What Makes a Good Health Coach with Precision Nutrition’s Kate Solovieva
EPISODE 333You can know what to eat, understand what would support your health, and still find yourself stress eating at night, skipping meals and then overeating, or falling back into old patterns. That’s frustrating when you’re the person living it, especially when you’ve already gotten plenty of information about what you “should” be doing. It can also be frustrating for the health coach sitting across from you, because caring deeply about helping someone can make it really tempting to rush in with another suggestion, another tool, or something from the latest training.
That’s where the difference between knowing a lot and actually being able to coach starts to matter. Some health problems are technical and have a relatively clear answer. Others are adaptive challenges, where the person already knows what to do and the harder question is why they aren’t doing it. Those situations require slowing down enough to get specific about what’s happening, asking why the behavior makes sense, and looking at what feels hard about changing it instead of immediately assuming the answer is more information. For coaches, that can also mean noticing what a stuck client brings up in you and whether your own urge to fix is helping or adding more pressure.
In this episode of Truce with Food, I sit down with Kate Solovieva, a master coach and Director of Community Engagement at Precision Nutrition, to talk about what makes a good health coach from both sides of the coaching relationship. We talk about what to do when another tip or tool isn’t helping, why coaching real people is different from studying case examples, and how to tell when more training is actually needed versus when it’s time to stop collecting information and practice the craft. We also get into what to look for when you’re hiring a coach, how scope of practice comes into play with questions about GLP-1s, and what AI may change about coaching without changing the human part of the work.
This episode is the third stop on the For Coaches Path in the Truce with Food Podcast Library, a set of conversations meant to be heard in order. Start the Path here: For Coaches Path.
1:53 – Who this episode is for and how to recognize a good health coach
2:10 – What happens when a client knows what to do but still isn’t doing it
4:21 – Why coaches need to notice their own urge to rush in and fix
6:59 – Why the health and wellness industry still feels like the Wild West
8:31 – Where health coaching has matured, from strength training to a more holistic view of health
14:37 – Where the industry still falls short on fatphobia, morality, and personal autonomy
16:43 – The gap between being good at coaching and being good at selling
20:32 – The difference between technical problems and adaptive challenges in behavior change
25:58 – Why coaches have to manage their own discomfort when a client is stuck
29:26 – How compassion and support help when old food patterns keep repeating
34:14 – How to know when more training will actually make you a better coach
36:35 – When learning becomes anxiety instead of professional growth
40:11 – Why you can’t become a great coach without actually coaching
44:30 – What separates a great coach from a really good student
45:57 – What to look for when choosing a health coach
50:51 – How to identify the specific skill gap you actually need to train
54:10 – GLP-1 questions, scope of practice, and the role of a health coach
58:53 – What AI, GLP-1s, and industry changes may mean for the future of coaching
Mentioned In What Makes a Good Health Coach with Precision Nutrition’s Kate Solovieva
Precision Nutrition | Coaches Connect
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