By Graham Kingma, HCA Registered Health Coach™
My training: I'm Graham Kingma of Ascent Metabolic Coaching, an HCA Registered Health Coach™. HCA is the Health Coach Alliance, which grants the Registered Health Coach credential. I have a Diploma in Health and Wellness Coaching from McMaster University, and a Certificate of Professional Learning in Nutrition, Health and Wellness, also from McMaster. I hold a Functional Therapeutic Diets Specialist certification from the Primal Health Coach Institute. I'm not a doctor or dietitian. I help people work toward their metabolic health goals one to one, by video.
If you've tried to change your health before, maybe more than once, and decided the problem was you, this post is for you. The question I want to answer is a simple one: what does a health coach do anyway? In my opinion, a big part of the answer is planning.
Want to talk it through? The free discovery call is 15 minutes, by video. No pressure. You tell me what you've tried, and I'll tell you honestly whether coaching can help.
My own story: the mountain climbing coach
In the past, when I heard the words health coach, I didn't really understand what a health coach did. And when I became one, I still found it hard to help people understand what a health coach can do for them. Then, during my studies, someone described a health coach as being like a mountain climbing coach, and things became a little clearer for me about the role of the client and the role of the coach.
A mountain climbing coach won't climb the mountain for you. They won't do the training for you, they won't do the planning for you, and they won't convince you to climb the mountain. What the coach is there for is to help you create a plan that works in your life while you stay in control. I'll talk more about why I think this matters so much, and how it can help you work toward your goals.
So that's why, throughout the website, you'll see that you're the climber and I'm your coach.
Where a coach helps most
In my opinion, one of the most useful places a coach can help is the planning stage.
There's one message I hear in almost every first call. People tell me they've tried before. Sometimes many times. And somewhere along the way they felt that they had failed and decided the problem was them. Not enough discipline. Not enough willpower. That's rarely the real story.
The idea is simple. Willpower plays a much smaller part than most of us were told. Planning plays a much bigger one than many of us realize. In my opinion, gaps in a plan are common. I saw the gaps that were in my previous eating habit plans, then I plugged the gaps and I finally reached my goals. That's just my story, and yours will be your own. Helping you find and fill those gaps is a big part of what a coach does.
Why so many attempts fall over
Think about how most attempts start. A Monday. A new year. A checkup that got you thinking. You pick a big goal, you go all in, and you lean on willpower to carry you. For a week or two it works. Then a busy stretch, a family weekend, a few days looking after someone else, a bad night of sleep, a drive by your favourite fast food place, and the whole thing falls over. And the story you tell yourself is that you just didn't want it enough.
What I usually see is a different cause. You started in the middle, not at the beginning. You jumped to doing, without the thinking and planning that make the doing hold up when real life happens. It isn't a character flaw, and you don't have to do it alone. Maybe nobody showed you there was another way in. That's what a good coach can do for you.
The stages of change
There's a well known model for this, called the stages of change. The short version: before someone acts, there's usually a stage of thinking it over, and a stage of getting ready and making a plan. Only then comes action.
Picture this. Say you plan to walk every morning starting Monday. You haven't thought about the rainy days, the sore knees, the early meeting days, the mornings you're worn out, not to mention the freezing cold winters. So the first rough morning, the plan has nothing to say, and it quietly stops, and you tell yourself you'll just start again on Monday or next spring. The thinking and planning stages are where those mornings get handled.
An honest note. The model is widely used, and it's also debated. Some researchers have pointed out that programs built around the stages haven't always done better than other approaches, especially for exercise. So I see it as a useful map, not a law. In my opinion, the most useful part is simple: thinking and planning count as real steps. They aren't stalling.
If then plans
Planning has good research behind it. A large recent review pulled together hundreds of tests of what researchers call if then plans. That's a plan in this shape: if this situation comes up, then I'll do this. Across those tests, people who made plans like that tended to follow through more than people who only set a goal.
So a goal is "I want to snack less in the evening." An if then plan is "If I get home tired after a long day at work, then I'll open the fridge and have a portion of the meal I made ahead of time on Sunday for just this reason." One is a wish. The other is something you can actually do on a Tuesday because you had a plan.
