In this episode, Shivaun Conn talks to Ellie Thompson, an accredited practising dietitian and an accredited health and wellness coach, about health coaching and how it has changed her practice. Ellie works in the corporate space as a health coach, as well as in private practice for Verde Nutrition Co. where she utilises both her dietetics and health coaching skills to empower clients to create long-lasting change to improve their health and nutrition.  Ellie's practice changed completely...

In this episode of the Health Coach Show, Sharon Curtain, dietitian and accredited health coach is joined by Liv Brown, health coach and longevity and optimisation program lead at Melbourne Functional Medicine. Liv is going to be sharing her insights into the role that health data plays for clients, and how health coaches can use this data within their scope of practice. In this episode, we discuss: What is health data? What is objective vs subjective data? How data motivates some...

In this episode of the Health Coach Show, Shivaun Conn, Dietitian and Accredited Health Coach, is joined by Elise Bialylew, a doctor trained in psychiatry, a well-known leader in the field of mindfulness, the Founder of Mindful in May, and author of the mindfulness guidebook, The Happiness Plan. In this episode, we discuss: What is mindfulness? The relationship between mindfulness and meditation The benefits of meditation and mindfulness How being mindful can enhance your...

In this episode of The Health Coach Show, Sharon Curtain, dietitian and accredited health coach is joined by Christine Boucher, a former ICU nurse who discovered health coaching and has not looked back, forging an impressive career in Workplace wellness. Christine was awarded the Health Coaches Australia New Zealand Association 'Health Coach of the Year' in recognition of her contribution to the health coaching profession, and in this episode, we talk about the opportunities for health...

In this episode of The Health Coach Show, I'm joined by Jason Stuart.  Jase is a dietitian, personal trainer, and coach with 20 years experience in the healthcare industry. He is the founder of the Better Body Academy, a successful group coaching program with 300 members and a team of 6 coaches, of which he is the lead coach.  Join us, as we unpack how to structure and deliver a successful group coaching program and the many benefits from switching from a 1-1 client approach to a group...

In this episode of The Health Coach Show, we take a deep dive into how to navigate nutrition and what Health Coaches can do to support clients in the area of Nutrition. We discuss our scope of practice as health coaches and answer the question "Do I need to be a nutrition expert be be effective as a Health Coach?" Clients need health coaches to support them with implementation, not information! We can direct them to credible sources of information and help them gain clarity. As Coaches,...

In this episode of The Health Coach Show, I'm joined by Bee Pennington. Bee is a HCANZA Accredited Health and Wellness Coach and the head coach at Melbourne Functional Medicine. She was awarded Coach of the Year in a healthcare setting by HCANZA, our professional body, which demonstrates just how exceptional she is, and how lucky we are to have her with us, sharing her knowledge.  Join us, as we take a look at boundaries, something Bee felt so passionate about, that she wrote a book...

In this episode of The Health Coach Show, we take a closer look at goals: what they are, what is their value, and what makes goal setting effective vs ineffective - and therefore achieved or not! We discuss our role as coaches to help clients set valuable goals that are likely to be achieved and provide our top tips to prevent falling into the vague 'New Year's Resolution goal trap and create a meaningful, actionable goal instead.

In this episode of the Health Coach Show, we look at accountability and tracking and discuss:  What is tracking?  What is it good for?  When is it useful?  When is it not useful? And how can we put these into practice in our consultations. People often come to coaches because they say they need accountability and while health coaches can provide accountability, the goal of health coaching is to move our clients from being accountable TO US, to being SELF ACCOUNTABLE, and tracking is a...

In this episode, we are talking about how you can use stages of change to meet your clients, where they are at, and what to do so you don’t inadvertently push clients further away from change. Health professionals can assume clients are ready to change simply because they booked a consultation, or they are discussing changing. The reality is people can be at varying degrees of readiness for health behaviours, and they may need support with tapping into their motivation or overcoming barriers...

In this episode, Sharon Curtain talks to Dr Shami, an integrative GP who is the Director and co-founder of the MINT clinic, about health coaching and how it changed her practice. Dr Shami has been a GP for 23 years and has been an integrative GP for 10 years. She has seen first hand how burnout can happen in a system that creates co-dependency when the GP is supposed to provide the answers/fix the medical problems while patients are passive and not encouraged to take responsibility. Her...

