Before you call it quits and decide to give up on having a healthier lifestyle, you could want to consider what a wellness coach can do for you. Many people get so frustrated working out on their own that they give up before they really have a chance to succeed.
Luckily, by hiring a health coach you are able to avoid this issue, and end up with the body that you have been dreaming of. But before you jump forward too far, you need to know what a health coach is in addition to what one can do for you.
Ordinarily speaking, a wellness coach is a fitness trainer, dietician, and much more all rolled into one. While this may sound like an impossible job on the surface, the fact of the matter is that wellness Coaches are very good at what they do.
These professionals have many years of experience in the health industry, and have a knack for communicating what they know to others on a very personal level.
The main goal of any wellness coach is to work with you so that you are able to reach the goals that you’ve set forth for yourself. And guess what?
When you don’t know what you want to accomplish your wellness coach can help in that area as well. Simply put, they’re there to be certain that you are on the right path to success.
Wellness coaches come from a variety of different backgrounds. Although most people don’t go through schooling thinking that they want to be a wellness Coach, over time they start to transform into this career.
For instance, many health Coaches have backgrounds in personal training, bodybuilding, health and nutrition, exercise science, and much more.
As soon as you hire a wellness Coach, he or she’ll be at your disposal day in and day out. A lot of people rely on coaches to help them on a personal basis. And although this is a good idea for some, web-based wellness Coaches are becoming more well-liked as a result of busy schedules.
So before you think that you don’t have time to work with a wellness Coach, you should really reconsider. They will be willing to work with you in the capacity that best suits your lifestyle.
While working with a wellness coach you will be able to get expert advice on reaching your objectives. When you want to lose weight, you will be supplied with an exercise program that’ll get you moving in the right direction. The same thing holds true for those individuals who want to eat healthier, get in better shape, etc.
As you can see, a health coach is more than just your average Joe. They’re trained in multiple disciplines, and work with patrons to help them reach their objectives.
Health Promotion incorporates many facets of our daily lives. From the amount of sleep to the water we drink, to the food that we eat and the activity that we maintain, our health is dependent upon many factors of our lifestyle.
Working to improve our wellness could be challenging to achieve on our own. That is why we can utilize the assistance of a wellness Coach.
What’s a wellness Coach?
A health coach is a highly educated expert who is trained in behavioral change. They hold degrees in Exercise Science, Health Education, Exercise Physiology, Counseling and Education.
A health coach helps person in recognizing current health concerns as well as preventing future health related issues. These experts work with clients in a variety of ways including; face-to-face, telephone, instant messaging and / or via email.
The latter of those is also referred to as electronic coaching and is the most efficient and cost effective method of working with a wellness Coach.
No matter what method is used for communication a wellness coach provides a customized program especially designed to address the needs and concerns of each individual patron.
How can a wellness coach help me?
A lot of person maintain several healthful habits in their lives. One person may be a fitness enthusiast; another may abstain from alcohol and tobacco; while another may maintain a healthful daily diet.
However, overall wellness is much like a puzzle, and a high level of health is only achieved when each piece of this puzzle is in place. A wellness coach will assist a personal in correcting his or her missing piece of the puzzle.
An web-based health coach may address the needs of sleep deprivation, stress management, diet, or any number of health related issues. The health coach will motivate, guide, and provide valuable resources to provide customers with the necessary tools to make life changes.
How’s a wellness coach unique?
A health coach serves a distinctly different purpose than a personal trainer, a counselor, or a supportive family member or friend. First, a health coach is an specialist in his or her specific field.
When a client determines the need for a wellness coach he or she will complete a health risk appraisal. Based on this assessment the client are going to be assigned a wellness coach particularly selected to address his or her individual needs.
Next, a health coach is available electronically 24 hours per day. Through web-based communication patrons have the opportunity to contact a health coach as much or as little as he could like.
Communication with a health coach may range from daily to weekly, and can occur by e-mail, journal or a combination of both. Lastly, a health coach is trained to assist in changing the way that the customer thinks and the way that they view themselves.
A health coach maintains the purpose of helping the customer to work towards achieving a higher quality in life. This happens by addressing the cause of a certain problem rather than simply addressing the effects of a problem.
A wellness coach will help individuals recognize their needs, determine goals, and take the necessary steps towards achieving these goals.
