And until I started my own career as a health coach, this profession was new to me too. Fast forward 6 years, and I’m proud to say that I’m the founder and head coach of my own flourishing health and fitness business. So to answer this question of what a health coach does, I thought I would share with you the story of how I started my own health and fitness business.

But first, let me introduce myself. I’m Sarah, a specialist women’s health and fitness coach, and blog writer for PHCI. Like many health coaches, my coaching career started after a life-changing health journey of my own. This post won’t delve too deeply into my personal health journey. Instead, I’ll share with you:

• Why I decided to become a health coach
• How I transitioned from my old career as a scientist to a successful business owner
• My top 5 tips to help you kick start your own thriving health coaching business

What Is a Health Coach?

Before we dive straight into what’s like to be a health coach, let’s start by defining what exactly is a health coach. A health coach is a health and wellness advocate. They often take a holistic approach when working with clients towards sustainable lifestyle change. A health coach will assess a client’s overall health by investigating any imbalances in the following lifestyle factors:

1. Nutrition
2. Sleep
3. Physical activity
4. Stress
5. Play

Usually if one (or more) of these lifestyle factors is out of balance for a sustained period of time, this can lead to health issues including chronic medical conditions. A health coach will help their clients identify if any of these lifestyle factors are skewed using a variety of strategies and techniques to lead their clients towards better health, including:

1. Goal setting
2. Healthy habit formation
3. Implementing accountability strategies
4. Health education
5. Motivational strategies
6. Positive psychology processes

Health coaches can either work independently or as part of an allied healthcare team which can include:

• Physicians
• Nurses
• Registered Dietitians
• Chiropractors
• Personal Trainers

What Does a Health Coach Do?

A health coach is in the business of helping their clients live healthier lives. A successful health coach makes a living out of it.

Health coaches can find work in:

• Private practice – that’s what I do and you’ll learn more about what this is like in this post
• Fitness centers
• Wellness centers
• Insurance companies
• Corporate wellness
• Health clubs

Health coaches can work with clients 1:1 or in groups, face-to-face or remotely. Most health coaches offer programs that are at least 3 months in length. Over this time, coaches are able to build a unique rapport with their clients, which helps with the collaborative nature of the coach:client relationship.

The most successful health coaches niche down in a specialize area of health and wellness. Some common health coaching niche fields include:

1. Stress management
2. Weight loss
3. Mental health
4. Improving elite performance in athletes
5. Seniors health

Health Coach Qualifications

Despite there being no requirement for a health coach to be certified, if you’re committed to pursuing a career as a health and wellness coach, then gaining a credential in the field is highly advantageous. The National Board for Health and Wellness Coaching (NBHWC) is an organization that is leading the way in the standardization of health coaching curricula in the United States and around the globe. Only graduates from NBHWC-approved health coaching programs are given the opportunity to sit the NBHWC- certification exam.

It’s important to do your research when it comes to selecting your health coach school, as not all programs are created equally. If you’re passionate about ancestral health, then you should consider enrolling into a PHCI program. PHCI offers an NBHWC-approved program through its Master Coach Certification.

Do Health Coaches Hold Other Credentials?

Most health coaching certification programs don’t require prerequisites to enroll. But it’s common for people interested in health coaching to already hold qualifications in a related field such as:

• Nursing
• Fitness
• Counseling
• Nutrition

Holding additional qualifications can be beneficial when it comes to applying for health coaching jobs and attracting clients.

Sarah’s Educational Background

Before I enrolled in the PHCI health coach certification program, I held a Bachelor’s Degree in Biotechnology (Hons) and a PhD in Cell Biology, and I worked for 11 years as a research scientist. I’m often asked whether I feel that I’m “wasting” my skills, education and knowledge from my former career as a scientist. My answer to this is a resounding no. I use my research skills on a daily basis as a coach and a business owner.

Ongoing education is a no-brainer for me and I’m constantly adding new credentials to my skillset. As well as being a PHCI-certified health coach, I am also a qualified personal trainer and a licensed weightlifting coach. I am currently studying to be a licensed Strength and Conditioning coach and I hold a CrossFit Level 1.

The Tipping Point: Why I Decided to Become a Health Coach

Having a dream is great. Turning your dream into reality is the tricky part and can become a roadblock for many people. As someone who has taken that leap of faith, I understand how scary (yet exhilarating) it can be to transition into a career as a health coach.

Up until 2015, I had invested my adult life towards my career as a research scientist. It wasn’t until after the birth of my daughter that I considered changing careers, as my research career was taking up more time, energy and focus than I wanted it too. I wanted more time to pursue the aspects of my life that brought me the most joy: my family and my fitness. The tipping point came when my health deteriorated in 2016 (I contracted mono and become very ill for over a year) and I realized that I wasn’t being the healthiest role model for my daughter. I was overworked and suffering from burnout. Something had to give.

Ultimately, my driving force to become a health coach was so I could take charge my life. I had no previous business experience. I had minimal coaching experience but was ready to invest my time and finances into building something I felt passionate about. 

I was ready to take a risk. Are you?

Kickstart Your Health Coaching Business With Sarah’s Top 5 Tips

I’m proud of how far my business Nourish & Lift has grown since its inception in 2016. Setting up my private practice wasn’t easy, but it has been hugely rewarding. When you sign your first client you will feel an absolute burst of joy. Truth be told, I still feel that buzz when I sign a new client, 6 years on! I mean, it’s pretty special when someone chooses you to help them towards a healthier, happier life.

Ready to feel that first client high? Here are my top 5 tips to help you kickstart your own thriving coaching business. 

1. Have a Plan

Changing careers takes patience and planning. My advice is to write your business plan earlier than you think you will need to. It did wonders for me, and even changed the trajectory of my health and fitness business. Think of your business plan as an ever-evolving document. As your business grows you can revisit your plan and adjust it accordingly.

2. Find a Mentor

The best business mentor is someone you feel comfortable sharing ideas with, and that has time to guide and support you. Your mentor doesn’t have to be the CEO of a multi-million dollar business, and they don’t necessarily need to be a coach. Rather, your mentor could be someone who shares a similar business philosophy to you, and they may only be a few steps ahead of you in terms of their own business. Your ideal mentor will be someone who can provide advice and direction when you come to a crossroad, as they are likely to have already faced a similar situation themselves.

I approached my business mentor when my health and fitness business was still a daydream. My mentor gave me the support and direction I needed to take my first steps towards creating my own business. Now, 7 years on, and my mentor has become a dear friend who inspires me as a person, a coach and a business owner.

3. Invest in Your Education

The world of health, nutrition, fitness and wellness is constantly evolving, and as a coach, it’s important to be aware of the latest research, passing health fads, and cutting-edge coaching strategies. Staying on the pulse with your education will help your development as a coach, and it will pay off financially as well. I’ve never regretted investing in my education.

Investing in your education is an essential part of running a successful business. Whether you’re looking to upskill your coaching, streamline your bookkeeping, or learn how to improve your marketing strategy, making your education a priority will pay off.

From my experience, studying has:

• Opened new career opportunities
• Broadened my networking circles
• Helped define my coaching niche

4. Get Marketing

It’s never too early to start your business marketing. What do I mean by marketing? It’s any process that involves attracting potential clients or customers to your products or services.  Here are 9 key marketing tips that I found useful when I started my business:

1. Write your personal health story
2. Identify your pain points
3. Develop your client avatar (be specific)
4. Build your business brand
5. Create business social media accounts on platforms your clients frequent (Instagram, Tiktok, Meta, LinkedIn, Twitter)
6. Create marketing content (take photos, record videos, write blog articles)
7. Manage your business social media accounts using tools such as Hootsuite, MeetEdgar or Loomly
8. Build a website
9. Consider outsourcing content creation, social media management and website design to a freelancer

5. Start Coaching

There’s no need to wait until you’ve graduated to start coaching. You can start by coaching family, friends or fellow students. After obtaining my CrossFit Level 1, I shadowed the coaches at my local CrossFit box for 6 months to gain experience coaching group fitness classes. And my very first health coaching client was a friend that I went to high school with. In these early days, I learnt how to best prepare and structure a session, and I soon gained more confidence as I gained more coaching hours under my belt.

Final Thoughts

In this post, we have established that a health coach inspires, educates and guides their clients towards healthier, happier lives. Health coaches can work in a variety of settings, depending on your preferences. Taking the leap from your current 9-5 to pursue a career as a health coach can be a little scary, but it’s exciting and rewarding. I’m grateful that I took a risk and trusted my instincts, as I now earn a living pursing a career that I love. Most importantly, I have found a work:life balance that supports what’s most precious to me; my family and my health and fitness.

If you’re ready to take charge of your life and your career, enroll to become a Primal Health Coach today.

