The Missing Link Between Information and Transformation: Health Coaching

What does a health coach actually do… and how is it different from medical care?

In this episode of Shift Happens: Hormones Unfiltered, we break down the role of health coaching and why it can be the missing piece for women navigating perimenopause, menopause, and midlife health changes.

Because let’s be honest — most women aren’t lacking information.
 They’re lacking support, strategy, and sustainable change.

Hosted by a Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner & Functional Medicine Provider, Johanna Lancaster, and a National Board-Certified Health & Wellness Coach, Melissa Gaskin, this conversation highlights how clinical care and coaching work together to create real, lasting results.

We cover:
 • What health coaching is (and what it’s not)
 • The difference between advice vs. behavior change
 • Why knowing what to do doesn’t always lead to doing it
 • How coaching supports habit change, accountability, and consistency
 • The role of mindset, nervous system, and daily routines in hormone health
 • Why the combination of clinical insight + coaching support is so powerful

If you’ve ever felt like “I know what to do, I just can’t stick with it,” this episode will help you understand why — and what actually works.

Because real health isn’t built on information alone.

It’s built on support, alignment, and sustainable action.

Key Takeaways

• Health coaching bridges the gap between knowing and doing
• Sustainable change requires support, not just information
• Behavior change is influenced by mindset, environment, and nervous system regulation
• Accountability and personalization are key to long-term success
• The combination of clinical care + coaching leads to deeper, lasting transformation

Work With Us

If you’re navigating perimenopause, menopause, or unexplained hormone symptoms, we offer a unique approach that combines clinical hormone care with personalized health coaching.

Together we support women with:

✨ Functional medicine hormone insight
 ✨ Root-cause testing and individualized care
 ✨ Sustainable lifestyle and nervous system support
 ✨ Coaching for lasting health behavior change

👉 Learn more or book a consultation:
https://www.omniyou.me/

https://www.melissagaskin.com/

Connect With Us

Follow along for more conversations about hormone health, midlife wellness, and advocating for your body.

https://www.instagram.com/omniyouhealth/
https://www.instagram.com/melissagaskin.pursuezen/

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Disclaimer

This podcast is for educational purposes only and does not replace personalized medical advice. Always consult your healthcare provider regarding your individual health needs.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Welcome to Shift Happens, Hormones and Filters, the show where we decode the wild, wonderful and occasionally WTF moments of perimenopause, menopause, and everything in between. We're your host. I'm Johanna Lancaster, a women's health nurse practitioner and functional medicines provider at OnlyUth, specializing in empowering women to understand the root cause of your hormone imbalance and helping you feel like yourself again.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

And I'm Melissa Gaskin, a national board certified health and wellness coach at Cursus End, supporting clients through sustainable lifestyle changes for root cause healing. Together we are your science meets soul, clinical meets real life, hormone dream team.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Around here, nothing is off limits. Hot flashes, mood swings, sleeps that disappears like your favorite pair of jeans. Yeah, we're talking about all of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Our mission is simple cut through the noise, ditch the chains, and help you understand what's actually happening in your body with zero judgment and a lot of laughs.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

So whether you're shifting, pausing, or wondering why your hormones feel like they're in a group of text without you, you're in the right place.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Grab your tea, your electrolytes, and your secret midlife snack, no judgment. And let's get into today's episode.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Hi everybody. Today's episode, Health Coaching Explained, will take a deep dive into what is a health coach. You've heard diet tips, exercise hacks, stress advice, but nothing sticks. What if the missing piece wasn't more information, but guided change? What exactly is a health coach and how can they make a difference in your life? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