While wellness are growing concerns in our daily lives, it may seem challenging to make the time to educate oneself and address the needs or our well being.
Working with the assistance of a wellness coach empowers us to focus on our specific needs and make progress towards changing.
Do you find it challenging to stay excited when trying to make changes to your health? Are you aware that changes ought to be made in your daily life but you do not know where to begin? If so then wellness coaching might just be the solution you have been seeking.
Health Promotion coaching is a service provided by trained specialists who work with you individually to help you reach your wellness goals. Health Promotion coaching motivates, guides, and supports individual’s in order to reach sustainable behavioral changes by offering creative solutions to their problems.
Health Promotion coaching provides individually designed wellness programs to meet your unique needs by focusing on physical, mental, and emotional health. They help you become proactive in your life by eliminating unhealthful behaviors and making wellness a priority.
Benefits of Health Promotion Coaching for Your Employees
Staff Members can benefit from wellness coaching in a variety of ways. Wellness coaching can help individuals decrease major health risks in their lives by changing high risk behaviors.
Some of the many reasons why staff members work with wellness coaches are to get in shape, lose weight, reduce stress, quit use of tobacco, and develop balance in their lives. Wellness coaches assist person with current health problems in addition to preventing future health issues.
Because each wellness program that a wellness coach creates is unique to suit the needs of the client, they can make sure that it will be a program that is right for them. Many busy staff mistakenly believe that they don’t have the time for wellness coaching.
Fortunately wellness coaching experts have the ability to provide their services in a selection of convenient ways. While electronic coaching through the use of e-mails and instant messaging has become a well-liked method as a result of its convenience, telephone and face-to-face interactions might also be used.
Staff Members have the ability to achieve their objectives and improve their lives through the assistance of wellness coaching.
Benefits of Health Promotion Coaching for the Company
The overall advantages of wellness coaching for a company are remarkable. Staff Member high risk behaviors such as use of tobacco and obesity cost companies millions of dollars every year.
These high risk behaviors often cause avoidable disease and keep staff members from coming to work. Wellness coaching guides, supports, hold customers accountable, and ensures that they receive continued motivation to help them achieve their wellness goals and eliminate unhealthful behaviors in their lives.
By implementing wellness programs and using wellness coaching in their organizations, businesss reduce the risk of avoidable disease in their organizations.
This improves the overall health of staff members, lowers healthcare and insurance costs, lowers absenteeism, and ultimately enhances performance and productivity.
When staff members experience the benefits of higher levels wellness in their lives it causes an betterment in job attitude, energy, and morale.
Organizations that utilize wellness coaching for their personnel experience the benefits of higher productivity.
In today’s fast paced world our busy lives leave little time, energy, or motivation for individuals to focus on their own needs.
Those that do seek to improve their wellness traditionally turn to friends, family, specialists and published materials for support and information. All too often those support structures fail to make a lasting difference.
This happens for a number of reasons. Friends and family may not be capable of helping. Working with experts is time consuming and costly and very few of us are effective at taking published, generic information and applying it to our own lives.
Gold’s Gym Winston-Salem has developed a new online wellness program that expands the range of support available to those wishing to make healthy lifestyle changes.
The wellness program, Gold’s Fitness Center Wellness Coach, focuses on the everyday challenges of making positive lifestyle changes and has the advantages of being more customized and efficient than generic, published information and less intense and costly than specialist face-to-face counseling.
Utilizing a collaborative problem-solving model the goal isn’t to give advice, but rather to help person think through the issues and come to their own conclusions.
The coach offers ideas for consideration, helps the individual generate ideas of their own, helps the individual consider the various ideas, pick a direction, and then supports them in the implementation of their decision.
Challenging the conventional wisdom that relationship formation requires in-person interaction; Gold’s Health Club has found that members and coaches have the ability to build significant relationships via internet based communication.
Utilizing industry leading technology a Gold’s Health Club Wellness Coach can offer members a secure, user-friendly personal website where they can access their coach in a real-time or via email with responses delivered in less than 24 hours.
The site allows coaches to hand select relevant articles that are written on a consumer level and that are targeted to the issue at hand and add them to a member’s web-based personal library.