As of July 2021, the social media platform TikTok has 732 million monthly active global users, and counting. If you haven’t jumped on the bandwagon yet, you might be assuming that TikTok users are primarily teenagers; however, in actuality, teens only make up about 25% of users. It’s men and women over the age of 30 who comprise 53% of TikTok users—which happens to be the perfect demographic for health coaching services.

182 million women over 30 are using TikTok to connect, be entertained, look for new information, and learn new things. With these kinds of numbers—and the continued early growth opportunities for new creator accounts—it’s no wonder today’s guest, Danielle Meitiv, was able to grow her TikTok following, and her health coaching business, so astonishingly fast.

It was this Facebook post, which Danielle Meitiv shared in our PHCI Graduates group, that inspired our interview with the new coach:

What made Danielle pursue a health coaching career in her late 40s?

What business experience did she have, and how important was that in her success?

How did she use TikTok to reach more people and grow her business so rapidly?

From Environmental Scientist to Primal Health Coach and TikTok Success

Danielle Meitiv, M.S, is a certified Primal Health Coach, a Hashimoto’s “thriver,” and a self-proclaimed “total science geek!” who helps people with Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism so they can get their lives back.

For over 20 years, Danielle worked as a marine biologist and environmental scientist. She loved it, but yearned for something that could help her make a difference in a more tangible, connected way.

Through a series of culminating experiences, Danielle found her way to the Primal Health Coach Institute (PHCI). “I’ve always been fascinated with health, with biology and human evolution. That’s why ancestral health is such a natural fit for me.

There was no question, when I decided to become a health coach, that I was gonna do it with PHCI. I didn’t want to go somewhere where I’d have to filter what they’re teaching through a more scientific lens. I went to PHCI where we actually start with science. I met the Co-Founder Mark Sisson this past weekend, and I was like, ‘You’re the reason I woke up to ancestral health.'”

In February 2020, as a PHCI grad, Danielle joined our affiliate program called Healthy Profit University, by Michelle Leotta, and by February 2021 she put some of these new business strategies to work, and the results have been pretty incredible!

Q: Before you changed careers to become a health coach, would you say you considered yourself a businesswoman?

Danielle: “Oh, no at all. I knew nothing about business. In fact, a few years ago, if you told me that this requires actually starting a business, I’m not sure I would’ve done it (laughing). That idea would’ve just been too scary. And, I don’t think it occurred to me that I was gonna have to start a business until I was like, ‘Oh…well, now that I learned how to be a health coach, now I’m going to learn to be a business person.’ This makes sense, it’s the next set of skills I need to learn.

Having a business just means that you have something to sell. And you come up with structures by which to sell them, to get paid, and to deliver services. It’s a very simple concept, but it was still foreign to me until I saw Michelle walking through it, like, ‘Here are some marketing basics. This is what a mailing list is for.'”

Q: Tell us, how did you get 760 people enrolled in your challenge so early in your health coaching business?

Danielle: “I promoted my first challenge with no mailing list and just 60 TikTok followers, resulting in 35 people enrolled. The next challenge I ran in March ended up with 760 people. And then I ran the challenge again in May with 3,250 people. I literally went from 35 to basically 100 times more participants in three months. It was amazing.

I remember in January, just two months prior, I thought TikTok was for 13-year-olds making dance videos. But yeah, there’s definitely no question that TikTok soon became the foundation of my business. And now, my mailing list has almost 10,000 people on it and I have almost 120,000 followers on TikTok. It’s insane.

What I loved about the free challenge business strategy is that it’s literally five days of someone sampling your coaching. People experience the way I teach, the way I speak, my personality…By the time somebody got on a consultation call with me, I knew that they already met me.”

Q: Does the 5-day challenge serve as a filter to get people on your email list and into private coaching?

Danielle: “I see the challenge as my main marketing tool. Everybody has to be on my email list to be in the challenge because it’s delivered entirely via email.

At the end of every TikTok, I send viewers to my freebie so that I’m able to funnel them from TikTok onto my email list. In my freebie, a thyroid healing guide, I provide five days of recipes and a shopping list, as well as an explanation of what Hashimoto’s is, why it affects us, and how a paleo diet can address it.

When I’m on TikTok and people tell me, ‘Oh my God, I don’t know where to get started!’ I’ll reply, ‘I have a free guide. Just go check it out here…‘ So, these people get my entire philosophy downloaded into their inboxes where I eventually invite them to my Facebook group or to a consultation call.

Q: What would you say to coaches who are hesitant to give away so much helpful information for free?

Danielle: “Always give away your best stuff for free. Honestly, because, well, first of all, you’re not selling information.

What people are buying from you is the guidance, the interpretation, somebody to hold their hand and explain to them how to apply it in their life.

I have a waiting list for my clients right now. Trust me, they want somebody to talk to and walk them through it. They want your help.

My goal is to change people’s lives. I want to be part of the healthcare revolution, helping people take back their power, especially women.

But what’s the likelihood that it’s only going to be free challenges, and I’m never gonna make a dime? It’s not likely at all because I’m already making a living, you see? So yeah, give away your best stuff for free because people go, ‘Wow, that’s what she does for free, I wonder what a coaching call is, or what we can do in six months of coaching.’

There are 9,200 people on my email list. Who can build a loyal list that quickly and for free? I mean, it’s shocking to me when I say these numbers.“

Q: So what would you say to coaches who are hesitant to try TikTok because they don’t think they have time or the patience to learn how?

Danielle: “Well, I’m totally sympathetic, right? I get that there’s a learning curve. The good news is, in the beginning, nobody knows who we are. If I look stupid in front of my 60 followers, who cares. If you post a video and hate it—don’t delete it because the TikTok algorithm does not like that—you can change the settings to private, and nobody else will see it.

You can’t get good until you’re first bad at something, right? Just this week at The Ancestral Health Symposium, we discussed desirable difficulties and the things that actually stretch your brain; you make mistakes, and those are the things that actually keep your brain young…so it’s good to make mistakes.”

It just so happens that TikTok is my medium. I’m very good at video, and I’m comfortable with it. You just gotta pick one platform that you can be authentic on, and keep showing up. But it’s quite an easy app to learn, and there are a million tutorials out there.”

Q: What is the top mistake you see creators making on TikTok?

Danielle: “I think the biggest one that I’ve seen people make and then correct—which is like night and day—is that they’re just showing their food or their hands, and they’re hiding behind the camera.

That’s a huge one because TikTok is all about interacting with people…Don’t worry about things like the airbrush of Instagram, because the whole point is to be real. That’s when people will respond to you. Especially as a coach, they want to know who you are because you’re literally gonna hold their hand through some pretty emotional stuff, right? So that’s probably one of the biggest mistakes I see.”

Learn more about the strategies Danielle Meitiv used to grow her brand new health coaching business using TikTok and a free 5-day challenge, here, in her interview on Michelle Leotta’s Health Coach Power Community podcast. 

]]> https://www.primalhealthcoach.com/blog/finding-my-tribe-and-making-a-lasting-impact-primal-health-coach-sarah-hotchkiss/ Mon, 03 May 2021 19:12:25 +0000 https://www.primalhealthcoach.com/?p=8671

We love sharing success stories from PHCI alumni who have transformed their health through primal living and are now guiding others to experiencing fundamental growth and change in their lives. Today we’re sharing Sarah Hotchkiss’s story. Sarah is a PHCI graduate and founder of Catalyst Wellness Coaching. Read on to hear all about her transformative path to health coaching success.

I discovered the Primal lifestyle about 14 years ago in the hopes of improving a variety of physical health issues I had yet to identify (which later surfaced as Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth, adrenal fatigue, low vitamin D, suspected POTS, low blood pressure, migraines, and vertigo). While I appeared to be a healthy woman in my 30s, daily I was dealing with significant abdominal pain and distension, headaches, nausea, blurred vision, fatigue, and honestly just frustration because I thought I was doing “all the right things.” While I did not “feel” results right away, I was determined to stick with it and figure it out because I couldn’t imagine having the rest of my life feel so horrible. I was an avid runner, gym-goer, was a healthy weight, and was successful at my job, relationships, and at the time was starting a family.

My health issues impacted my life with reduced self-esteem, cancelled work and social events, trips to the ER/urgent care, visits to countless doctors and loss of time I would rather be spending doing other things. It significantly limited my wardrobe choices for work or the gym because often I looked (and felt) 6 months pregnant. I felt like an outcast for eating differently; it impacted my marriage and I felt alone. This experience was a major roller coaster for me, from determined and motivated to frustrated and hopeless back to determined and motivated and back to complete despair again! On my worst days I couldn’t physically move much or was puking, dizzy or nauseous and limited in many ways. On my best days I had energy and was up until 3 am researching the latest diet, supplement, or practitioner that could help me, clinging to hope for some relief. The process of learning propelled me forward.