So I'm your board certified health coaches, and really what health coaches do is they partner with clients to support self-directed, lasting change that are aligned with your values, your goals, your purpose. And typically they're around lifestyle behaviors, habits, routines, or mindsets that are keeping you from moving forward. So we often don't need more information. We need support in how to execute the information that we have that we already know within our body. It also is not a role that would diagnose or prescribe or give you a meal plan or an exercise regimen. But really, as a health coach, I empower you through goal setting, behavior change, accountability. As a national board, so there's two types of health coaches out there. There's certified health coaches where you go through a very rigorous training. Myself, it was an extensive year-long training, and then an additional three-month practicum where it is a deeper dive into coaching, having clients really starting the coaching practice. Then you sit for a national board exam, which took many, many hours of studying to pass an exam and have these credentials, and then it requires ongoing education continued throughout the next many years and to maintain your certification. And so I choose functional medicine, lifestyle medicine really to um guide that ongoing continued education. Now, the other side is anyone can call themselves a health coach. And so there's people giving advice, giving meal plans, doing testing and identifying testing, which is really out of the scope and out of the ethical code that health coaches should be, you know, living by. And it can lead clients in the wrong path and in the wrong direction and often hurt clients more than help clients because then they're even more confused because they were given protocols that were not optimal for their situation or body. So to get back to really what health coaching is, it's it's really not being told what to do, it's a collaborative behavior change process. And I utilize like positive psychology and motivational interviewing and like trans theoretical model of change, which I know are these big words that don't really make sense. Um, but it's a lot of just behavior change and listening to what you're saying to me as a client and how to um move forward with those statements into instead of resistance into action and what you're going to, what your next steps are going to be that help your health goals to reverse or prevent what's going on in your body as well.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

And of course, we have a bunch of evidence that supports health coaching. And this is what people always wonder about, you know, does this actually work? And yes, it does. And it's not just um shown in in real, you know, randomized controlled trials that are scientific studies to reduce diabetes, basically reducing your A1C and blood sugar, it reduces blood pressure, it reduces your body mass index to help with weight loss, it helps people stop smoking. So this is all these are all things that we have data on. But um the the other things are it really helps your quality of life and um significantly impacting your mood, your ability to um live your life and and enjoy your life. And that's why health coaching really helps this sustainability piece of staying with a routine and making changes that influence your health in positive ways.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Absolutely. I like to say it's about the sustainability because oftentimes this information gives us a short-term fix, just like diet culture. It's a short-term fix, and oftentimes someone's on a diet for a short period of time, they have a lot of wins, but then they travel, they go out of town, they have a birthday party, and then they completely fall off and stay off. It's not sustainable. And so health coaching helps clients make sustainable changes that they carry with them forever. And if there's vacation and other things, it doesn't completely derail anyone, you're able to really get back into your routine and you know what feels good and what is nourishing to your body. And so you can always return back to that home.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Yeah, awesome. Well, Melissa, can you tell us a little bit about how you would work with a client? How would that look?

SPEAKER_00 7:04

Yes. So I work with clients six months at a time, and really the first several sessions, the first and second, typically we dive into, you know, what is your daily life like? What it do you have any um underlying factors or diagnoses that impact you? What is your sleep like? What is your mood like? What are what is all of these components and how is that impacting your daily function? And then we build on that with what lights you up, right? Like I love these three pillars that I use in my coaching, which is fuel fit and fun. So fuel would be what is fueling to your body? Maybe that is energy depletion, like what fuels, what doesn't fuel, but also nutrition. So, you know, people you're around, are they fueling you or are they draining you? And then the food you're eating, is it fueling you? Do you feel good when you're eating it or is it making you more tired, right? Um, fit is this this idea of movement and this idea of um what also what fits in your life. So creating boundaries of instead of saying yes to everything, having some healthy boundaries on what fits, um, but also the fitness and then fun, because it has to be alignment to your purpose and what lights you up, or you're not going to do it every day the rest of your life. It will not be sustainable. And so if the idea of running a marathon does not light you up, we are not going to discuss the training on how to get to a marathon, right? So it's not a one size fits all and everyone is so unique and different in this. And so as we unpack over the course of six months, so we start with the passion and really alignment of values and purpose, then we really dive into the small daily habits that you are choosing every day. So if time is an issue with being able to meal prep food or eat at home, we talk about well, what is taking your time and how can you make space? What needs to maybe not fit in your life anymore, or what is fuel, and really realign to you know what is unique and best for you. Um, and so we we dive into the small daily routines and habits in our coaching and and co-create you giving your lead because this is your choice in your daily life. So you're really deciding at the end of the day what you're going to do and what your takeaways are from every call. And we always go back to what are your biggest wins and really retraining our brain to try things with trial and error as little experiments and then have wins from them. And so wins become safer in our brain. And so then we want to repeat and have more and more wins. So that's really the coaching process over the course of six months.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

