Career In Health Coaching, Need Education

Zpol

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In about 5 years I will be able to quit my job as a graphic artist and live off my passive income. I will be about 45yrs old and want to switch to a career as a health coach.

Can anyone recommend a school (preferably online) or program that will get me the education needed to truly help people?

As it stands right now, people (coworkers, friends, family) come to me with health questions regularly since I am already very knowledgeable on the topic, however, there is plenty I still need to learn. Also, there are some who do not trust in my knowledge because I don't have certification of any sort.

The difficulty is that I don't have enough time and $$ for a 4yr college plus masters/PhD degree program. I'm looking for something that will be quick and to the point, but not laced with indoctrination. (Probably involving some biochemistry.)

Ideally, I would like to be able to help people get the proper diagnostics they need, help them change lifestyle to benefit their needs, and suggest the proper supplements (preferably from the merchants on this forum).

Anyone have ideas or suggestions?
 

jitsmonkey

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There is no school on planet earth you could go to that would make you of any worth to anyone.
The only people I've met who offer consulting/coaching in the nutrition/health field that are worth their salt (and they're few and far between)
are all self taught, self studied and much of their motivation to learn came from trying to fix their own issues
They've all read ALL of Ray's work and studied physiology and biochem on their own.
A few have advanced degrees but even they started at square one.
I'm not suggesting that's ALL you'd study but that's where I'd start.
 
L

lollipop

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My friend once recommended some online programs in California for nutrition counseling. Less strenuous than medical degree but legally protects you. In the meantime you can do your own studies and research. This seems like a possibility for you.

Edit: like @jitsmonkey said above - your own being the real path. But you CAN legally protect yourself.
 

Sucrates

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You'll need to separate education from qualification, the latter might be necessary, depending on what you want to do. You might learn more from arguing with the smarter people here than anywhere else.

Biochem Nordic has a course. Benedicte is recommended by Ray Peat for counselling. I can't tell you anything about it.
https://www.biochemnordic.com
 
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Zpol

Zpol

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You'll need to separate education from qualification, the latter might be necessary, depending on what you want to do. You might learn more from arguing with the smarter people here than anywhere else.

So true! This is great... I did not know Benedicte had a course, I will check it out. thanks


My friend once recommended some online programs in California for nutrition counseling. Less strenuous than medical degree but legally protects you. In the meantime you can do your own studies and research. This seems like a possibility for you.

Yes, thank you. Maybe I should just narrow my search to legal protection and go from there.

The only people I've met who offer consulting/coaching in the nutrition/health field that are worth their salt (and they're few and far between)
are all self taught, self studied and much of their motivation to learn came from trying to fix their own issues

Sounds like me! Just got to get some qualifications so people have some confidence in me.
 

jitsmonkey

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So true! This is great... I did not know Benedicte had a course, I will check it out. thanks




Yes, thank you. Maybe I should just narrow my search to legal protection and go from there.



Sounds like me! Just got to get some qualifications so people have some confidence in me.

I think legal protection is an illusion
If you're counseling people on blood work, supplements, meds, etc....
you're in a hella gray area. And the fact of the matter is that even an MD doing what I assume you'll be doing
is not protected legally. They do have malpractice insurance but they're not immune from suit and or prosecution.

As far as credentials getting people to believe in you that won't help either.
I can show you hundreds of professionally credentialed medical and alternative medical people who if they didn't have
insurance reimbursement would starve to death or work at Starbucks

The best thing you can do to get people to believe in you is know your ***t and do your thing.
Regardless you are going to be a legal hazard with or without credentials.
 
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Zpol

Zpol

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I think legal protection is an illusion
If you're counseling people on blood work, supplements, meds, etc....
you're in a hella gray area. And the fact of the matter is that even an MD doing what I assume you'll be doing
is not protected legally. They do have malpractice insurance but they're not immune from suit and or prosecution.

As far as credentials getting people to believe in you that won't help either.
I can show you hundreds of professionally credentialed medical and alternative medical people who if they didn't have
insurance reimbursement would starve to death or work at Starbucks

The best thing you can do to get people to believe in you is know your ***t and do your thing.
Regardless you are going to be a legal hazard with or without credentials.

Damn, well that's disconcerting. But I'll have to consider it. The one's I have worked with had disclaimers on everything pretty much, but I suppose they still get lawsuits from time to time. Don't know what the reality of that is.
 

jitsmonkey

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You generally speaking are going to work with sick people
sick person has a serious negative outcome or dies (even if its not your fault)
they leave behind family. If that family is looking for a scalp
they're coming for yours with or without a credential.
I'm not discouraging you I'm saving you the potential waste of time and expense of credentialing.
I'm not saying don't credential but I am saying that if you do don't do it thinking it will get your clients or protect you legally it will do neither.
Its an expense and resource investment you'll want better reasons for than just the two listed.
Credentialing in SOME jurisdictions MAY give you the legal privilege to provide services within the scope of the law.
That of course would be a sensible reason for credentialing. Just depends on where you live and what you want to do and in what form.
 

