9 of the top 10 chronic illnesses in the U.S. are caused by diet and lifestyle
so why don’t we use diet and lifestyle to fix the problem instead of drugs that mask the symptoms and don’t fix the problem?
What is Functional Medicine?
Functional Medicine promotes health and longevity and improvement of quality of life by addressing the root causes of diseases. Practitioners seek to understand and then treat the root cause in order to remove the symptoms, as opposed to traditional medicine’s approach of alleviating symptoms with medications that don’t address the underlying root cause to the problem. Patients often turn to functional medicine when traditional medicine has failed to resolve their health problem.
how my Functional Medicine Coaching helps
Conventional medicine
Prioritizes profits over patients. Physicians are trained and operate under a model of spending 6 minutes with patients “naming” a collection of symptoms and then prescribing drugs to treat those symptoms rather than taking the time to determine and fix the root cause of your symptoms. Conventional medicine has a specialist for every part of your body. Neurologists for the brain, Gastroenterologists for the digestive system, Cardiologists for the heart and so on. This compartmentalization results in a shortsighted approach to addressing disease, with one doctor focusing on solely one body system and not addressing the whole patient in a holistic manner. When we create these artificial divisions, we lose sight of the body as an interconnected whole and we fail to understand how different imbalances in different systems may actually all be related to a common underlying cause.
Functional medicine
It focuses on discovering the underlying factors unique to you that cause symptoms and affect your health. Functional medicine practitioners understand that you must treat the body (and mind) as an integrated whole in order to treat the specific disease or imbalance. They look to understand the root cause of disease and then treat the cause in order to remove the symptoms, not just alleviate them. Food is viewed as medicine and is typically combined with other lifestyle and behavioral changes such as exercise, sleep and stress reduction. Practitioners often spend an hour or more with each patient to fully understand each person’s medical history and current state of health. This is necessary to have a complete picture of your genetics, diet, lifestyle, and your body’s current state of health.
What is a Functional Medicine Coach’s Role?
Functional medicine coaches have specific FM training which enables them to work closely with FM physicians as a vital part of your health journey. Coaches are trained in the tools and language specific to functional medicine and used by practitioners to communicate and implement your unique plan.
Functional Medicine Coaches:
Identify client’s health related priorities and goals and then help them implement the changes necessary to meet those goals.
Educate clients and help them understand their doctor’s plan of care to treat the root cause of their illness.
Offer inspiration, insight and accountability to help clients implement new lifestyle and behavioral changes
Motivate clients using creative positive psychology techniques
Help clients make diet and lifestyle changes to improve their mental, physical and spiritual health.
Lead clients through coaching sessions on specific topics unique to their needs
Work directly with the client’s functional medicine practitioner when appropriate
Encourage and inspire clients along their journey and celebrate successes
click here to book a
free 30 minute session
to see what my coaching can do for you.
What makes my coaching different?
I believe that food is medicine and that the right food and lifestyle will help you achieve results that pharmaceuticals never will. Gut health is a top priority and is a necessary foundation for your best physical and mental health.
My coaching style is to come alongside you where ever you may be on your health journey. To listen to what is most important to you, help you cast a vision for where you would like your health to be in the future, and then coach that gap by equipping you with the tools, inspiration, and accountability to become the healthiest happiest version of you.
The experience of my journey to restore my own health has made me a wiser more compassionate coach.
Certified Coach through the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy. 12 months of intensive training in the science from The Institute of Functional Medicine.
5 years researching the science and power of habits. Many coaches can facilitate change talk in their clients but few have a deep understanding of “why we do what we do” and are able to guide their clients through implementing long term sustainable behavior changes into their lives.
Trained in motivational interviewing and have trained others in the power of tapping into their “why”.
20 years of coaching, inspiring and developing people in the corporate world.
6 years teaching and coaching rescue mission life recovery program residents with a history of alcohol and drug abuse.
Spent my adult life researching, training and eating for better health and had a front row seat to observe the drastic shifts in diet and exercise philosophy by the so called experts. Real evidence for why our behaviors need to be rooted in truth not trends.
It is difficult and confusing to navigate all of the health related content online or even read a label on a box and know if it is healthy or not. My value is in having researched thousands of hours of podcasts, books, videos and published medical papers and simplifying complex subjects down to simple to understand actionable ways to apply to your daily life.
Each person is a unique experiment of 1. You are a unique combination of genes that have spent a lifetime being influenced by your choices. Eating, moving, resting, relationships, drugs and chemicals have all played a part in how you got to this point in your health journey. Each must be considered when coaching you to be the healthiest you can be moving forward.