What I Tried

I tried sugar detox, Whole 30, traditional Paleo, low FODMAP, SIBO diet, AIP, SCD, and many others. With each diet I carefully monitored and journaled everything…and I hated it. I’d sometimes get a false sense of excitement because there would appear to be some symptom alleviation for a few days, maybe a week, and one time I felt awesome for 16 whole days OMG. I had first heard about the Primal/Paleo food lifestyle from a friend, but I didn’t realize the other parts of this lifestyle that it entailed until years later. While my focus area started with food, I learned it was so much more than that.

One of the things I ended up giving up that helped me was long distance running and almost all higher intensity cardio, as well as giving myself permission to STOP doing the things I hated (spin class, kettlebells). I even cut cardio back to nearly nothing other than just staying active like walks, jogs, kayaking etc. as well as my once-a-week brief sprints. I also added yoga about 7 years ago as well as fell in love with aerial silks which have both been fitness challenges and lifesavers for my mind and body. Additionally, I discovered I had flipped cortisol, so I invested in a happy light for those dark winter mornings, and asked my husband for help with getting the kids to school or breakfast so I could listen to my body in the mornings. I spent years on an elimination diet which, although grueling, turned out to give me the most relief. I dove into research and continued my journey, all whilst working a 50-hour-a-week plus job, having two babies, managing a household, and showing my face at the gym at least 5 days a week. Many years of research and connecting with others with similar issues, and a whole host of both local and national functional med practitioners, propelled me forward a little more each year, although progress felt. So. Slow.

What Finally Worked

Fast forward to maybe 5 years ago when Facebook and Instagram really exploded. I was able to join support groups online and subscribe to my fav magazine ever: Paleo Magazine. Probably one of the most difficult pushes I had to give myself was attending Paleo f(x) conference in Austin, TX by myself about 3 years ago. Why was that such a big deal? Well for starters I HATE to fly. All my symptoms are exacerbated x10. The thought of feeling like absolute crap and doing it all alone freaked me out. Secondly it was missing work, family life, and my kids who I had rarely left alone other than our once-a-year vacation.

Paleo f(x) was life changing for me. Have you ever gone somewhere and you’re like, “These are my people”? Yeah well that was it for me. It was at that moment I started imagining… What might it be like if I did something different? What if I could help other people? I started a book of “wild and crazy ideas” and that was it. I still have this journal; it’s orange. At this point it had been over a decade of trial and error for me and I felt like while I was not “cured” (never will be), I had really made significant progress. I had significantly narrowed down what my symptoms WERE NOT (Celiac, a heart attack (yep that was a fun EKG—that’s another story), gallbladder, Lyme disease, blood sugar issues, thyroid, Epstein Barr). On my worst days in the ER, or crying at another doctor appt, or laying on the bathroom floor with nausea or pretending to feel “just fine” at work or social events, all I kept thinking was “This has happened for a reason and someday I’ll do something AMAZING with it.” That thought was what kept me in the game and moving forward. After several years I was able to establish a personalized diet for myself that worked 90% of the time, improve my sleep quality and quantity, and decrease the activities which completely taxed my adrenals, as well as get on some amazing high quality supplements to further support the results.

What Finally Propelled Me Into Health Coaching

What ultimately made me want to become a health coach honestly was getting 1000 wrong answers from most western medicine practitioners and receiving significant results with my naturopath, local, who I’d seen for nearly 20 years. I also felt like at some point I had made significant improvements and while everyone is different, I couldn’t NOT share my results. After I had helped myself, could I then change our household and teach my kids about cooking and food as medicine, sustainable farming and alternative medicine options? My kids came with me to the co-op, the farmers’ market, juicing workshops, and helped us in the garden. I cannot tell you how many hours I’ve researched and the number of conferences I’ve attended, but I feel like I have tons of info and tips to share with others. I’ve learned as much as possible about supplements, made connections with local farmers and co-ops within a 60-mile radius, committed to sleeping better, and ask for help more. Every day I learn something new. I am now a certified Primal Health Coach, and in addition to being a licensed therapist of 20+ years, have received training in AIP and Low FODMAP lifestyle coaching.

— Sarah Hotchkiss

catalystwellnesscoaching.com
Primal Health Coach Institute Directory listing
Instagram: @catalystwellnesscoaching

My dream from a young age was to be a lawyer. It was a dream that I thought would bring me great pride and happiness, having grown up with a very successful dad as a role model (who was an insurance broker), it was also a dream I knew would bring great pride and happiness to my parents. From a young age I worked very hard to reach my dreams: to graduate from Cambridge University in Law, and then become a litigator in one of the world’s top law firms.

I set my mind to this and it became my reality—I graduated from Cambridge University, Christ’s College with an MA in Law and secured a job at my dream law firm in London.

As my career progressed, I began to realise the reality was not inline with my dream. I was constantly stressed and working very long hours, week days and weekends included. I normalised the stress and pressure as everywhere I looked it was the norm. At the time, my body felt like it didn’t mind too much, I was in my twenties—I took health and wellness for granted and did not appreciate the serious health damages this lifestyle was causing.

The fact that health was not to be taken for granted soon became a reality; working in a chronically stressed state accumulates both mentally and physically, and when my dad had a heart attack and a sudden stroke, the shock of reality hit me hard. My dad was my inspiration for hard work and the reason I pursued my career. My dad’s heart attack and stroke was mostly caused by his high-stress lifestyle, like me, he too was working long hard hours. The shock of reality smashed the delusional tint on my mirror, and this is when I first realised my health was deteriorating and felt completely burnt out. The realisation didn’t just stop there; I saw my colleagues’ health deteriorating. Everyone was running on stress and the meaning of health and wellness seemed a foreign concept.

Acknowledging that my dream of being a lawyer was not fulfilling me as much as I thought was a painful realisation. I was forced to ask WHY I wanted to be a lawyer. I realised I wanted to help others, be someone’s counsel, guide and help them find solutions. Although I am so grateful for all the skills I learned as a lawyer and the beautiful intellectual rigor, being a corporate lawyer involved more paperwork than human heart connection.

I stepped away from my legal career to explore how I could still help people but with human connection and soul alignment at the core. I was trading financial stability and career security for uncertainty—I packed my bags and left my life behind in London and embarked on a world tour to the best wellness centers and most authentic locations—I was off to India, Nepal, Arizona, Greece, Indonesia, Ibiza—I sought out the best teacher I could who taught me yoga, meditation, breathwork and tantra, becoming a teacher myself in all of them.

I had a new set of skills that brought me great inner peace, but it also equipped me to bring the power of health and wellness optimization to others. The incredible journey culminated with a trip to Bali where I was going to teach yoga as well as learn a new yoga qualification for 3 weeks, but within the first week I arrived the Covid-19 lockdown had hit, the yoga retreat was cancelled and I was stuck on a small island off of Bali. The tiny island of Nusa Lembongan became my home for the next five months—and it became a primal paradise.

I deeply immersed myself amongst the locals and their way of life. I cooked with them, I fished with them, I ate and prayed with them. This primal experience showed me the power of a primal diet—how it connects to the root of who we are, who we evolved to become, and I knew I needed to bring the power of a primal diet to my future clients. I gained my PHCI qualification while living on this little (in size) but so big (in learning) primal paradise island.

With my yoga, meditation, and coaching qualifications under my belt, I felt fully equipped to launch my unique, flexible online holistic health service combining the age-old tools learned from the cultures and countries which contributed to my own healing with the modern education and cutting edge technologies PHCI taught me.

With the lockdowns in full enforcement, I needed to pivot, I needed to adapt and rethink how I could connect to people while stuck on the island, and how I could future-proof my business in a time of social distancing. Originally my plans for gaining clients was through teaching at yoga and health retreats, but with Covid-19 this became very difficult to consistently achieve, as so many retreats were either being cancelled or postponed. My strategy needed to go digital and so I created a social media strategy around Instagram content creation and building a presence on digital platforms, including a unique blend of ancestral health and biohacking as part of my coaching programme to serve corporate executives clients.

My main focus for clients is executives. My passion lies in optimising the health of high-performing executives as I can truly relate to their pain points and offer tools and techniques to help overcome their struggles by sharing the knowledge I now have which I wished I knew back then when I was working those long hours. As my confidence as a coach grew, my client list grew too along with my blooming social media presence.

