17 Oct How Gaining Health Helps You Lose Weight

To lose weight, you eat less and move more. That’s so simple and so wrong.

There are so many health conditions that lead to weight gain: low thyroid, high estrogen, high stress, high blood sugar, too little sleep, infections, toxic exposure, eating the wrong foods for your body, over-exercising, and, yes, even eating too little.

For example, one of the main symptoms of low thyroid is weight gain. If your thyroid is under-functioning, you can starve yourself and still hang on to the weight. This is well documented.

So what I do, as your health coach, is work with you to get to the bottom of what is making your body cling to excess weight. I have a system I follow and it’s personalized to you and what you need. My goal is to optimize your diet, stress management, exercise, sleep, and relationships, because that’s the foundation of health and a healthy weight.

What to expect from health coaching

First, you complete my New Client Form on my website so I have your basic information and permissions. Then you download Zoom for free onto your device so we can video chat. If you are local, we can meet in person. We can also use the phone if needed.

So we can get a complete picture of your health, you’ll complete the Medical Symptoms Questionnaire on my website. This helps us uncover everything that’s going on with you. And it gives clues as to the root causes of your issues.

Next we have our first session. This is called the foundation session because it’s where we get to the basis of what’s going on. You’ll tell me your life story, even back to your birth, and the health of your parents. You’ll tell me the last time you felt well, and the last time you had a healthy weight. You’ll tell me your milestones, like weddings, births, deaths, and so on. All this let’s me see the real you and your needs.

I also learn your strengths. We want to draw on those to help you make positive changes. And I learn your goals for health coaching and your vision of yourself as healthy and slim. You’ll tell me what you’ll do once you’re feeling good, how you’ll live, and what will be different. That vision will help keep you motivated.

The next sessions are the follow-up sessions. Usually you buy a package of five hour long sessions, and get one session free, or, ideally, you buy ten sessions, with two free. It takes time to form healthy new habits and to explore all your concerns. In these sessions, I ask a lot of questions. I want to know what you think, what you’ve done before, and what you might like to try. I always prepare a few ideas to help you in advance, but I only share the ones you want to hear.

For example, I may start a follow-up session by asking you what you want to talk about. Maybe the answer is breakfast. So I’ll start asking you about your morning routine, if you’re hungry, who else you have to feed, and how rushed you are. Then we’ll explore some breakfast ideas, and you’ll tell me which ones sound appealing. After our session, I’ll send an email with recipes that you liked. The next session, I’ll ask how it went, and if you were eating the breakfasts you picked, if you liked them, how they made you feel, and if you want to continue with them.

To help you remember what we talked about, after each session I’ll send you an email. I’ll include any strategies you decided to try, plus links to articles for more in-depth explanations.

Sometimes it’s helpful for you to use my Diet and Lifestyle Journal. This is a way for you to track exactly what you eat and do each day for three days in a row. What we think we do, and what we actually do, is often different. Me too. For example, I say I rarely eat sweets, but last night I had some dessert. How often do I do that? Even I couldn’t say exactly unless I kept a journal. Once I see your journal, I can find more about your preferences and help you find ways to optimize your diet and lifestyle.

If you want, you can give me written permission to talk to your doctor. Your doctor can recommend a nutrition plan, supplements, exercise, and anything else. I’m not the one to prescribe; the doctor is. I take you from getting doctor’s orders to following doctor’s orders. It’s always easier said than done. But I’m your cheerleader and I keep you on track. I can be your secret to success.

Finally, at the close of coaching, you take the Multiple Symptoms Questionnaire again. This is how we measure progress. Sometimes it’s hard to remember how far you’ve come. You may feel good and not recall how sluggish and tired you used to be. This gives us evidence.

So contact me if you think you could benefit from health coaching. To get different results, you have to try something different. One more diet may just not do it for you. I’m a National Board Certified Functional Medicine Health Coach. The intro phone call is free. You’ll get a tip and find out if we can work well together. You can also pay for a single session at a time. Maybe it’s time to gain health to lose weight.

In the Comments, tell what your goals for health coaching would be.

Mayo Clinic Low Thyroid Symptoms

This article is for information purposes only. See Disclaimer below.