A good coach will show you ways to get the information you need in order for you to plan for your own success.
Two things that get in the way
The first is control. A lot of people come to me feeling like the plan was handed to them. A pamphlet, a meal sheet, a list of rules from someone who has never seen their week. When the plan isn't yours, it's very hard to keep. There's a long line of research on your confidence that you can do one specific step. Researchers call it self efficacy. Put simply, that confidence tends to grow mostly from small wins you've had yourself because you were in control, more than from being told what to do. A coach worth working with understands the difference. A good coach will help you stay in control.
The second is information, or not having enough evidence based information to make decisions that work for you. Many people have done exactly what they were told and it still went the wrong way. They bought the low fat version, the heart healthy cereal, the diet drink, the box that says healthy on the front, and found the label didn't tell the whole story. That's not a lack of effort. That's working hard with incomplete information. When you understand the why behind a choice, you can make your own decisions, and adjust when life changes. A coach can give you information backed by research, not meant to convince you of anything. It's meant to give you what you need so you're in control.
It was rarely willpower
In my opinion, it was rarely willpower. It was missing information, missing a plan that fits your life, and not feeling in control of it. My job as a coach is to help you put together a plan built on good information that fits your actual week, plan around the pitfalls you already know are coming, and learn from the slips without any judgment, with weekly check ins on the plan you set. You bring the reasons. I help with the plan. And coaching works alongside your doctor's care, never instead of it.
If you've tried before and it didn't last, in my opinion it's rarely a willpower problem. It's usually a plan problem, and planning is a skill you can build, with the right support. It isn't your fault, and you don't have to do it alone. In my opinion, a lot of people who do hard things well have had good support along the way.
A health coach helps you get the information you need, helps you build a plan that fits your real week, and helps you stay in control of it, with support along the way. The choices stay yours.
One option for this week
If you'd like, pick the one moment that usually goes sideways. Ask yourself what you're usually feeling right then, tired, rushed or bored, and one small thing you could do instead. Then finish the sentence: if this happens, then I'll do that. That's it. You decide whether it's worth keeping. Try it with something simple first to build the habit.
Talk with me
Tired of starting over every Monday? The discovery call is free, 15 minutes, by video. No pressure. In those 15 minutes, you and I will look at the moment in your week that usually goes off plan and talk through what one first step could look like. You'll leave with a clear sense of whether coaching is a fit for you, and the take home paper, Why Going It Alone Is the Hard Way. If you and I do work together, sessions are weekly, 50 minutes, one to one, by video.
You don't need a finished plan or confidence about trying again to book the call.
You're the climber. I'm your coach.
Studies
- Prochaska JO, DiClemente CC. Stages and processes of self change of smoking: toward an integrative model of change. J Consult Clin Psychol. 1983;51(3):390 to 395. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.51.3.390
- Prochaska JO, DiClemente CC, Norcross JC. In search of how people change: applications to addictive behaviors. Am Psychol. 1992;47(9):1102 to 1114. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.47.9.1102
- Prochaska JO, Velicer WF. The transtheoretical model of health behavior change. Am J Health Promot. 1997;12(1):38 to 48. https://doi.org/10.4278/0890-1171-12.1.38 (The authors' own rough estimate for at risk groups: about 40% not yet thinking about change, 40% thinking it over, 20% getting ready.)
- Adams J, White M. Why don't stage based activity promotion interventions work? Health Educ Res. 2005;20(2):237 to 243. https://doi.org/10.1093/her/cyg105
- Sheeran P, Listrom O, Gollwitzer PM. The when and how of planning: meta analysis of the scope and components of implementation intentions in 642 tests. Eur Rev Soc Psychol. 2025;36(1):162 to 194 (published online 27 Mar 2024). https://doi.org/10.1080/10463283.2024.2334563
- Bandura A. Self efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychol Rev. 1977;84(2):191 to 215. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.84.2.191
Coaching is education and support, not medical care. Medical decisions stay with your healthcare team.