In my past I had been deeply moved and motivated by speeches I had seen in person or listened to online. As a former lawyer, public speaking has always been something I love doing and a common theme I saw in the people who inspired me and in those I sought to emulate. I was thrilled to work in Italy as part of the Experts Team with LiveBeyond, to speak and present on Primal Nutrition and the health benefits of Primal Health and the Primal Blueprint. As a firm believer of the importance of eating Nose to Tail, I also wanted to passionately speak on the power of organ meats for optimal human health and performance, and how organ meats connect us to our ancestral past. I was overjoyed that the Biohackers’ Summit in Finland invited me as a speaker this year.

I was also thrilled to get published in UK national newspapers and magazines like the Daily Mail and Top Sante, to contribute as a writer to the Biohackers’ Update magazine, and to be invited by some of my fitness and biohackers role models, such as Jay Campbell, to speak on his podcast.

My experience today has shown me there isn’t just one road to success, there are many, and the digital world makes discovering and traversing those roads much more accessible than they have ever been. The world needs health coaches more than ever, and I am so grateful that the Primal Health Coach Institute’s certification enables me to touch so many lives in a positive manner on a daily basis.

— Charlene Bourliout

Primal Health Coach Institute Directory listing
charlenegisele.com
Instagram: @charlenegisele

Are you wondering what you can do in your health coaching business to accelerate your business, claim your niche and make strategic collaborations? Then hosting a wellness summit might be for you. I’ve experienced firsthand the hard work, passion, and organization needed to pull off these considerable events, and that’s why I sat down with five-time virtual summit host, Anya Perry, for some expert advice.

Anya Perry is a 9-year veteran coach and 5-year Primal Health Coach. Formerly a professional musician, Anya is also a USA Weightlifting and CrossFit coach, host of the “Habit Queen” podcast, and she’s a passionate entrepreneur in her primary role as a performance and mindset coach helping high-achievers balance life, wellness, and business to fulfill their ultimate potential.

This article is showered with Anya’s expert guidance to help you consider, plan, prepare for, and conquer your own virtual wellness summit once you’re up for the challenge. Here we go!

5 Benefits of Hosting a Summit

There must be some pretty compelling advantages that drove Anya to host 5 virtual summits, right? She did mention that they’re addictive. Here are 5 top benefits of hosting a summit.

1. Show Up as an Authority

2. Grow Your Collaborative Network

3. Build Your Email List and Following

4. Foster Know, Like, and Trust While Attracting Future Clients

5. See What You’re Made Of

“It’s definitely going to push your buttons and allow you to grow,” Anya says, “Hello, imposter syndrome, insecurities, and fears…it’s good, juicy growth though.”

Are there financial perks?

“We’ve done a few summits that were entirely free. We decided to sell the last two summits by combining both options—meaning, we host it for free so that more people get their eyes on it while also having an opportunity to purchase lifetime access—which worked well for us.”

Perhaps the most important financial opportunity presents itself indirectly, as Anya eluded to in benefit #4 above: “As summit registrants help to build your email list and social media following, some of those people will eventually become paying clients.”

Lessons Learned After Hosting 5 Summits

Check out the following bits of advice Anya shared after reflecting on her own challenges and experiences as a summit host:

Give Yourself Plenty of Time to Plan and Execute

Anya fell way behind on her summit plans once before, and had to rush to do everything in 3-4 weeks. “Summits take lots of planning, and trying to do it in 3-4 weeks was very difficult. Allow yourself ample time for planning…”

Go For a Top-Tier Presenter

“Invite ‘bigger’ names in the industry. I was pretty nervous to invite Mark Sisson to speak, but he said yes! You’d be surprised how leaders in our industry respond well to the invites aligned with their mission.” She’d even consider investing in top speakers if she could, because the big leaders often make a greater impact that can change viewers’ lives.

Invite Newbie Presenters for a Two-Way Learning Opportunity

“Pay it forward—invite coaches and speakers who don’t have a big audience or fan base but you admire their work. Every single coach we had taught us something new. Always be open to learning.”

Seek and Utilize Feedback

“You need to be very intuitive with each summit and see what participants like, dislike, what works and what doesn’t, for speakers and participants. Stay neutral and do not take any feedback personally. See it as a way to strategize your next summit and make it even better.”

Planning Your Own Summit

“There’s a lot of planning and organizing that goes into a summit,” Anya warned, “a lot of strategy and a ton of back-end work—but also a fair share of excitement.” Here are 7 things to consider before launching your first summit so you can be thoroughly prepared:

1. Why are you hosting it?

Be specific about your goal. Is it to grow your list, build collaborations, generate income, claim your niche, gain exposure, or share a message?

2. What will you say “No” to in order to take this on?

How will you fit this into your schedule? “Summits added about 20+ hours of work per week, for 5-6 weeks, when we first started.”

3. Niche, Niche, Niche

“Niching down on a topic or target audience is key. If you think you’ve narrowed down what your summit is about and who it’s for, narrow it down even more.”

4. Who will you co-host with?

“Get a battle buddy! Doing it alone isn’t nearly as fun (I’ve co-hosted all 5 summits).”

5. Is it free or paid?

Will it be completely free, paid, or both? Will you offer affiliate sales links to your presenters?

6. Plan out the many aspects of content delivery

How are you going to deliver summit talks? Are you going to drip content or make it available at once? Will there be replay days? Will the videos be interviews or individual presentations?

“It’s easy to waste too much time overthinking the content-delivery strategy, getting bogged down and overwhelmed. Have someone more experienced lead you through your first summit, or, make it super simple—instead of a week-long event, host a shorter weekend-only event first.“

7. What’s your post-summit strategy?

How and why will you nurture your new subscribers once the summit ends? Will you create a marketing funnel to cultivate more eager followers, or will you try to upsell and convert new clients after the summit is over?

Technology Checklist for Hosting Your First Summit

• Choose a platform to host your content. “We’ve used Membervault and WordPress. Membervault worked beautifully, even for technologically-challenged attendees…It’s important to make it simple and accessible. Nobody wants to click around 15 times to find the speakers’ talks or to enter a giveaway contest.”

• How will you collect payments if you are selling? Research and choose a method—likely there are multiple options built into your content platform, or utilize/integrate an external option such as PayPal.
• Choose how you’ll share videos (YouTube, Vimeo, etc.)
• Choose an email marketing platform (MailChimp, Active Campaign, etc…)

• Will you start a pop-up Facebook group? Hosts will do this to build a sense of community and hype starting on the days or weeks leading up to the summit, and to offer a place for conversations regarding the summit content.

• Utilize Project Planning Tools like Trello or Asana. Consider how many things need coordinating such as content management, checklists, speaker proposals and follow-up communication, marketing plans, copywriting, managing deadlines, and divvying up tasks between you and your co-host(s).

• How will you share content and promo materials with your presenters? Utilize platforms like Google Drive that allow speakers to access promo graphics and pre-written scripts (known as swipe copy) to help create buzz around the summit. “Make sure your speakers know What, How, and When to promote. Simplify the process and minimize the clutter in your communicating documents. Shorter emails to speakers and breaking things down for participants works well.”
• Document Procedures and Create Templates. “Even with your first summit, create SOPs (standard operating procedures). If we didn’t have the templates from our very first summit and so on, everything would take twice as long.”
• Back up your files and be prepared for things to break. “We had videos and websites crashing—it’s not pleasant, but most people understand. When hundreds of people visit your summit links at the same time, things may break. Don’t panic, and do your best to ensure pleasant guest experiences. Double-check everything the day beforehand, and on the day of.”

When It’s Time to Recuperate…

“Schedule some time off, post-summit, for ‘de-loading’…There is such a thing as post-summit blues. After all the excitement and showing up for others, you need a way to recuperate your energy, analyze how things went, and start planning another one!”

Hear more about Anya Perry’s story in her interview on Health Coach Radio, with summit co-host and PHCI grad Deanna Wilcox, where they share a more behind-the-scenes look at their experience partnering up for two wellness summits. If you’ve been looking for another passion project for your health coaching business, be prepared to be inspired.

]]> https://www.primalhealthcoach.com/blog/kicking-depressions-ass-through-primal-living-primal-health-coach-glenda-sparrow/ Wed, 17 Feb 2021 19:48:15 +0000 https://www.primalhealthcoach.com/?p=8474

Like 16 million other Americans, I have depression, though it wasn’t until 2016 that I knew that. While I had spent most of my life experiencing days and even weeks in a row feeling extremely down, sad, and blue, I didn’t understand that I was dealing with a mental health issue that could be treated, and I had zero knowledge of the critical role that food choices and the “Primal Laws” would play in helping to prevent my symptoms of depression.

In my mid-20s I started working out regularly, not because I’d ever struggled with weight, but because I was terrified that my metabolism would finally fail me and I’d end up overweight. I had heard the warning my whole life that my metabolism would quit in my 20s and that my ‘being thin’ luck would run out (not to mention the envy I had over Madonna’s Pilates arms). I was sitting in a meeting one day at work, my elbows on the table, when my hand rested on my bicep and I felt mush instead of solid muscle. Gasp!

