Health coaching session

In your first session, your coach will discuss your health goals, any current practitioner-led recommendations, what area of lifestyle support you need, and work on determining your next best action steps.

Actions are ‘stress tested’ to ensure they’re realistic, specific, and support you to gain a high level of confidence in your ability to execute on them.

If you don’t have specific goals, your coach can support you in reviewing your current lifestyle habits and co-creating a plan to move towards health habits you want to embed into your every day habit stack.

After your first health coaching session, you’ll have clear action steps to improve your health habits. Your coach may upload helpful resources to your patient dashboard, and you can schedule a follow-up session if you choose. You’ll also receive instructions on accessing your dashboard and messaging your coach between appointments.

Health coaching is a methodology that a certified behaviour change, mindset and habit expert uses to move people through change, toward a desired health outcome. That methodology has stages and tools, and is rooted in the science of motivational interviewing, self-determination theory, positive psychology, social cognition, theories of emotional intelligence, and neuroscience.

In the context of health optimisation, coaches can be called a biohacking coach, longevity coach or lifestyle coach.

Whilst anyone can call themselves a coach, only coaches who have undergone approved training, have relevant insurances and stay on top of continuous education can be HCANZA accredited. With integrity and excellence being two of our most valued virtues, all of the health coaches at Melbourne Functional Medicine are HCANZA accredited.

Coaching is facilitative rather than prescriptive. Australia’s longest-established health and wellness coach training school Wellness Coaching Australia defines health coaching as a:

“Client-centred, collaborative intervention whose primary aim is to support others in sustainable lifestyle change. The goals are selected by the client who is positioned as the expert in his/her own life, with the coach bringing defined skills and knowledge to support the process of change. The major difference between a Health and Wellness Coach and other health professionals is the facilitative, as opposed to prescriptive, approach.”

Coaches that operate in a similar way to health coaching are executive coaches, mindset coaches, leadership coaches, life coaches. These coaches provide guidance and support for change and development, using proven methodologies and tools to help individuals achieve their goals.

Read more about what health coaching is here.

Health coaches at Melbourne Functional Medicine are trained in the health pillars of:

• Nutrition

• Sleep

• Recovery

• Stress management techniques

• Movement

And additionally can support patients with:

• Using wearable technology

• Using CGMs

• Functional lab testing

Health coaching is not therapy. It is not counselling, nor is it a “talk fest”.

Health coaches take the lifestyle prescription provided by the health professional, often your functional medicine practitioner or integrative GP, and work together with you to ensure it is implemented.

Coaches are bound by a professional scope of practice. They do not:

• Diagnose medical or psychiatric conditions

• Develop treatment plans

• Provide psychotherapy

• Order or interpret lab testing

• Recommend supplements

While they always show up in support of you, a coach will never:

• Make a change for you

• Nag you

• Be responsible for your change

Health is complex, so treatment and advice-giving clinicians first require many years of formal training and clinical practice. The reason health coaches operate very distinctively from primary healthcare providers is the importance of what is at stake. This is why health coaches stay in their lane, avoid advice, treatment plans or diagnoses, and leave that in the safe hands of professionals qualified to do so.

Health coaches are not fitness coaches.

Often our patients will have ideas that our health coaches will be like fitness coaches. Whilst both roles share the word ‘coach’, fitness coaches are quite different to a health coach. Fitness coaches play the role of both prescriptive plan and implementation. They write your fitness plan, and are there right beside you as you execute it.

Health coaches cannot (fortunately or unfortunately) live with you 24/7 to execute on your health plan. Your health and lifestyle is yours. We won’t be there to set out your morning supplements, cook your protein-rich breakfast, remind you to take breaks from work, do breathwork at 11am, or schedule your hyperbaric therapy sessions. Instead, we use our time together each week, fortnight, or month to boost your motivation, create a clear action plan, and anticipate barriers and solutions. This way, you can effectively move the needle on change in your own time.

If you have an EA or PA, you know the value of having someone in your corner to remind you of important tasks and keep you on track.

At Melbourne Functional Medicine, partnering with a coach to upgrade your health optimisation experience is optional, but highly recommended. In your initial session, you’ll review your health strategy and discuss your medium-term goals, breaking them down into actionable steps you can start right away.

Coaching services can be scheduled on an ad-hoc basis or bundled into a prepaid three-month package with weekly appointments and digital message access via an easy-to-use app. If you’ve been working with us and want to add a coach to your team, just let your practitioner know or reach out to us anytime.

If you can answer ‘yes’ to each of the questions, you know you’re ready to work with a health coach to optimise your health:

• When it comes to feeling ready and willing to make lifestyle changes, on a scale of 1-10, (10 being most ready and willing) I am at least a 7

• I take full responsibility and ownership over my health choices

• I am willing to trust the process, whilst I might love to know why, or question things, I am now willing to take the direction of my practitioner and get the guidance to simply make it happen

• I am open to being in a health partnership consisting of myself, my practitioner and my coach

• I have the energy and capacity for change in that my health is at a good baseline level, and I wish to amplify it

• I believe I can sacrifice immediate gratification for the big picture

• I understand health optimisation is personalised, n=1 medicine is about being curious, experimenting, tracking learning and having a growth mindset. I am ready and willing for this

If performance, outcomes and health optimisation habits for life are important to you, a health coach is an invaluable addition to your team. Bringing a coach onto your team will allow you to move faster, with more precision and longer-lasting results.

Most patients benefit from at least 5-7 coaching sessions, although progress can be significantly accelerated with 3 months of support. Everyone is different, which is why we do not prescribe a set coaching cadence.

Sometimes patients choose a few weekly calls to get momentum going, then move to a cadence that best fits with their schedule, such as fortnightly or monthly.

Sessions with your health coach must be booked in advance, however you’ll be able to directly message your coach for digital support between appointments.

Lab data interpretation is not in scope for a health coach, however our practitioner team are experts in functional testing and interpretation. If that’s a service you’re interested in, check out our test interpretation service.

You can read more about our values and philosophy on our about page and even more reasons to choose us here.

Payment plans are not available for this service.