The site also contains various health promotion programs and tools which are designed to assist the coach and member to set, implement and track specific objectives.
The collaborative relationship formed between member and coach enhances the quality ice and efficiency of service. The familiarity that a coach develops with a member’s circumstances and meaningful relationships allows them over time to more rapidly offer useful ideas and assistance.
With traditional call-in assistance lines, the time intensive exercise of getting background and contextual information is repeated each time. IN that scenario efficiency is lost.
Furthermore, Gold’s Fitness Center Health Coach has created a protocol based on key principals from the field of psychotherapy and behavior modification.
The protocol is embedded within a proprietary problem-solving that is based on the theory that individuals often act without a good understanding of a problem. Their responses then complicate matters and often make matters worse.
Gold’s Gym Wellness Coach offers the opportunity to step back, take a second look at what has going on, and quickly asses the factors influencing the situation. But, having an idea of “what” to do is very different than actually “doing” something about it.
Individuals need help with the follow-through. Now, after figuring out “what” to do, Gold’s Fitness Center Wellness Coach focuses on implementation.
Here Gold’s Fitness Center Wellness Coach builds on sound research and experience from the field of behavior modification that has to do with goal-setting and with implementation support.
The end result is a highly personalized, effective, user-friendly way of improving the wellness of an individual. The efficient nature of the online relationship authorizes Gold’s Fitness Club Health Coach to keep the price point within reach of virtually anyone.
Information to evaluate your health promotion program comes from routinely gathered screening and follow-up data of your health promotion program that look at process and outcomes of your program.
The Worker Medical Program has available a computerized case-management system which includes queries that allow easy assessment of process and outcome results at any point in time.
Process Evaluation
Process evaluation looks at the health promotion program’s impact as seen at various points in time.
Information that is gathered from the various forms that wellness workforce fill out should supply you with the following -
o Precisely how many personnel were screened?
o Just how many workers who were referred to a doctor went?
o Precisely how many workers who expressed interest in wellness programs went?
o Precisely how many personnel who were referred to wellness programs went?
o Just how many workforce who went to wellness programs completed them?
o How many staff are in follow-up caseload?
You can use this type of process evaluation to evaluate and learn about the health of your wellness program.
Wellness Program Outcome Analysis
A central objective of the health promotion program is to increase the health of employees. Information on how to judge how well your health promotion program is meeting this objective is called “outcome examination” because you’re assessing the results or outcome of your health promotion program.
In health promotion programs, objectives are measured by specific (outcomes) behavior changes and reductions in health risk levels. Have workforce lowered their blood pressure? Have they lost weight? Are they exercising more? is alcohol consumption at a safe level?
For instance these are the types of questions you can ask to determine if you are reaching your goals -
o For personnel with high blood pressure (140 / 90 or higher or on medication) at screening, what percentage have it under control (below 140 / 90) a year later?
o What’s the change in typical blood pressure levels among all staff with high blood pressure 1 year after screening? Two years later?
o For staff members with high blood cholesterol levels (above 240) at screening, what percentage has reduced their cholesterol to borderline-high levels (200-239)?
o For staff members with borderline-high blood cholesterol levels, what percentages have lowered their cholesterol to the desirable range (below 200)?
o What is the change in typical cholesterol levels among all workers with high and borderline-high blood cholesterol levels 1 year after screening? Two years later?
o For staff members who were overweight at screening, what percentage have lost 20 pounds or more a year later? Ten pounds or more? What is the typical weight loss?
o For employees who were smokers at screening, what percentages have quit smoking? for at least a year?
o For staff members whose level of alcohol consumption put them at-risk at screening, what percentage have quit drinking alcohol? Are eating alcohol at levels considered safe by CDC guidelines? Have reduced their drinking, but are still at-risk?
o For personnel, what percentages are exercising at least three times a week for at least 20 minutes?
o If levels of fitness were measured, what percentages have improved fitness?
Be certain to set a regular time like every 6 months to look at which workforce your health promotion program is reaching and how effective it’s at assisting them reduce their health risks. Use this information to make new decisions about how to direct your health promotion program efforts. Then make the change you need to improve your health promotion program.
Some might feel that analysis is a frill; it is not. Examination is a necessary part of a wellness program. You’ll need to know what’s working and what’s not.