I joined a huge fitness center with an expensive initiation fee and a high monthly membership price. To ensure I got my money’s worth, I told myself that I had to show up there at least three times a week to “play” for 20 minutes. It didn’t matter if I lifted weights, attended a class, walked on the treadmill or splashed around in the pool, I just had to show up to play. It didn’t take long for the play time to evolve into a full-fledged 60-to-120 minute workout six days a week. I was hooked on workouts because of how they made me feel. I felt energized and happy. My moods lifted. My stress levels at work decreased.

As I worked out in the mornings before work, I started going to bed earlier at night to ensure I could get up at 4am. Getting adequate sleep added to the mental health benefits I was starting to see, in addition to helping to improve my overall physical health. I was traveling for work at the time and would head back to the hotel long before my co-workers, to get what I called my “personality sleep.” For years, workouts and sleep were pivotal in my life, and I thought I had this living a healthy lifestyle thing under control.

Fast-forward to 2014. I was working as a manager in a supply chain role, when my vice president kicked the entire foundation of who I was at my core out from under me. I had prided myself on being a hard driving, disciplined go-getter who worked long hours and expected the best out of my team and from others around me. His comments were intended to point out how I was perceived by others. He suggested that I work on my “soft skills.” The upheaval that I experienced from his comments was hurtful, painful, and confusing. My immediate reaction was that he was a jerk. I thought that he wanted me to be someone that I am not. I did not understand that I could still be me, just improved. I questioned who I was, how I became that way, how I could possibly be any different. I liked my job and my paycheck, so after ruminating in my self-pity for a while, I started doing some research and learned about mindset.

There is so much more involved with learning and applying mindset than there is with going to the gym and getting good sleep. Mindset is an area I like to think of as practice. I practice having a healthy mindset every day. While I don’t feel I will ever have complete mastery over mindset, I can choose to approach each day and each circumstance with a positive mindset. When a challenging situation arises or a flood of negative thoughts crosses my mind, I now know that I can consider what’s going on and look for a way to reframe those thoughts, finding a different way to see what’s happening. I can ask myself if the way I’m seeing the situation is the only way, or could I be wrong about what I’m thinking, the way I’m seeing it. I consider if there is another version of the story that I could be telling myself instead.

Once I started seeing the benefits that the tools I was learning were having in my life, I wanted to share my knowledge to help others. I wanted to coach, but had no idea where to start and my insecurities started creeping back in. Who would want to hear what I have to say? I found a book about how to know if coaching is for you and I was hooked. Yep, this is what I need to be doing. I completed a holistic coaching certification and got busy starting my coaching business while working full time in Supply Chain Management.

In 2019, I listened to Mark Sisson of Mark’s Daily Apple and Primal Health Coach Institute being interviewed on a podcast. There was something in Mark’s interview that prompted me to look into Primal Health Coaching. I learned that they offered a coaching certification program and signed up for their Health Coaching Success Virtual Masterclass, and then into the certification course. I scheduled out the full program to ensure that I completed as quickly as I could.

When I began the course, I noticed that I was still holding on to some old narratives, specifically about fats being bad. When I was in high school the non-fat-everything craze was in full force. Sodas and candy were labeled as being “fat free,”—I thought that meant healthy. If I ate a package or two of Starburst and a bottle of Coke, I thought I was making good choices. It was interesting to me how tightly my brain was holding on to these old narratives about fat being bad, even though I had long given up the daily candy and soda habit.

PHCI taught me about how eating primally could ease symptoms of or prevent depression, cancer, diabetes, dementia, Alzheimer’s, and inflammatory issues such as allergies and rheumatoid arthritis. There were many other benefits, however these were the ones that caught my attention as diseases that have had a direct effect on my family, and that I was either dealing with or had concerns about being prone to. Once I started understanding the science behind how our bodies access and burn fuel based on what we’re putting in the tank, and saw how food can be a direct contributor to feeling good or feeling bad, I decided to make some changes to food choices to see if I actually saw and felt a difference. Boy, did I see and feel a difference.

The difference that I felt from eliminating sugar from my diet was quick. I had been a life-long sugar addict! My thinking was more clear, my moods were stable and balanced, I was not tired or fatigued, I didn’t have brain fog, my belly and face trimmed down quickly, my clothes fit better (I had started to think my dryer was shrinking my pants), my body didn’t feel as achy, and I simply was not craving sugar.

After completing the Primal Health Coach certification program and passing my test, I still hadn’t found clarity on my niche. I was coaching but didn’t have a solid approach on what sort of coach I was or wanted to be. The pieces were all there and fully aligned with my personal story, but I didn’t see it until I was preparing to be interviewed for a podcast where I was asked to tell my story about dealing with depression. I looked at all of the tidbits I’d jotted down and thought it would make a great blog post for my website. While writing the blog, clarity hit me like a ton of bricks. Eureka! I’d found my niche! My signature program, “Kicking Depression’s Ass,” combines four pillars: Food, Movement, Mindset, and Sleep, the four key areas that have changed my world and have helped decrease my symptoms of depression.

Realizing that the four pillars are useful for improving any inflammatory issue, not just depression, I launched a 4-week online program, “Start with 5: The 5-Minute Daily Mind & Body Boost.” The program is entirely self-paced with weekly group coaching calls and a private Facebook group for support and encouragement. “Start with 5” includes videos, written lessons, audio lessons, daily bonus material, and a 5-minute action to take each day to boost your health. I believe it should be easy to be healthy, and “Start with 5” is a great way to make simple changes to get your physical and mental health on track. I recommend this program for anyone looking to lose weight, improve symptoms of diabetes, autoimmune disease, or if they’re looking to learn natural ways to be healthy.

Completing the Primal Health Coach program changed not just my physical and mental health, but helped to structure my business into a model that provides easy-to-implement changes and long-lasting benefits to my clients. I am proud to be a Certified Primal Health Coach and part of the Primal Health Coach Institute community of coaches.

— Glenda Sparrow

Primal Health Coach Institute Directory listing
glendasparrow.com
Instagram: @glendasparrowcoaching

I’ll begin by saying the day I first injected my son with insulin while at the hospital in June of 2016 was one of the few times I’ve cried as an adult. It was heartbreaking to cause my four-year-old son physical pain. I have never felt worse than I did during that moment. We remained in the hospital for one week and learned how we would care for our son going forward who was now living with Type 1 Diabetes. There was education involving insulin injections, blood sugar checks, counting carbohydrates, and all of the other typical things that are taught when someone is diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes.

Over the next several months I found myself obsessing over the disease, researching all I could because I couldn’t make sense of the situation. I would be up late at night reading about causes, triggers, and clinical trials. Unfortunately there wasn’t much out there, particularly for children. I found a few clinical trials but they were primarily focused around devices to manage the disease. This became frustrating because I desperately wanted a cure for my son, not more devices. There are a lot of companies interested in managing Type 1 Diabetes, but not very many pursuing a cure.

Less than a year later, my son was diagnosed with his second autoimmune disease: hypothyroidism. The only treatment offered was a hormone replacement in the form of a pill. We were told our son would need to take the pill every day for the rest of his life. It was at this moment I decided I was no longer able to wait around and see whatever else might be waiting for us in terms of his health. 

I became more determined than ever to learn all I could about autoimmune disease and how others were treating them. I discovered people were managing these diseases not only through medication, but also through diet and lifestyle, and experiencing life-changing results. This was exciting to me and I was eager to learn more. There are many stories of people restoring their health and I felt inspired by their stories and felt like there was hope for my son. The more I researched, the more I realized the people that were having these breakthroughs shared a similar diet and lifestyle where the focus was living as our hunter/gatherer ancestors lived. This is commonly referred to as “Primal” or “Paleo.”

While I was learning and sharing this newfound information with my wife, I realized that she was not nearly as excited about this as I was. But, why? Why wouldn’t she share in my excitement or share my hope for possibilities beyond what we’ve been told from conventional medicine? What I failed to realize is that she was processing this whole thing significantly different than I was. I recall being particularly frustrated that she would barely acknowledge the topics I would bring up to her. She did her best to listen, but it was clear that this topic was very emotionally challenging for her. I could talk about the disease in a logical way, but for her it was a topic that she could hardly bring herself to think about because of how traumatic it all was. We had many difficult conversations and arguments over what was the best way forward, but eventually came to the conclusion that it was at least worth exploring getting additional help.