I love it. I just weighing in a little bit on the six month process. Um, we in in functional medicine, that is really how we work with most clients uh in the six-month space because functional medicine is a process. So we need to address all these underlying root causes. Your body is imbalanced because you are maybe eating an ultra-processed diet, you're not sleeping, you're stressed, you're you have all kinds of emotional burdens, toxic burdens. So we have to address all of these to help your body rebalance itself, and that takes time. This is not a one-visit approach where you get a magic supplement and you're happily on your way and cured. I kind of wish that was uh out there, that supplement, I would take it, but it doesn't exist. And so we have to follow this process, and that's why we work in in six-month programs and um help you with every step along the way. And this is really, we we see amazing outcomes and and huge progress in people who follow the program. And after you complete a program, there are um tailored approaches on how you can continue your journey with us.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Yeah, so in recap, like you know, we take a very client-centered approach that's unique for you. We don't tell you what you should do or lecture you or tell you just be better and more disciplined. We actually help you along a roadmap to ensure that you are taking the small daily actions that uncover and unpack root cause at the same time as making these lifestyle changes, you know, um each and every day. So with and you have the accountability, you're building self-confidence, it's it's a beautiful process that works effectively for all.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

Melissa, who needs a health coach?

SPEAKER_00 11:52

Everyone! Everyone, if you are ready for not just information, but actually taking the action and making the changes and not yo-yo dieting anymore. You've got disordered sleep, you have weight gain or the perimenopausal weight that you just can't seem to shake, um, metabolic or cardiovascular concerns that are creeping in in your 30s, 40s, 50s, that definitely um, you know, you need a health coach. And also like hormonal imbalances, stress, overwhelm, any of those um, you know, symptoms, like you you definitely need a health coach, which makes me really think of a a past client that I had that she came with several metabolic concerns and some a journey of of infertility, and with lifestyle changes of finding joy in movement again, making dietary tweaks, as well as managing stress through various practices like mirror work and gratitude, and um very mind, very mindful practices, like just slowing down to eat, things things along those lines really helped regulate her body where she was able to conceive and has a beautiful kiddo. And so there's there's so many stories like that where these it's it's not that we need another pill, medication, injection, or whatnot. Oftentimes we got to get back to the basics of what our daily life is looking like and how to you know optimize our body so that it functions and heals the way it's meant to. Um, our bodies are very powerful tools that want to heal.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

And from my perspective, functional practitioner perspective, everybody needs a health coach. Me included. I think it's uh even the people that are uh follow a beautiful, perfect uh whole food diet, they exercise uh six times a week, they are following all the sleep routines and listening to health podcasts and reading all the things, especially those people need a health coach because they probably have an overload of information and are overwhelmed, and their poor nervous systems are trying to, you know, regulate with all of this. So a health coach can help guide them and strip away of some of these excessive supplements they're taking and help them ground and reset the nervous system and really weed through um the data, and and that's from my perspective, truly everybody should be working with a health coach. I, as a functional provider, provide you with the the diagnosis, we do all the testing, we look at um, you know, what's what would be a great uh plan to start helping your body balance all these things, and then I give you your treatment plan, and with that, you will go to see Melissa, and Melissa helps you unravel this treatment plan and make it applicable to you and and find the first steps and and every step along the way to optimal health. So everybody should have a have a health coach.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

Yeah. Well, and and health coaches, we don't fix you. Um, I help you become your own expert in your life and in your health, and so that you feel confident. I had one client tell me that I'm like a I'm like a compass and I help you stay to your true north because there's so much noise in our environment that that is really my role. And I I loved that analogy because it really does, it really encompasses everything, right? Is just keeping you on that track and holding you accountable to what you know is your best next step. So um if you liked our episode, be sure to subscribe and share. Absolutely. And reflect today. Spend some time thinking on, you know, what support do you need to make some habits stick or to actually turn this knowledge that you have on your health into action? We both offer free consults and look forward to connecting with you. See you next time.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

All right, friends, that's a wrap for today's episode of Gift Happen, almost unfiltered. If you're almost unfifting and you want actual support instead of delayed by the lane, is that we don't want to get out of the way.