Decision-makers who fund the health promotion program need to be updated on the performance of the health promotion program. Examination will provide you with necessary data to maintain and expand the health promotion program and convince senior management to continue to support the health promotion program.
The keys to a successful wellness program are persistent one-on-one outreach and follow-up counseling to encourage health improvement, adherence to treatment programs, changes in lifestyle behaviors, and to prevent relapse.
Periodic outreach and follow-up procedures provide personnel with a safety net which keeps them involved in the wellness program and avoids treatment dropout and relapse.
Counselors should follow up on personnel at least every 6 months throughout the career of the employee at the workplace. The objectives of follow-up are to -
o Involve employees who have health risks in treatment and risk reduction programs.
o Involve all staff in wellness programs and worksite-wide wellness activities.
o Support workforce in carrying out the risk reduction or health betterment activities they have chosen.
o Make sure to help employees comply with their treatment programs.
o Avoid relapse.
o Avoid employees from dropping out.
o Be sure to help workforce maintain behavior changes.
Follow-up may be conducted in individuals, by phone, mail, and via computer if the technology is available. Most preferable is an in-person contact.
Computer programs which may do case load management are available to help counselors track information and perform follow-up.
Priorities for Follow-Up
People with multiple health risks ought to be at the top of the list. People in key positions such as union leaders or department heads with health risks should also be contacted early so that they learn what the health promotion program is about and can share the information with others.
Individuals who need a medical evaluation for high blood pressure (BP) or cholesterol should also be targeted early. Many staff will have seen their physicians as a result of the screening, but some will need more encouragement to do so. Those with no health risks may be followed up yearly.
A follow-up counseling session can take 20 to 45 minutes. At minimum, follow-up must include those who were told to seek medical analysis for high blood pressure readings, high cholesterol readings, or borderline high blood cholesterol readings with 2 or more other risk factors.
It could include those who were identified as at-risk for one or more of the other major risk factors – at-risk levels of alcohol consumption, being overweight, and having low HDL.
Follow-Up With Doctors
A letter (see forms) must be sent to the doctor or clinic of each worker who has high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or is under a doctor’s care.
The letter should explain the wellness program and should include the staff member’s relevant, current health measurements.
Along with the letter, send a self-addressed return envelope. Follow-up with the doctor should be repeated every 6 months until it is determined that the worker is under satisfactory control.
Contacting the physician is important for three reasons -
o The physicians receive employees’ health measurements taken at the worksite.
o You receive the blood pressure and cholesterol readings the physician takes and information on the treatment the physician prescribes.
Many times the worker doesn’t have this information or doesn’t remember it. The information can be used when counseling the worker.
o Follow-up encourages doctors to pay closer attention to heart disease risk factors among their patients.
The menu approach offers staff a range of choices to support lifestyle changes. It authorizes individuals to choose the kind of help that suits their schedules and preferences.
The four basic kinds of health promotion programs include -
o Classes
o Minigroups
o Guided self help
o Individual counseling
Classes
Classes (8 or more) could be an effective means of providing education and social support for behavior change. The length of a class can vary depending on topic requirements. It is not sufficient to offer only courses at a worksite.
A lot of staff are under time constraints with after work commitments and although they may be interested they simply cannot participate because of their schedules.
Staff Members could be very eager to start a health promotion program but because of lack of participants to meet class quotas, the health promotion program is canceled.
Many national corporations such as the American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, Weight Watchers, etc. offer classes; you should have little trouble in identifying a provider for class type wellness programs.
You could want to contact your local hospital, health department, or YMCA for possible choices. for selecting a provider to provide a health promotion program you could want to review the section on health promotion program structure.
Minigroups
When there isn’t enough interest to create a class, those who are interested in a given health topic could be formed into a minigroup (2 to 7).
The minigroup can cover the same content as a class but do so in a less formal manner. Presentation of information and discussion is the major format of the minigroup.
Guided Self-Help
Most employees don’t want formal help in making health changes; they prefer to do it on their own. In guided self-help, the wellness counselors provide support, materials, and encouragement.
Meeting times may be arranged and contact may be made either in person, by phone, or computer. Materials may be made available at the worksite, or mailed to the individual. Some worksites now make information available via intranets or the Internet.
