Everything You Want to Know about Becoming a Health Coach + Honest Review of My Experience

One of THE most common questions I get asked on Instagram and in my DMs is about becoming a health coach. I LOVE that so many of you are interested in pursuing a career in health, but since I hate giving incomplete answers in DMs, I knew I needed to put it all into one blog post!

And if you’re not interested in becoming a health coach, but you are interested in working with me as a health coaching client, let’s chat! Click here to schedule a free 15 minute consultation!

Let’s get into it! Here are the top questions you guys want to know about becoming a health coach!

What made you did you decide to pursue health coaching?

Okay, I’ll try to keep this concise – but this is something I could talk about for hours. Pursuing health coaching definitely came as part of my quarter life crisis. At around 25, I realized I had done everything ‘right’ – straight As in high school, straight As in college, great consulting job right out of college – and yet I was so insanely unhappy. Along with this complete lack of personal fulfillment, I was also experiencing the worst digestion problems of my life, which had been getting worse and worse for probably 4 years.

Finally at a breaking point, I invested in a Naturopath Doctor to get to the root cause of my health issues. My work with this naturopath coincided with my discovery of the keto / paleo / primal way of eating, and the work of incredible doctors and nutrition thought-leaders, which opened my eyes to the fact that the conventional wisdom when it comes to nutrition couldn’t be further off.  This ‘rock bottom’ with my health and eventually curing all my digestion & health issues, primarily through diet, reignited my passion for health & nutrition.

It became so clear to me that our health is the absolute foundation of our lives – without it we truly have nothing. And once my health was on point, it changed every aspect of my life – my energy, my confidence, my outlook on what’s important. And I decided that helping people prioritize their health to look & feel their absolute best would be the most fulfilling path I could pursue – and it has been.

What health coaching program did you do?

I did the Integrative Nutrition Certificate Degree program through USCD. It’s a 1-2 year program (depending on whether you do it part-time or not – I took 2 years because I work full time and started this blog) and 90% online. You do need to be in-person for the last course which is a hands-on 4-day cooking class in San Diego.

What should I consider when choosing a health coaching program?

[1] The Legal Requirements

When choosing a health coaching program,  I’d recommend starting with understanding the legal requirements in your country or state. In the US, the laws around giving nutrition advice vary from state to state.

You can check the laws in your state here, but for California, there is no legal requirement to give nutrition counseling. BUT only RDs (Registered Dietitians) are eligible to work with insurance providers for reimbursement. In fact, in California there are no laws governing the title ‘nutritionist’, becoming an R.D. is the only legal distinction.

But for example in Georgia or Kansas, “unless an individual is licensed (or exempt in some cases), that individual cannot legally perform specific nutrition counseling. The fact remains that unless one becomes licensed as an RD, they would remain ineligible.” Obvi not a lawyer, so if you’re in a state with more restrictive laws, I’d definitely recommend additional research / working with a legal professional.

[2] Where & How You Want to Practice

I did explore going down the full path of becoming a Registered Dietitian (RD) in California. Becoming an RD requires an accredited bachelor’s or master’s degree, 1200 hours in a Dietetic internship (usually in a clinical setting), and passing the Commission on Dietetic Registration (CDR) exam. It also requires ongoing education to maintain your license within your state.

As someone working full time in tech, I knew I wasn’t up for that level of disruption to my life to go down that path full time. I also have no interest in working in a clinical setting – if you’re interested in working with patients in hospitals, setting up a practice where you work with patients through insurance, or want to work for a large company as an in-house nutritionist, an R.D. degree is typically required.

So, since I knew I wasn’t going to become a fully licensed R.D., and California has no legal requirements below that, my search became all about what I felt would best equip me to work with clients.

[3] The Depth & Type of Education You Need 

This is a BIG one. A lot of health coaching programs focus on setting you to have a successful health coaching business – how to find clients, make a website, structure programs & pricing, etc. – all great and helpful stuff, but this is not the focus I wanted. As a business and marketing major now working in tech, I felt plenty confident I could figure all that out – Google is an amazing tool people.

But the science of nutrition is what I wanted a structured education on. Again, you can learn ALOT with the internet, but I was ready for a teacher, a textbook, homework – the whole deal.

For me personally, I knew I’d only ever feel comfortable working 1:1 with clients once I felt I knew the science in and out, backward and forward.

[4] Program Time Commitment & Price

And finally, you gotta get real with yourself on the level of time & financial commitment you’re ready to make. As I mentioned, I wasn’t up for the opportunity cost of stepping away from my full-time job. My program was technically a one year program, but I did it over about 2 years, only taking one class at a time.

 

How did you choose your health coaching program?