We found a functional medicine doctor and began our new way forward in April of 2018. Some of the major challenges initially were to eliminate inflammatory foods, and incorporating more foods that support our health. We decided as a family to go all-in together. I noticed incredible improvement in myself almost immediately. I have dealt with abdominal pain and bloating for many years, but assumed it was normal. Primal living has allowed me to not only enjoy pain-free eating, but I am more confident than ever that I have more control over my health, and my family’s. I don’t know if my son’s diseases will ever be cured, but I do know that I am putting him in the best possible position of maintaining the health he still has.

As for health coaching, I feel as though I have been called to it and it would be foolish not to answer the call. I officially launched my business in March of 2020, and have already helped several people find their path towards health when traditional methods haven’t been enough. I have primarily gained clients by sharing my story and being honest about our own struggles. Primal Health Coach Institute has prepared me wonderfully to serve others in a powerful way. I currently coach on a part-time basis, but coaching full-time is my goal and I have been equipped to do so by Primal Health Coach Institute.

I don’t believe that everything happens for a reason, but I do believe that great things can come out of every situation. I am passionate about helping others receive what I’ve received—the gift of health—and there is no greater wealth than that on this earth. 

— Chris Lewis

Primal Health Coach Institute Directory listing
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If you closed your eyes and were whisked away by a dream-like fantasy of what your perfect day would look like as a Primal Health Coach, you might find your imagination conjuring up Ramiro Gallardo’s reality. From treasuring simple pleasures like the ocean sunrise, to running a paradise wellness retreat, cherishing intimate family moments, and doing mission-based work, you would have a hard time convincing others that this is, indeed, work.   

Hacienda del Sol is Ramiro’s passion project, an all-inclusive wellness retreat located in one of 5 Blue Zones in the world, on the Guanacaste Peninsula of Costa Rica. “This area of Costa Rica is one of the last remaining areas that’s only accessible via dirt roads—which is one of the many things that makes it so charming.”

With a 5-star average from 140 reviews on Trip Advisor, I’d say they’re doing nearly everything right at Hacienda Del Sol.

Wearing Many Hats

Ramiro plays two important roles at his wellness retreat, Hacienda Del Sol (HDS). First and foremost, he’s a business owner, which requires him to oversee all departments at the retreat center. Yet, each day, he switches his hat to be primarily a health coach.

As a health coach, he meets with guests daily to learn about their experiences and see how they’re progressing through the program.

“From things like how their mood is, or their mental clarity, to their energy levels and appetite changes. I try to make them feel safe if they are going through a challenging part of their experience, and when possible help them alleviate some symptoms by tweaking part of their program (like the type of physical activities or their food).”

“Once they feel like they are ready to move on,” he continued, “we focus on what they’re learning about themselves and how to extend this experience to their everyday life.”

I had the chance to get to know Ramiro during our Level 2 Primal Health Coach certification course. He was very engaged with the class, as was I, so I knew he was a coach I wanted to learn more about. I asked how his experience with Level 2 has impacted the way he coaches, and he said:

“Since the level 2 course, my coaching has changed a lot. Much more free-flowing sessions and less structure….creating space in which the client feels safe and encouraged to go through the messy process of digging in and discovering the answers to their own questions.”

Ramiro’s niche clientele is between 30-50 years old, and they’re chronic dieters who are living highly stressful lives. “They come here fatigued and close to being burnt out. They want to try a lifestyle change but find it difficult to do when they are dealing with their everyday stress load. They want an environment where they feel safe to crash and be pampered while going through transitions like sugar or junk food withdrawal, reducing overstimulation, terrible sleep hygiene, etc.…”

As a business owner at the retreat center, Ramiro meets daily with managers and staff from each department, including the Kitchen, Reception, the retreat’s General Manager, and Marketing Department (run by Ramiro’s wife), where he says his main contribution is “to make sure we’re not promising something we can’t deliver.”

I noticed a common thread as I began to understand Ramiro’s intention and responsibility throughout each department meeting, and that is his mission to ensure the guests have an exceptional experience from the moment they first land on the HSD website to the moment they leave the retreat in a renewed state of being.

He oversees guests’ feedback on the all-inclusive food menu, tweaking and making substitutions to the meal plans as needed. He helps resolve any overall guest issues with their stay, and checks in to see how ongoing projects are progressing, “like getting a certain permit or growing certain foods in our greenhouse, maintenance projects, etc.…”

A Typical Day

Remember when I told you his life is like a dream? Check out a day in the life of Ramiro Gallardo:

4:00 am: With a 4-year-old and a 5-year-old at home, Ramiro finds it difficult to have alone time unless he starts his day before dawn. He wakes up to an ice-cold glass of water with an electrolyte shot he makes with Himalayan salt and cream of tartar (that’s one I haven’t heard of!).

“I live in front of the ocean, and one of my favorite ways to start the day is to go into the water when it’s pitch black, then see the sun come up while I’m still inside. The black water always scares me, and the first rays of sun always calm me down. I love starting my day this way.”

(insert daydream eyes…)

“Once I’m out of the water, I’ll drink the darkest, strongest cup of coffee I can make and do mobility work—which is what I’ve been focused on for the last couple years. I have a lot of injuries, and the mobility work has allowed me to continue being very physical, including contact sports like Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Some days I’ll throw in a 20-min medium-high intensity training, with bodyweight or occasional clubbells or kettlebells.”

9:00 am: It’s time to drop the kids off at school and head to work at Hacienda Del Sol.

10:00 am-1:00 pm: Ramiro sees 1-on-1 clients for health coaching sessions. If he’s not coaching a client, he’s meeting with different departments at the retreat to check in with managers and improve upon guest experiences.

1:00 pm-3:00 pm: At 1pm, it’s time for his first meal of the day. He breaks his fast with something heavy in protein. He says that means, “Usually just the biggest steak I can get.” Then it’s back to work as a retreat owner, doing what he does best—optimizing the overall HDS experience for all involved.

3:30 pm: It’s family time with his kids and his wife. They’re usually swimming or taking a long walk on the beach with their dogs.

6:30 pm: Dinner time! More fatty animal protein is typically on the menu.

Dinner is usually followed by some cartoon time with the kids. “Then, when we are in bed, I ask them to explain the cartoon to me. I find it hilarious and adorable to hear their version of what they just saw. Makes me smile even just writing about it.”

8:00-9:00 pm: It’s nighty-night for the entire fam.

Go ahead and pinch yourself…you are indeed dreaming.

Adapting During the Pandemic

With Hacienda Del Sol providing 90% of his family’s income, I couldn’t help but wonder how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected his retreat business.

He said business used to be very stable. Once the pandemic started, they had lots of cancelations due to the travel requirements between countries, and he worried about the need to work more online (up until then he had only worked with clients in person).

“As a coach, all I had to do before was follow the schedule given to me,” whereas, lately, he’s been struggling to shift online, and hopes he won’t have to juggle both online and in-person clients with his existing business model. Luckily, starting in late September, he began getting new clients at the retreat center.

“It’s been crazy getting the retreat center ready to receive clients since closing for the pandemic…but my business came back to life in one go at the end of October, and I’ve been swamped (thank God) with work ever since.”

What’s Next for Ramiro and Hacienda Del Sol?

As if his organization’s mission wasn’t magical enough, Ramiro and his wife are currently making plans to transfer the primal experience at the retreat to a residential setting. “We want to create a community—attached to Hacienda del Sol—that offers the same benefits of primal living for anyone who wants to live full-time or part-time in Costa Rica. It’s a very exciting project.”

Oh, and they also have a Paleo/Keto meal delivery service, called Sol Kitchen, using all local, whole foods from the island.

We can all take a page out of Ramiro’s inspiring work. He left us with some important reminders that drive him in everything he does.

“I pursue doing things that make me feel like I am of value to this world. I’m not religious, but I treat the world and the people in it as if they were a gift from God.

What ultimately matters is that I enjoy what I’m doing…in all the work I do with guests, I’m mostly focused on finding fun and enjoyable versions of whatever healthy change they are trying to make (not the ideal ones).”

Ramiro added, “I run my business the same way, and I’ve managed to have very low staff turnover. I want everyone that’s here with me, in the middle of nowhere, to really love being here—in the middle of nowhere. This has been invaluable during COVID as we’ve formed a very tight community, and we didn’t lose a single staff member…in fact, we just got closer.”

We love sharing success stories from PHCI alumni who have transformed their health through primal living, and are now guiding others to experiencing fundamental growth and change in their lives. Today we’re sharing Jennifer Beamer’s story. Jennifer is a PHCI graduate, functional movement and health coach, and founder of Empowerment Pilates Malibu. Her wealth of experience and education offers much to learn from and be inspired by in our health coaching journeys.

Hooray for strong bones!!!

I just received some great news…It’s been another successful year of increasing bone density, beating the odds and turning osteoporosis around!!

