What is nutritional coaching?

Nutritional coaching, sometimes referred to as health coaching or health training, aims to offer clients practical support to achieve personal health goals. Nutritional coaches work closely with their clients in assessing their lifestyles, wellbeing and nutritional health so that action-plans and supportive advice can be put in place.

Nutritional coaching focuses a lot on achieving a healthy diet, however, it also works to motivate, mentor and counsel their client as well to empower them to take responsibility for their health. A big part of nutritional coaching is also helping people to identify their own behaviours that could be affecting their own health, and therefore helping them to become more knowledgeable about health and wellbeing.

Why would you have nutritional coaching?

A nutritional coach would be considered if someone is looking for a professional to support them in their bid to achieve a healthier lifestyle, particularly if weight loss has recently been achieved via bariatric surgery. You might also consider a nutritional coach if you are looking to achieve a healthier lifestyle and diet in general, irrespective of your medical history.

Wanting to be healthy and actually being healthy can be a challenging bridge to gap, and the support of a nutritional coach is thought to help bring accountability and support into the picture.  

What does nutritional coaching involve?

Nutritional advice is often given in the form of a suggested meal plan that takes into account the patient, their health, and their day-to-day activities.

On top of receiving healthy-eating advice, nutritional coaches will also focus on non-dietary aspects of a person’s lifestyle, including:

• The incorporation of physical activity into day-to-day routines.
• How to adopt new dietary and non-dietary habits that put health and wellness at the centre.
• How to make healthy lifestyle choices independently.

The cornerstone of nutritional coaching is its holistic approach, looking at the entire picture of health and taking each case on a unique an individual basis – looking at diet, physical fitness, attitude, relationships, health and general lifestyle.