FAQs - Strive for Optimal with Sheri solve chronic issues with health coach

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 Integrative Health and Wellness Coaching is a partnership focusing on the whole person by addressing the physical, mental, social, spiritual, and environmental influences that affect a person’s health. Together, a coach and client discover and articulate the client’s vision of optimal health. Then, they take steps to help the client make lasting lifestyle changes that lead to better health, based on the client's desires. Unlike a coach for a sports team or an instructor, an Integrative Health Coach does not tell you what plays to run or instruct you in what to do. If that coaching worked for improving your health, you’d be able to read a magazine article or self-help book and get unstuck by yourself.  Instead, when you work with Sheri as your coach, you start where you are. You create your own unique playbook with Sheri by your side. Together, we explore your options, set your goals, boost your confidence, and take the steps that you are willing and want to take to create better habits and lifestyle choices.

The importance of a free consultation is to make sure that I am the right fit for you, make sure you understand what health coaching is about and what I can do to help you. I don't want anyone to purchase my services without meeting me and learning if I have the ability to help you. Let's talk first, either online or over the phone.  Why not in person? How comfortable are you meeting someone you've never met before? This is for you to feel safe, and me as well.  If I am the right coach for you, and you prefer to meet in person, that can be an option if distance isn't an issue.  I am HIPAA compliant and want to make sure you understand what a health coach is and isn't. 

I allow anyone to book a free consultation through my website. After a consultation, if we are a fit, you have the ability to book online with me.

 During our time together our objective is to find the cause of your issue, and work on solving it to the best of our abilities. There are many factors to success and a key one is the effort you are willing to put in to achieve your goals. If you put in 50% effort, expect to get at most a 50% result. If you put in 100% effort, expect an optimal result. I work with evidenced based lifestyle medicine practices only. Since we are all different, results will come at varying time frames. As a National Board Certified - Heath and Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC), I abide by the NBC-HWC scope of practice and the NBC-HWC code of ethics. 

  As I health and wellness coach, I mainly help people with chronic illness and disease and there isn't enough evidence to suggest or support a one time coaching session will result in lasting change. I assist in helping clients make lasting changes therefore a single coaching session doesn't allow for enough time for this to occur.  I do offer challenges and some do it yourself online (DIY) programs that can possibly help you. You receive information in all these programs and if you implement these lifestyle changes into your daily routine, they can make a big difference. Challenges and DIY online programs are not the same as working one on one with a health coach. When you work one on one you get to work on your specific goals, obstacles, challenges and issues that pertain to you individually. If you'd like guidance that does not pertain to a chronic issue/illness, we can discuss the possibilities of booking a single coaching sessions. 

 Amen - no one does! Participating in some type of elimination diet is typically beneficial for people with specific health issues like but not limited to: arthritis, acne, dyslipidemia, diabetes, prediabetes, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease (CVD), irritable bowel syndrome, eczema, auto-immune diseases and disorders like Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, thyroid disorders, and kidney (stones) disease. At Strive for Optimal, we only implement elimination diets for a SHORT and DEDICATED time frame, and if there are evidence-based studies supporting the use of this type of diet. If you do participate in an elimination diet, you decide how fast/slow, how much you are willing to do per day/week, etc.. There is a reintroduction phase to bring back whatever was removed to find out if it is now tolerable, how your body responds, how you feel, and if there is a limit on how much is acceptable before negative consequences occur.  

Example: You make a goal to eliminate dairy from your diet completely for one month. You consume 3 meals a day without snacking. During one week you end up consuming dairy 3x that week, resulting in meeting this specific goal 85% for this particular week. We don't aim for perfection, only consistency. No one is perfect, consistency is key. Acceptable achievement levels are individual. You get to  define your level of acceptance. We try to do better today than we did yesterday. 

Accountability means monitoring and giving an account of what was done, what happened, what worked, what didn't work, and what one wants to do going forward*. The most important person to be accountable to is yourself. When you work with me as your health coach, I am an accountability partner to you. I will help you be responsible and provide support every step of the way through your coaching program. We provide tools and resources for recording/tracking/logging your diet, your mood, your workout, your measurements, your (fill in the blank). The more information you provide allows or for a higher success rate.   This allows discussion on whether modifications are wanted or needed, and we're able to gain deeper insights. As your accountability partner, we'll help you stay motivated and on track to achieve your health and wellness goals. 

This can happen because I try to place you in a program where you can receive lasting results in the SHORTEST time frame. I don't believe in overselling; it's easy to add on sessions if you aren't where you'd like to be yet. With this understanding, during our time together, I am guiding and providing you with the ability to continue progressing, and/or maintaining your health and wellness without further coaching assistance. Prior to our final wrap-up session, we discuss if you'd like ongoing support, if you don't feel confident proceeding on your own yet, or if you wish to focus on a new area of your health and wellness. If you do feel confident in proceeding without further coaching, then we use the final session as a wrap up session. In this final session we co-create a wellness maintenance plan, which instills confidence and supports your independent and continued success.