What’s the difference between a nutritionist and a health coach?
Nutritionist/Nutritional Therapist: A nutrition expert that is well-versed with food knowledge to optimize human health and prevent disease. Generally consultants in certain niches like sports nutrition and wellness coaching.
Dietitian: Also a nutrition expert, but also a health professional employed at medical institutions to treat more serious medical conditions. Received more rigorous standardized education in medical nutrition.
Health/Wellness Coach: Like the title implies, a coach that is also usually an expert in nutrition or other branches of health like physiotherapy, psychology, etc. They are focused on co-creating an action plan with their client to bring about sustainable behavioural and lifestyle changes to address their fundamental imbalances and achieve their health goals. In a similar manner to a sports coach training an athlete.
As a holistic nutritional therapist,
This means that with nutrition as the cornerstone of my expertise, I still continually educate myself on all other facets that impact our health. The undercurrent that belies my expertise is a constant polishing and refinement of my technical knowledge.
Focusing on Whole(listic) health, it means understanding that humans are holistic beings that cannot be viewed in a reductionist model. One cause does not lead to one effect. It’s not just taking vitamin C for boosting immunity. We cannot hope to bring about effective holistic treatment by only using one single modality.
A doctor uses medicine or surgery. A nutritionist uses supplements or diet. A psychotherapist uses counselling.
The reductionist paradigm has caused us to view the moving parts and systems of the body as separate from one another. As a result, most conventional knowledge in relation to healing disorders of the body are fragmented. Drugs to treat symptoms. Disease diagnosis becomes chasing for identification from symptoms present.
Your body systems and your way of life are NOT separate moving parts. They are all interconnected and influence one another: just like in ecology, you are a micro-ecosystem that needs all its unique players to function well for the whole system to thrive.
A few short examples of our interconnected systems:
Your habitual breathing rhythm impacts your states of calm and stress. Shallow chest breathing promotes ‘fight or flight’. Deep diaphragmatic breathing promotes ‘rest and digest.’ ‘Rest and digest’ promotes healing, strengthening, and detoxification. Chronic stress, ‘fight or flight’, promotes inflammation, anxiety, and poor gut function. Your gut function and diet quality impacts your gut microbiome which impacts your nutrient synthesis and absorption, ergo, your ability to thrive and repair. Poor gut microbiome disrupts your hormonal balance, your immunity, and your digestion, etc. As you can see, any one facet of our lifestyle can have ripple-effects on the other systems of our health.
Thus, as a holistic nutritional therapist, my aim is to evaluate your lifestyle as comprehensively as possible, such that I gain an elevated perspective on all the moving parts in your ecosystem. Once I am able to see the underlying imbalances within your lifestyle causing your symptoms, I tailor a holistic treatment plan that addresses them, starting with the fundamentals, and then incorporating specific technical solutions.
As a health coach,
I will guide you in creating your vision of health, to organically and sustainably build habits, to attain your health goals.
What does vibrant health mean for you? If all your symptoms disappeared, what would you want to do the most? Be it travelling the world, climbing a mountain, raising chickens, gardening, returning to sports, or simply being able to play with your child, I will help you find your own path to those goals.
What makes an effective coach? The root of “coach” can be traced to a village in Hungary, Kocs, where carriages were made in the 1500s. I love me a good metaphor, so here’s one:
A “coach” takes you from where you are to where you want to go.
The client is the one with the reins and it is the coaching process that facilitates the journey. But in order for you to get to where you want to go, you’ll have to be willing to leave the comfort of the nest.
Lifestyle changes are supposed to last a lifetime!
You cannot get to where you want to be if you want to continue staying where you are. If you’ve already tried, yet still come up short, then perhaps your trajectory needs readjustment. Your health is inextricably linked to your way of life. Thus, my health coaching must extend into your way of life. You will undertake a transformative journey to ultimately achieve an elevated awareness of how you want to live. That is, with intention.
Yet it is also as simple as returning to our roots.
“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.
You must travel it by yourself.
It is not far. It is within reach.
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know.
Perhaps it is everywhere - on water and land.”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