Ella

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It will send you broke just keeping up with the education. The knowledge is changing rapidly. A qualification means nothing, You are not taught anymore than you could teach yourself from some good textbooks and digging into the research literature. You need to spend a serious amount of years in the trenches. It is the only way to learn. When you are dealing with sick people, it is a considerably amount of strain on your own health, worrying if someone is going to die or kill themselves and yes sue you. Many are not in a good place. Sure you might burn a few but you will burn yourself faster. Graphic design sounds a more enjoyable career. If it has given you a passive income, go do something that is enjoyable. If you really want to help people get better, teach them to cook and feed themselves nourishing foods or go be a farmer.
 
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Zpol

Zpol

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It will send you broke just keeping up with the education. The knowledge is changing rapidly. A qualification means nothing, You are not taught anymore than you could teach yourself from some good textbooks and digging into the research literature. You need to spend a serious amount of years in the trenches. It is the only way to learn. When you are dealing with sick people, it is a considerably amount of strain on your own health, worrying if someone is going to die or kill themselves and yes sue you. Many are not in a good place. Sure you might burn a few but you will burn yourself faster. Graphic design sounds a more enjoyable career. If it has given you a passive income, go do something that is enjoyable. If you really want to help people get better, teach them to cook and feed themselves nourishing foods or go be a farmer.

Good points. I'll have to figure something out. I can neither cook well nor grow things, but good ideas!

You generally speaking are going to work with sick people
sick person has a serious negative outcome or dies (even if its not your fault)
they leave behind family. If that family is looking for a scalp
they're coming for yours with or without a credential.
I'm not discouraging you I'm saving you the potential waste of time and expense of credentialing.
I'm not saying don't credential but I am saying that if you do don't do it thinking it will get your clients or protect you legally it will do neither.
Its an expense and resource investment you'll want better reasons for than just the two listed.
Credentialing in SOME jurisdictions MAY give you the legal privilege to provide services within the scope of the law.
That of course would be a sensible reason for credentialing. Just depends on where you live and what you want to do and in what form.

@lisaferraro

Thank your for your responses. Question for you all...
How do you deal with having to watch people suffer from degenerative disease and other preventable illnesses, knowing full well there are ways (and easy ways at that!) to reduce their suffering and to prevent the disease all together in those who still have a chance?

It's like an epidemic, all these degenerative diseases and more kids being born on the autism spectrum or with gene SNP's, etc. It's contributing to our healthcare crisis and ruining peoples' lives. I see this happening every single day. I simply must do something. I missed out on college because I had to work full time in order to have health insurance, and had to work all the overtime possible in order to cover my out of pocket costs plus alternative health care and supplements. Now is my time to help in some way. I suppose being continuously wrapped up in legality issues isn't going to be much help.

Seriously appreciate your comments on this! The more I learn and know, the more frustrating it is to not be able to help people with this knowledge.
 
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Not everyone you come across would be open to supplementing hormones and other things, especially from online stores that they don't trust the quality or purity of because they can't go to their local store and buy that same brand because they are just online brands. I know people like this. Don't just expect people to be open to your ideas on health. You're dealing with the public. Don't expect the money to just flow in constantly. A lot of times these so called coaches are just people who put out a lot of content online and they build a "following." But just because you have a lot of subs on YT and followers on IG doesn't mean that everyone one of those subs and followers actually watches every video or sees every post and more important has paid you for your services. People like Rhonda Patrick and Dr. Axe come to mind.

"Health" coaches have to look the part, regardless of sex, which means lean but obviously not too skinny and have clear skin, nice smile, etc., but I can see an exception for looking that part such as a woman who's 40 lbs. overweight who's clients are the same, overweight women. A fat and muscular man, like the bodybuilding type who has both a lot of muscle and fat, his clients will mostly be guys who look like that and/or aspire to look like that. Things like race. People like people like them who they believe might know something about a subject. If you'll be a 45 year old woman then you're gonna have a lot of younger competition out there but the key for you would be to target other women in their 40's.
 
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Zpol

Zpol

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Not everyone you come across would be open to supplementing hormones and other things, especially from online stores that they don't trust the quality or purity of because they can't go to their local store and buy that same brand because they are just online brands. I know people like this. Don't just expect people to be open to your ideas on health. You're dealing with the public. Don't expect the money to just flow in constantly. A lot of times these so called coaches are just people who put out a lot of content online and they build a "following." But just because you have a lot of subs on YT and followers on IG doesn't mean that everyone one of those subs and followers actually watches every video or sees every post and more important has paid you for your services. People like Rhonda Patrick and Dr. Axe come to mind.

"Health" coaches have to look the part, regardless of sex, which means lean but obviously not too skinny and have clear skin, nice smile, etc., but I can see an exception for looking that part such as a woman who's 40 lbs. overweight who's clients are the same, overweight women. A fat and muscular man, like the bodybuilding type who has both a lot of muscle and fat, his clients will mostly be guys who look like that and/or aspire to look like that. Things like race. People like people like them who they believe might know something about a subject. If you'll be a 45 year old woman then you're gonna have a lot of younger competition out there but the key for you would be to target other women in their 40's.

Very true. I would definitely have to target people of my same demographic, which I'd be happy to do. Fortunately, I won't need to make a living off it. I would just need to get traffic and interest somehow.

Chris Masterjohn has a great youtube series.

Thanks, yes, I've been going through his masterclass series. Very informative and well put together.
 

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