Here’s a comparison of some of the most popular programs I looked into. Again, this is all my opinion and perspective based solely on shopping programs – I only went through one, so can’t speak to the in’s and out’s of the others.

Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN)

Cost: $5,995 (as of 2019)

My Pros:

• Very popular and recognizable – a good thing if you’re looking to work as a health coach for a larger company. I know many people who are now successful IIN health coaches
• Emphasis on making you successful as a health coach – their curriculum seems very focused on teaching you health coaching – how to find and work with clients, structure a practice, etc.
• Accelerated timeframe – course options are 1 year or 6 months

My Cons:

• Limited nutrition education curriculum – as I mentioned, the curriculum is focused on health coaching and lighter on actual nutrition. The program covers 100 different dietary theories – aka going broad rather than deep. This was the biggest factor for me, as I mentioned I wanted a deep nutrition science foundation.

ADAPT Health Coaching Program

Cost: $9,997

My Pros:

• Created by Chris Kresser – I mean, I’d follow him to the end of the Earth. One of the smartest, most well researched functional medicine doctors out there
• Focus on paleo / primal education – The program is naturally aligned to my nutrition philosophy
• Hands-on training – I really loved the interactive, practice coaching sessions included in this program

My Cons:

• Price – 10K is a serious investment, especially when you’re just dipping your toe in
• Timing – at the time this program launched, I was already enrolled in my program – so to enroll I’d have to also eat the cost / time investment I’d already made
• Education – again speculating, but I wasn’t confident about how deep the nutrition education went

Primal Health Coaching Program

Cost: $4,495
My Pros:

• Like Chris Kresser, I’ve always loved Mark Sisson’s philosophy. His focus on a paleo / primal lifestyle is highly aligned with my nutrition philosophy

My Cons:

• None jump out to me from the website, but also don’t have enough info to really say

Bauman College Nutrition Consultant Program

Cost: ~$12,000

My Pros:

• Education & Curriculum – this program seems to go really deep on nutrition, which I LOVE
• Eligible for HNCB board certification – I liked that this program can give you some kind of official ‘title’ – but again, in California, the only government-supported distinction is becoming a Registered Dietitian

My Cons:

• Cost – $12,000 is no joke
• Time Investment – 15 months & 800 hours total –  that breaks down to roughly ~13-14 hours per week

UCSD Integrative Nutrition Certificate Degree* My program!

Cost: Less clear because you pay per quarter and pay for books – my estimate was around $2,500 – $3,000

My Pros:

• Nutrition science foundation  – this was my biggest selling point. I loved that the program included several nutrition science classes – complete with textbooks (which I still reference). Having a structured program to learn all the basics of nutrition science has been instrumental in my ability now to understand PubMed studies and always get to the root (or the ‘mechanism’) of how a food, supplement or medication works in the body
• Price – half to a quarter of the cost of other programs, this was a great value for the money
• UC School System – aside from the solid reputation, because this program is through a fully credited college, you may be eligible for some tax write-offs

My Cons:

• Outdated teachers/preaching veganism  – definitely my biggest con. Some of the teachers of this program were definitely stuck in the past. As a UC school with a textbook, I knew it wasn’t going to be like a Chris Kresser primal-focused education, which was fine – I liked learning about the USDA requirements to know them, but if you follow me, you know my nutrition philosophy is quite different :). What bothered me the most was several teachers pushing their personal vegan philosophies. All the respect in the world for anyone choosing to remove animal products from their diet for ethical reasons, but it’s far from the gold standard of nutrition. K rant over 😛
• Some in-person time required – this was fine for me bc I have family in San Diego, but it did require taking 2-3 days off work to attend an in-person workshop.
• Less known program  – because it’s not a major health coaching program, it probably wouldn’t be great if you were looking to work in a clinical setting

Did you feel prepared to start taking clients right away? How do you get clients?

Honestly, no. I waited a while after completing my coursework to start taking on clients. Working with someone 1:1 with their health is a responsibility I take very seriously, and wanted to make sure I was totally prepared. A lot of that had to do with my own self-doubt rather than actual readiness, so working with friends as clients to start helped build that confidence.  I also do a lot of continuing education on my own – I do a lot of research, and follow the work of a lot of cutting-edge functional doctors. Another big piece was figuring out my coaching systems – scheduling, intake forms, notes, program structure & pricing.

Getting clients – the blog & IG! I still work full-time in tech, so I don’t have the capacity to take on tons of clients at once, which is important to note too. There are a lot of different schools of thought on attracting clients, sales, etc. – all which you can google – I’ve found there’s also just a personal element – something about you as a coach connects with that person, and that’s why they want to work with you.

Hope this helps ♥