What does a health coach do and why did I become one? A popular question from many of my peers and clients. First, a health coach begins by taking a long, deep dive into a client’s past; not only from a medical/issue perspective, but from a lifestyle aspect as well. For example, it matters if you grew up in a household that was often volatile. It also matters if you were raised downstream from a toxic chemical plant. It matters if you’ve had stomach problems since you can remember, or if they suddenly just started. We walk through all aspects of what is happening now, and visit what could have triggered it from your current or past lifestyle. Your entire past matters, and is often left out of many conversations with other healthcare providers. Your menstrual health, past and present, are always discussed as well as a deep dive into your current lifestyle. We talk about relationships, support systems, obvious topics like nutrition and movement. We talk about sleep, and my favorite, we talk about poop. We then start to envision what your ideal life would look like? If you were in optimal health, how would you live? What would change about what you’re doing now? Would you be swimming in the lake with your family? Would you be traveling to Europe with your friends, partner, or adult children? Would you just be living pain free and able to actually eat without feeling like absolute garbage? Would you be able to release stubborn weight or go off medication you’ve been on for quite some time? Would you be able to sleep through the night and actually wake up feeling rested? Optimal health, just like the healing process looks different on everyone. There is no one path.
We talk about accountability and what that looks like to you. Together, we come up with a plan that is comfortable to you, but will still challenge your mindset to start opening up for growth. We will become clearer on priorities and focus on the greatest challenges at the moment; knowing that other challenges may arise along the way. And you will feel confident as we progress through the work to have the skills and resources to address these challenges as they continue to arise throughout your life.
The path to healing is why I became a health coach. I needed answers that I wasn’t getting from my care providers. I needed a deeper dive. And because I am a knowledge junkie and I know there is always a better way, I went on a path to find the answers for myself. At the beginning of 2020, I was so fatigued I found it difficult to walk up the stairs some days. My legs felt so heavy I could barely find the strength to lift them. This would always happen in the afternoon and some days I would be so fatigued that I would just fall asleep on the couch amidst all the chaos of my three young children happening around me. I would typically go to bed by 10, but I’d wake up between 2am and 3am every morning. I had zero patience with my kids. I was desperate. And I knew I didn’t need medication. I’m an exercise physiologist and nutritionist, I can figure this out! Except, I couldn’t do it on my own. I knew I wanted to further my path as some sort of coach, I knew I needed to gain the coaching skills necessary to deeply affect my clients, I just didn’t realize how much I was going to help myself by going through the program. From the minute I started, I knew I had found the right path. And the first thing I did was take a break. A 30 day break from doing much of anything. Now, it was in the middle of a pandemic, I had three small kids and a husband working from home, so much of anything may be a far stretch from the imagination. However, to me, going from constantly busy and trying to be productive, to slowing down, putting down heavy exercise, and actually eating the calories my body needed, is exactly what I needed. Someone else had to tell me to do this. I did not listen to my body on my own. I had to come to this realization through becoming a coach and realizing that I cannot fix myself without the support of a community, someone else in my corner to help me work through these issues. And you know what else, to let me know that it was ok to let things for a day or two?
I homeschool my kids, and we put down our curriculum for a month. We played, we painted, we spent endless hours outside, and we had dance parties. We made chocolate cake on Mondays and I actually ate it with them. We watched movies together and I got to actually be there experiencing everything with them for the first time in a really long time. It was very needed and it made such an impact on my health that after about 90 days, I was finally able to start seeing some results. I could get through the day without a nap. I wasn’t breaking down and crying in the corner because of the overwhelm and burnout. I was sleeping so well and my body was thanking me. I never realized that healing had to mean slowing down, watching and listening to your intuition and appreciating aspects of my life that I never made room for. I joined an online art class and opened up space for creativity. I started to actually love how my body looked no matter whether I was exercising 90 minutes a day or not. And I KNEW I had to share this with the world.
I knew that I had to share this level of living with the rest of the women I know and beyond. Because, and there’s one reason, one because, because you’re worth it. We’re all worth it. We deserve to feel this good. Everyone deserves to feel this good. We deserve to sleep well, to eat well, to love our bodies, to do what we love and leave what we don’t, to put ourselves first and not feel guilty for it, to be the embodiment of feminine for ourselves and our communities. And my mission behind this work is to raise the vibration of women in my community and have that vibration ripple across the world. Women are the backbone of families. No shame on the fathers out there, my own husband is an amazing father and partner, but our house revolves around my mentality and support. Mothering comes in all different shapes, you don’t have to have biological children to be a mother, you don’t have to have children to be a mother. You mother your relationships, you mother your communities, you nurture from a feminine that is unmatched. And if that nurturing is out of balance, or if you are not nurturing yourself, then the vibration is off. So my mission is to bring that nurturing back into balance and help to restore the feminine peace in society as a whole. And I believe I can help achieve that by working with women to live in their highest health. To become whole again, or to find a wholeness they have not yet even lived. Through the work that I do as a coach, a guide, a confidant, we will achieve these things together. We will achieve a level of wellbeing that is so far beyond words that you might not even recognize your old self once you begin the transformation. I know this because I am not only confident in my work, and in your commitment and conviction, but because I saw the change in myself. And I now know how to trust myself. And I know that you will too.
To optimal health,
Alexis