8UNI4I4

X Okay love ya!

PS, how great are all of these pictures?! I'm obsessed. You can get free blogging pics from Unsplash.com, but these specific ones can be found here.