This truly validates the power of the body to rebuild and regenerate itself when given the correct information. I am devoted to sharing this info so that others can empower themselves, too. Here’s the scoop…

You’ve probably heard of a DEXA scan, also called dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry, an imaging test with low radiation to measure bone density. Life as a pro athlete, with sky high cortisol, low estrogen, and a diet which I thought was healthy but was truly inflammatory (low fat, grains, plant lectins and phytates, soy), led my body into the perfect storm of low bone density. Before the age of 40, my DEXA showed that I was faced with the diagnosis of osteoporosis. Ouch!

A diagnosis like this is a wake up call for change. My approach to obstacles is to dive in to the research and create solutions.

Though I thought I had been doing everything right, living by the healthy guidelines of the day, I had to dig deeper, find the root cause, and create change immediately. I created a comprehensive bone building program for myself, eliminating things causing bone loss, and adding those that would remineralize bone.

Many elements came into the picture, and I created a strategy including the four pillars of health; nourishing food, intelligent movement, quality rest and positive mindset.

I did it by going Primal and getting to the root of the problem. The Primal Health model provides a whole life approach to elevating health at a cellular level…from nutrient dense, low inflammatory food, to empowering movement, quality rest, time in sunshine and nature, and life balance.

The following are some keys to my own success. I include them for education and inspiration, as well as resources for further inquiry. I am not a medical doctor, and recommend that each person work with their own medical professionals to build a strategy for personal health conditions and goals.

Thanks to all who have helped me along the way. My strategy, guided by health professionals, coaches, and extensive personal research, was founded upon a primal lifestyle, including:

Primal Nutrition

• Healing leaky gut (I didn’t even realize I had!) and cultivating a healthy microbiome.
• Following a primal diet, rich in nutrients, proteins, and healthy fats, low in simple carbohydrates (which can feed bacterial growth in the small intestine; healthy gut microbes live in the colon) and inflammatory triggers.
• Following a low glycemic, moderate protein diet with ample healthy fats.
• Eliminating inflammatory vegetable oils (canola, cotton seed, soy, safflower) grains, nightshades, soy, corn, dairy, legumes.
• Avoiding antinutrients present in plants; phytates, oxalates and lectins which lead to nutrient malabsorption and inflammation. Soaking nuts overnight to remove antinutrients, eliminating grains and legumes.
• Eating bone in sardines, anchovies, salmon; grass fed/pasture raised meat on the bone; bone broth and collagen/gelatin.

Minerals; from whole foods whenever possible, supplementation if needed

• Hydroxyapetite/bone meal calcium
• Magnesium
• D3/K2; these are incredibly important
• Silica
• Collagen/gelatin
• Bone broth
• Trace minerals such as copper, boron, zinc

Hydration

• Drinking half my body weight in ounces per day, as small sips throughout the day, adding high quality Celtic sea salt or Himalayan salt and trace mineral drops to enhance cellular hydration and metabolism. One to two glasses of water with minerals on waking. Great news—adding the mineral salts facilitates absorption of the water and keeps one from overworking the kidneys and having to run to the restroom all day and night!

Primal Movement

• Lifting Heavy Things; Weight bearing exercise. Hiking, weight training, wearing a weight vest, pilates with the resistance of the machines.According to Wolff’s law, developed by the German anatomist and surgeon Julius Wolff, bone in a healthy person adapts to the loads under which it is placed. When loads increase, the bone will remodel itself over time to become stronger. Proper technique and posture are critical. Pilates on the equipment is an excellent way to connect the core and deep stabilizers of the body, to align, and to build a solid foundation for bearing progressive loads over time.
• Stopping chronic cardio. Keeping aerobic work to a moderate heart rate of 180-age beats per minute, as defined by the Maffetone Method. Chronic cardio and chronic stress create a cortisol and fight-or-flight cascade which leads to bone break down.
• Plyometric training. Heel drops, jumping jacks, jump rope, rebounding. Advanced; box jumps.
• Training balance, functional movement, proprioception and mobility. These reduce fall risk and elevate the ability to recover quickly when balance is challenged. Pilates on the equipment and functional weight training are highly effective.

Rest and Recovery

• Sleep. It’s where the body gets to be its own best doctor. An entire cascade of repair happens during high quality sleep. Strive for 7-8.5 hours of high quality sleep.

Stress balance and resilience/Positive Mindset

• Modifying cortisol levels and amplifying parasympathetic rest and recovery modes.
• Playing! Taking time to revitalize, enjoy walking in nature, breath work and mindfulness practices.  This regenerative time boosts the brain and body to higher performances during work periods.
• Getting at least 15-20 minutes of high quality sunshine per day.
• Believing in the body’s ability to heal itself. Visualizing the body healing on a cellular level. Bruce Lipton’s The Biology of Belief is a wonderful resource explaining the science of positive belief systems and healing.

Hormone optimization

• Addressing sex hormone balance; estrogen is critical to healthy bone density, and a healthy balance of estrogen/progesterone/testosterone is key. By first addressing lifestyle factors such as those above, sex hormone levels will begin to rebalance. Following these changes, working with a highly qualified medical practitioner can be helpful to add herbal supplementation, or bio-identical hormone replacement, if needed.

Medical diagnoses can be scary. And also empowering. Learning to use knowledge as power, to create an action plan, and to spur oneself to be proactive, is tremendously powerful.

I feel elation in knowing my bones are strong and resilient now.

I also feel the thrill of knowing my own body has healed itself, realizing the incredible power within to change. The body responds brilliantly to the information we give it. The science of epigenetics explains how genes up-regulate or down-regulate according to the cues (epigenetics) we give them, including nutrition, movement, rest, and mindset. For example, chronic levels of high stress and high cortisol amplify gene expression leading to bone breakdown. Whereas ample trace minerals and nutrients, healthy fats, weight bearing exercise, stress balance, and sleep will up-regulate genes to promote bone growth.

Seeing the body in this way, as a partner responding to the cues one gives it through nutrition, movement, recovery, mindfulness, thought navigation, stress resilience, and emotional balance, is empowering and exciting. The body is always doing its best for each of us, within the circumstances we expose it to. By taking the helm and directing ourselves to enriching healthy lifestyle habits, little by little, we can shift ourselves into places of strength and vitality.

It all boils down to having healthy cells, healthy metabolism, energy production and repair systems. The body is constantly regenerating and repairing itself. We amplify this with healthy living habits.

And in response, multiple systems flourish.

I hope this helps you, or someone you know, on the journey to health.

I am devoted to sharing this transformational information with others, as I moved myself successfully out of many health challenges, including severe arthritis, pre-diabetes, osteoporosis, anxiety, depression, hormone imbalances, gut dysfunction, brain fog and more. The elation of reversing all of these and once again living with vibrant energy and performing powerfully, is a dream come true! Becoming a Primal Health Coach has been a key part of the process. 

As a student at UCSF Medical School I learned a wealth of information about the complex interconnected systems of the body and mind. As a professional dancer I have gained tremendous insight from my own body’s experience as a laboratory of injury and repair. Serious health challenges led me to dive deeply into an array of resources to heal myself, and to once again, thrive in a high performance state. Continuing education in pilates, personal training, physical rehabilitation, the Gray Institute, and other functional medicine paradigms, add to the toolbox of resources I bring to each person. Mark Sisson’s work has been a personally empowering resource along my path, and I jumped at the opportunity to join the tribe as a certified Primal Health Coach. The program is a gold mine of invaluable education and resources. Through this program I have developed strategies to expand my thriving business doing what I love: empowering people with skills to live with vibrant health through the art and science of intelligent movement, nourishing food, quality rest/recovery, and positive mindset.

I am honored to be a Primal Health Coach, to be part of this legacy of empowering people with the education and tools to create health from within: to take control of their own health rather than outsource it to a conventional medical model of treating disease. It is an incredible joy to guide people to be their personal best every day; seeing them accelerate towards their highest potential, a peak performance state of focus, alignment, clarity, joy, precision and radiant energy.

Upon graduation from the PHCI program, with the business tools provided in the course, I reinforced many foundations of my existing business; legal waivers, my website and blog, health programming, social media, and more. Everything got an upgrade. I felt more confident in sharing my knowledge, backed by the Primal Health community and the professional tools provided in the course. My online presence has grown as a result, especially during the Covid-19 quarantine. The Primal Health Coaching Program has guided me to have a strong presence in the virtual community and to gracefully transition to online coaching during the quarantine.

I believe strongly in positive modeling, and living the work I teach. Many of my clients have sought me out in person, upon observing how I train myself in the gym where I teach. Rather than investing in marketing, I focus on high quality work. I strive to bring incredible quality to each person and devote research and thought to how I can help each person optimize their journey towards their personal goals.  I am grateful to work with high performing clients who are focused, driven, seeking to optimize their health and who are devoted to the process. An emphasis on high quality work has translated into clients seeking more frequency in coaching, and word of mouth referrals. I maintain a presence on the Primal Health Coach Network, Linked In, Yelp, and other search engines, and am most active on Instagram as social media. I also send out a monthly newsletter through my fitness association, IDEA.

