What Does a Wellness Coach Do?
You may hear this term used interchangeably with health coach or even life coach. Wellness coaches have a broader role in helping clients meet their goals. They provide motivation, education, and guidance for making long-term lifestyle changes for all areas of wellness, not just fitness.
Like personal trainers, they listen to their clients to help develop goals. Unlike personal training goals, these can be broad enough to include fitness and weight goals as well as targets related to diet, nutrition, overall physical health, and even mental health.
Health, wellness, or life coaching is a more holistic approach. The coach looks at more aspects of a client’s life, from what they eat and how active they are to how they manage stress and how things like work or family contributes to or detracts from health and wellness.
Working with a coach is like a collaboration. The health coach and client work together to set goals, identify strengths and weaknesses, and plan strategies to make lifestyle changes for better health.
Wellness Coaching Puts the Focus on Behavioral Changes
One of the most important aspects of wellness coaching is the emphasis on behavioral change. The goal of working with a coach is not simply to achieve a number on the scale or to develop a healthy eating plan. It is to make lasting changes to develop healthier habits for a lifetime of greater wellness.
This means that there is an element of coaching related to psychology, but don’t expect to be a therapist. As with personal training, there is a scope of practice for a wellness coach, and it does not include genuine therapy.
Coaches do, however, use some elements of therapy and psychology to help clients change problematic behaviors and develop new habits. This is one of the most important aspects of coaching. The job of a wellness coach is to help clients change how they treat their minds and bodies.
Differences Between a Wellness Coach and a Personal Trainer
While they overlap to some degree, there are some significant differences between these two positions. Personal training is more focused on fitness, weight, and body composition goals. Wellness coaching or health coaching is broader and includes developing more healthy lifestyle habits in general.
Wellness Is Multidimensional
Wellness is about more than just physical health. Most models of wellness include at least six dimensions:
Physical: Nourishing a healthy body through exercise, nutrition, sleep, etc.
Mental: Engaging the world through learning, problem-solving, creativity, etc.
Emotional: Being aware of, accepting and expressing our feelings, and understanding the feelings of others.
Spiritual: Searching for meaning and higher purpose in human existence.
Social: Connecting and engaging with others and our communities in meaningful ways.
Environmental: Fostering positive interrelationships between planetary health and human actions, choices and wellbeing.
Learn more about our Wellness Coaching Program with a free consultation. Book your appointment at info@fit4lifestyle.ca