A Key Takeaway from the Personalized Lifestyle Medicine Institute Consortium

Why Your Practice Needs a Health Coach

While I certainly wasn't the only nutritionist among the attendees at the Personalized Lifestyle Medicine Institute Consortium last weekend in Dana Point, CA, I met only one other functional medicine certified health coach like me. I wondered if she found herself chuckling at the end of every incredible, in-depth presentation on a wide range of topics related to immuno-metabolism when the presenter always ended with: “And colleagues, what it all comes down to for our patients are the modifiable lifestyle factors.”

That’s our calling card!

Health coaches need to be attending these high-caliber conferences. Here’s why: Our job is to support the practitioner in attendance — and their patients back home — by synthesizing this complex information into simple, action-oriented steps using positive psychology and motivational interviewing skills that help people actually do the one small behavioral change that leads to a cascading effect of more good choices, and ultimately, a much better quality of life in the long run.?

While we learn more everyday about the role of metabolic dysfunction in nearly every disease state and chronic illness on the rise today, it’s encouraging to know that lifestyle is so powerful in reversing this process. But this doesn’t happen in one session, or inside the proverbial vacuum. It takes continuous support, and ideally, within a community setting like group coaching, where everyone is working on a common goal despite the roadblocks along the way.?

In a podcast this past year, I heard Jeffrey Bland, PhD say that he believes relationships are the most important modifiable lifestyle factor. When we consider how influential our daily rhythms are — from how we eat, sleep, move, and play to the level of safety that we feel in the doctor’s office for proper gut-brain-axis signaling — we simply can’t deny this foundational element of our daily lives.?

That’s why I’m on a mission to promote health coaching as a necessary part of every practitioner’s healthcare team. As relationship builders, we support you and your patient through communication, connection, and community. I’m very grateful to Jeffrey Bland, PhD , Sandra Scheinbaum, Ph.D. and our leaders at the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy Inc. for understanding this fundamentally by helping to establish our role in the patient care process.

Stay tuned!

It’s always a process to leave such a high-energy, inspiring weekend like the last one and feel like we don’t have the time to synthesize what we’ve learned into our patients’ lives, let alone our own. So with my coaching hat on, I’ve committed to putting my attendance to good use by recapping the recommendations by our incredible presenters into actionable steps that all of us can start practicing — today. Stay tuned!

In good health,?

Sara Tate, MS, FMCHC, BCHN