As a movement coach, I empower people to be strong and aligned in body and mind. As a health coach, I guide people to optimize their lives through the Four Pillars of Health: Intelligent Movement, Nourishing Food, Quality Rest, and Positive Mindset. I draw upon best strategies from an array of disciplines, including pilates, functional movement, strength training and health coaching, to create an optimal program for each individual. By focusing on precise technique and the pilates principles of  centering, concentration, control, breathing, dynamic full body engagement and flow, we create a powerful foundation for all movement forms, for vibrant health, and for life! Living with integrity of line and form elevates self confidence, posture, energy, health and joy. It feels wonderful to be strong and aligned. I know the elation of having moved myself out of chronic pain into power and thriving vitality. I have tremendous respect for the body’s ability to heal and achieve homeostasis, or balance. I empower people to get “unstuck” from a spiral of “dis-ease” or imbalance and propel themselves forward to a state of healthy, vital well being. Even in the presence of injuries, or illness, we can move ourselves to optimal health, and live in a thriving state, with strong bodies and vibrant, strong minds. I thrive in a peak performance state of being powerful in my body and mind and love guiding others to this.

The abundance of health information available today can be overwhelming and confusing. I aim to streamline the information and coach each individual towards their personal goals. It is a true joy and honor to be witness to a person spreading their wings to soar in health and wellness!

Enjoy being powerful and moving yourself into high performance and vitality.

Best to all,
— Jennifer Beamer

empowerpilatesmalibu.com
Primal Health Coach Institute Directory listing
Instagram: @empowerpilatesmalibu

How will you decide which health coaching institute to attend? Once you’re a certified health coach, will you pursue more certifications to advance your career?

We sat down with two alumni from the Primal Health Coach Institute (PHCI) who were previously certified by another institution. How did they decide to pursue the PHCI credential, and how has this leg of education changed their coaching career?

Let’s find out…

Meet Jennifer Bambrick

Jennifer is a Level 2 Certified Primal Health Coach and founder of Thrive on the Basics where she coaches clients through cooking from a primal template, understanding emotional aspects of food, and overcoming struggles with body image.

From Health Challenges to Primal Healing

Growing up with a mom whose vocation entailed being a labor and delivery nurse, Jennifer always had a passion for health. And being a competitive gymnast and athlete at a young age, she was privileged to have a nutrition education so early in life.

After a diagnosis of hypothyroidism in early 2007, Jennifer found the Primal Blueprint philosophy, which she says had a tremendous impact on her thyroid health.

As if that wasn’t challenging enough, she suffered from a life-altering injury after a snowboarding accident. “I have minimal-to-no use of my left arm. Managing and living with deadly pain changes you. It pushes me to want to do more, help more; who knows how long I have in this life.”

Jennifer was already experimenting with a primal lifestyle at the time of her debilitating injury. “Going through so many surgeries, all the pain, healing, arthritis; I know that eating primally had a major impact on recovery and how healthy I am despite what I have…the primal lifestyle also brought me full circle with my hypothyroidism. I feel better at 37 than I did at 23. I’m more or less symptom-free.

I don’t want to think where my overall health would be if I hadn’t found the Primal Blueprint and adopted this lifestyle. Primal changed my life.”

From IIN Health Coach to Primal Health Coach

Jennifer’s life-changing health journey sent her on a quest for a health coaching education, but the Primal Health Coach Institute did not yet exist at that time. “I wanted to be able to help others find this freedom in eating, overcome health issues, live a happier life like I had. I knew health coaching was the path that would best serve me to serve others. To say I was bummed there was no primal health coach certification was an understatement but, meanwhile, I found the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN).”

“I started my coaching practice after graduating from IIN. I used many of the concepts I learned from IIN, but I was basically a Primal coach—taking what I learned from the many years of reading Mark’s Daily Apple…

For me, when the PHC certification became available it was a no-brainer to take the course. I had been patiently waiting and hoping it would come along one day, so I jumped on board…

Once I got into the first chapter of the curriculum, I was excited!!! I remember being grateful I had been faithfully reading Mark’s Daily Apple and was familiar with the concepts. The course goes into great detail on how the body functions, how our food and lifestyle influence our genetics, and much more.

I’m sure I understand genetics better after this course than after a genetics class in college. I often joke that IIN was my undergrad and PCHI was my graduate program. 

Unlike IIN, PHCI is not about learning 100 different beliefs on healthy eating. It is specific to ancestral health, nutrition, fitness…it offers you depth, science, genetics, chemistry, physiology; the why’s, the how’s; getting lost in the weeds of ancestral health. This is far more in-depth than other courses. If you want to deeply understand the Primal Blueprint, this course is for you.” 

Primal Passion

I’m passionate about helping others to find health and overcome whatever obstacles are in their journey, and I’m blessed to pursue this with the knowledge of PHCI. I love doing this work; it feeds my soul. My dream is to support myself with my passion, and going through PHCI, I have more confidence in myself and my abilities as a coach. I have all the knowledge from years of studying, and I have the primal community to reach out to.

I know from my personal experience and the countless others who have taken the plunge and went primal—this can change your life. I have belief in the primal lifestyle, in spades.”

Meet Brad Eaton

Brad is a Level 2 Certified Primal Health Coach, the founder of Hormesis Health and Fitness, and a clinical health coach for a family medical practice where he coaches middle-aged adults prone to metabolic syndrome.

Brad has an impressive number of certifications in the health industry—more certifications than we can count on two hands. I got a good feel for Brad’s natural drive and appreciation when he explained that “Each certification has taken me to a new level, or complimented my existing skills and made them stronger.”

From Strength Coach to Health Coach

Starting out as a strength and conditioning coach, Brad worked in a variety of positions, including his first coaching business, where he helped others achieve their ideal physique with a traditional “eat less, move more” strategy—and their success didn’t come easy with that model. Brad said, “There’s a difference between fitness for sport and fitness for health. I learned how my concept of what the body needed from fitness in order to be healthy was all wrong.” 

His curiosity began to multiply when Brad’s partner, Diana, found her type 2 diabetes in remission after Brad coached her through nutritional ketosis and weight training.

“Diana came off 6 medications and went from a size 16 to a size 4. In general, I did everything the opposite of traditional approaches. I believe it was this experience that opened my eyes to the power of nutrition and fitness to health. I started the Primal Health Coach Level 1 shortly after this experience.”

The PHCI Experience

Brad says it was an easy choice to pursue his PHC certification because “It was a natural progression of my growth, my beliefs, values, and understanding of health.”

What was it like when Brad first dove into the PHC curriculum? “Every expectation was met by the content…the information was well-substantiated and evidence-based. Each topic opened my eyes, engaged me to dig deeper, and answered my lingering questions.

As a busy person balancing a lot of responsibilities, having limited time to begin with—let alone much time for enjoyment—this program fed my why. It was nourishing. The self-paced nature was convenient and it minimized stress due to flexibility. It’s designed with written, audio, and video to support my learning style—like listening while driving—and the online learning system is easy to use.”

Comparing Certifications

Although Brad is also certified as a Precision Nutrition coach, he appreciated the specific philosophy presented in the PHCI framework, which focuses on ancestral health and epigenetics (how genes respond to inputs related to diet, lifestyle, and environment).

“Aspects of each program made me exponentially better…the principles of Primal Health Coaching Level 1, and only these principles, are the essence of what has improved my life and those who I work with. When followed, they produce lifestyle benefits like no other approach. These principles are not mainstream, and they are just as science-based as anything else.”

“The understanding of Primal Health principles enabled me to empower people relative to health in ways I could not have done otherwise…and, it has given me confidence. My clients are amazed they have not been told what I educate them in. They are amazed thinking it seems they’ve been deprived of important information that’s relative to their health.”

Next-Level Coaching

Brad didn’t stop there. He took his coaching career to the next level (literally, with Level 2 PHCI certification) and his reflection on the matter is quite pragmatic. He realized that there are two aspects to coaching: The first aspect is the framework and principles you teach/promote to your clients, and the second aspect is the behavior-change expertise you utilize to see clients grow and succeed (the latter being what coaching is all about). 

“I’ve had experiences where I had the right content but my coaching skills could have been better. PHCI Level 2 has enabled me to improve on that. The Primal Health principles are the right content…and PHCI Level 2 took my abilities to a whole new level because it is primarily about behavior change psychology.“

Where will your passion take you? Continue reading here to learn more about what makes PHCI stand apart from the rest. 

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