Individual Counseling
One of the most successful ways to help individuals change and improve their health status is counseling (or coaching) on a one-on-one basis.
In published studies, wellness programs which incorporated individual counseling as part of the wellness program process achieved significantly higher participation rates and achieved greater risk reduction/risk elimination than standard group programs. Studies have demonstrated that individual counseling is both cost effective and cost beneficial.
A wellness counselor should be trained in screening techniques, for in certain situations, they may be required to both screen individuals and counsel them. They should know how to do the following -
o Review staff member health risks
o Contact employees that have health risks.
o Counsel staff members on a one-on-one basis, helping them set goals, solve problems, and get professional help when they need it.
o Make certain to help workers follow their treatment recommendations and make lifestyle and health behavior changes.
o Recruit personnel into wellness programs, like weight loss and tobacco use cessation.
o Be certain to work with employees on a one-on-one basis using guided self-help.
o Conduct courses and minigroups if necessary.
o Be certain to work with wellness committee members to plan and conduct workplace-wide wellness activities.
Health Promotion counselors are health generalists; they must have basic knowledge about a wide range of health topics and health risks.
Counselors ought to be able to speak with employees about their health problems and the treatments prescribed by their doctors.
They should’ve a good overview of nutrition, exercise physiology, pathophysiology of disease, pharmacology, psychology, and behavior modification skills.
The educational program should include approaches to stress awareness/reduction at the environmental level and at the individual level.
Social, physical, and organizational stressors should be explained and methods to ease or elevate stressors should be presented.
At the individual level how changes in attitudes and behaviors help one to cope with stressors; learning techniques to minimize stress response, such as meditation, relaxation response, and exercise.
Content of the program should provide the following -
o Identifying sources of stress
o Relationship of stress to health
o Exactly how the individual experiences stress, personal, family, work
o Solutions for coping and managing stress
o Techniques for lowering stress
o Value of stress, both negative and positive
o Practical steps of incorporating stress reduction into lifestyle
Personnel conducting stress management programs should have training in psychology, behavioral sciences, or related disciplines like mental health specialists, counselors, health educators, psychologists, and psychiatrists.
Training in a reputable program on how to teach the stress management course including group process skills is a must.
A nutrition education program ought to include a nutritional needs assessment, education counseling, and referral as necessary.
Educational sessions and materials ought to include the following information -
o The relationship of nutrition and chronic illnesss
o Improving eating patterns
o Relationship of nutrition and proper weight maintenance
o Exercise
o Stress
o Blood pressure (BP)
o Cholesterol
o Diabetes and other chronic illnesss.
o Nutritionally valid information regarding the relationship of health to diet, including cholesterol, fats, fiber, alcohol, carbohydrates, salt, sugar, and vitamin/mineral supplementation.
Methods for identifying healthier foods and incorporating low-calorie, high nutrient foods into consuming habits. Guidelines for bettering consuming habits must be based on or consisitent with national recommendations such as the Food Guide Pyramid.
Instructor ought to be a registered dietitian, registered nurse, or have a baccalaureate degree or higher in health education with training in nutrition.
If an allied health professional instructs the program, a consultation and review of the program design by a registered dietitian is advised.
It is advised that tobacco use cessation programs subscribe to the Code of Practice for Use of tobacco Cessation Programs.
Tobacco use cessation programs must be multi-component with a focus on skills to build positive voluntary behavior modification practices.
Useful techniques include establishing reasons for quitting, understanding the tobacco use habit, various techniques for stopping and remaining a non-smoker, overcoming the problems of quitting, short-term goal setting, weight control, stress management, importance of exercise, relationship of alcohol consumption to urges to smoke. Use no aversive or scare tactics.
In health promotion programs that use aids such as the “patch” or medications such as “Zyban” appropriate consultation ought to be available on the usage of these aids.
The instructor should have formal training in use of tobacco cessation from a nationally recognized organization such as American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, American Lung Association, or a nationally recognized commercial program such as Smoke Enders.
Examination of success is sometimes very dubious in smoking cessation programs. Measurement of success ought to include participation rate, including the number beginning the program, the number completing the program, and the average number per session.
Likewise included, number and% who stopped tobacco use at the end of the program, and the number and% who hadn’t resumed tobacco use by the end of one year.