In this episode of The Health Coach Show, we discuss the importance of silence in consultations and why clients should be doing most of the talking in conversations and not the health professional and/or coach. We discuss the concept of "holding the space", allowing clients time to process their thoughts and emotions without us feeling the need to jump in and provide solutions or advice. We may fear silence and assume a need to fill it with ideas and answers. However, coaching is not about...

In this episode of The Health Coach Show, Sharon Curtain and Caitlin Cotter talk about the coaching competency of being calm, present and emotionally available.  Caitlin is a health coach and graduate of Accredited Health Coaching Australia, a mental fitness coach, and a weight management practitioner. When we start our coaching consultations, it’s important that we’ve put our own thoughts and concerns to the side, and have created a calm environment, free of distractions for our clients,...

In today’s podcast, we’re talking about rapport. Are we doing this well as practitioners or are we just making small talk? Rapport is the foundation of all therapeutic relationships. It’s the way that we communicate we are listening, connected and interested in our clients and provide a space that is safe for them to open up.  Rapport is defined as a close and harmonious relationship in which the people or groups concerned understand each other's feelings or ideas and communicate...

In today’s podcast, we talk about precontemplation, and how to manage our clients and ourselves when they are not ready to change. Clients in precontemplation may not be thinking about changing their behaviour because they don’t think they need to, or may not be considering change because it feels impossible.  Our current approaches may lead to frustration, conflict and the client feeling judged, pressured and misunderstood. We explore what we often do as health professionals when we are...

In this episode, Shivaun and Sharon discuss ways we can assess and build confidence. The confidence ruler is a great way of assessing your client's confidence in changing their behaviour. Asking rating questions helps your client to explore what is helping them feel confident (eg previous success) and what is holding them back. By exploring external and internal barriers, we help clients get clear about what is holding them back. Once all the barriers have been identified, we can support...

In today’s podcast, we talk about how to blend expertise and coaching.We explore the concept of switching hats versus integrating approaches and how being client centred means we are always coaching.We assume people are coming to see us for our expertise and feel that giving value means delivering an in-depth education and an action plan.In fact, we are more efficient and effective and provide more value when we use coaching to explore what a client wants from us, what information they know...

In this episode Sharon and Shivaun, dietitians and HCANZA accredited health coaches, explore common excuses, what we may feel or do when we hear our clients give us 'excuses' for why they haven't made a change.  Excuses are in fact valuable, as they are the client telling us exactly why they are stuck, or feel unable to take action. What can we do when we do hear excuses? Get curious, acknowledge and validate the client's experience, support them to discover all the barriers so they can...

In this episode Sharon and Shivaun dig into what motivation is and how we can harness it to achive our goals. We discuss the role that external and internal (intrinsic) motivators can play on behaviour change,and how we can move along the spectrum from external motivation, to the place where our identity shifts and we become intrinsically motivated. Sometimes we wait for motivation to hit before we take action, although we can find motivation comes from the actions we take! We can support...

In this episode Sharon and Shivaun talk about common roadblocks to effective communication. There are a number of commonly used communication strategies that we think are helpful, however can often do the opposite of the intended action. Thomas Gordon came up with 12 roadblocks that get in the way of effective communication. We'll go through 8 that we find get used a lot in conversations around changing health behaviours and explain why they aren't helpful. Telling, directing or ordering ...

In this episode, Shivan and Sharon discuss what coaching is, what it isn't and what you should be looking for if you want to become a coach or employ a coach! This episode looks at the toolkit of theories, models and disciplines that a health coach might draw upon, and we discuss they importance of MI as one of these foundational skills. We also look at how Health Coaches Australia New Zealand Association (HCANZA) has set the gold standard for health coaching and health coach training. We...

Sharon and Shivaun were both working as dietitians, wanting to help clients more effectively and aware that something was missing, In this podcast they talk about what got them into coaching and how it transformed their practice.  Topics covered include how changing behaviour is so much more than education and providing information, it’s about harnessing curiosity and helping people to understand themselves. This approach benefits the client, who feels supported to take action, and also...