What a Coach is, and What a Coach is Not
Read Time: 10 minutes
Author: Jamie Scott
One of the biggest misconceptions about health and fitness coaching is that coaches can handle every aspect of your wellbeing—from nutrition and training to childhood trauma to relationship problems (remind me to tell you about the couple who hired me one day, under the guise of some health coaching, only to have thrust me into the middle of their marital dispute). This expectation isn't just unrealistic—it can actually harm your progress and waste your investment.
Understanding what professional coaching actually includes helps you get the most value from the relationship while avoiding frustration on both sides.
What A Coach Actually Does
Education Through Personalised Application
A coach isn't just handing you a generic plan and leaving you to it. They're teaching you sustainable habits and helping you understand the principles behind their recommendations. The goal isn't dependence on your coach but rather developing the knowledge and applied skills for lifelong self-management.
This means learning not just what to do, but why it works and how to adapt when circumstances change.
Practical Problem-Solving Within Their Expertise
When you can't figure out how to fit adequate protein into your busy schedule, or you're struggling with energy for evening workouts, a coach helps navigate these specific challenges within their area of expertise and experience—typically nutrition, physical fitness, and lifestyle optimisation.
These solutions are practical and behavioural, focused on what you can actually implement in your real life.
Professional Accountability and Course Correction
A coach will call out patterns you might not see—like consistently skipping meals then wondering why energy crashes, or making the same excuse repeatedly while expecting different results. They'll ask direct questions about what actually happened versus what you planned, and work with you to identify why gaps exist and how to close them. This kind of professional accountability creates momentum because it's focused on solutions rather than judgment.
Behaviour Change Support
Most people know they should eat and train better. The challenge is translating knowledge into consistent daily practice. Coaches specialise in bridging this gap through habit formation, obstacle identification, and strategy adaptation.
What Your Coach Is Not
Not a Therapist or Medical Provider
This is crucial to understand upfront. Coaches cannot and should not address trauma, relationship dysfunction, mental health conditions, or medical issues. While lifestyle changes often improve emotional wellbeing, coaches aren't qualified for therapeutic intervention.
If you're dealing with persistent anxiety, depression, eating disorders, or unresolved trauma that significantly impacts your relationship with food, eating, and exercise, you'll likely benefit from working with qualified mental health professionals before or alongside coaching.
Not a Miracle Worker
Coaches cannot overcome decades of metabolic dysfunction in weeks, resolve relationship conflicts (with yourself or others) that undermine your goals, or change environmental factors that consistently sabotage progress.
Effective coaching requires you to be ready, willing, and able to engage with behaviour change within a reasonably supportive environment.
Not a Life Coach for Every Domain
Health coaches focus specifically on nutrition, exercise, and physical performance. While it might be tempting to ask your coach for their opinion on things outside of their domain (especially if you have a good relationship and high levels of trust with them), they're not qualified to provide guidance on your career decisions, relationship problems, financial planning, or other life areas outside their training.
This sort of mission creep can undermine the coaching relationship and its effectiveness. When sessions drift into areas outside your coach's expertise, they can become distractions and important health-related issues may get rushed or overlooked.
Where the Lines Sometimes Blur
There's natural overlap between physical health and emotional wellbeing. Proper nutrition affects mood and energy. Exercise influences mental health and confidence. Sleep impacts emotional regulation. A coach can legitimately address these connections while staying within their scope. They might help you understand how blood sugar affects mood, or how meal timing influences energy levels throughout the day.
The key distinction: supporting you through normal life challenges while implementing health changes is appropriate coaching. Processing childhood patterns, addressing persistent mental health symptoms, or providing ongoing emotional therapy falls outside coaching boundaries.
Coaches naturally provide some emotional support as part of helping you navigate change. This might include encouragement during difficult periods, perspective when progress feels slow, or reassurance when you're doubting the process. However, if you find yourself in constant emotional crisis about your health journey, or if every coaching interaction becomes dominated by emotional processing rather than practical problem-solving, you may benefit from working with a therapist alongside your coach.
Getting the Most from Your Coaching Investment
Understanding realistic coaching boundaries helps you:
Set appropriate expectations from the start
Recognise when you might need additional support
Focus on areas where coaching provides genuine value
Avoid frustration when coaches appropriately maintain professional limits
Before starting coaching, honestly assess whether you're dealing with issues that fall outside coaching scope. This doesn't mean you can't work with a coach—it means understanding that coaching works best when it's part of a comprehensive approach that includes appropriate medical and psychological support when needed.
Professional coaches develop networks of qualified specialists—therapists, doctors, physiotherapists, dietitians with clinical expertise—for situations that exceed their scope. This isn't a limitation of coaching—it's coaching at its best. By staying within their expertise while connecting you to appropriate specialists when needed, coaches provide maximum value while ensuring you receive comprehensive care.
The goal isn't finding someone who can handle everything—it's getting qualified expertise applied appropriately where it can make the biggest difference in your health and performance.
Professional coaching isn't about having all the answers—it's about providing expert guidance within defined areas of competence while connecting you to other qualified professionals when your needs extend beyond that scope.
