The Positive Health Coach 2023: Be the Best Version of Yourself!

In the dynamic realm of health and wellness, one individual stands out as a beacon of positivity and personalized guidance – Janice Naimy, the visionary founder of The Positive Health Coach. With an unwavering passion for helping people navigate their unique health journeys, Janice is dedicated to making the healthy choice the easy choice for each individual she works with. Her approach is grounded in the belief that there is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to well-being. Instead, she thrives on the one-on-one connections with her clients, taking the time to truly listen to their needs and collaboratively guiding them towards choices that align with their individual lifestyles. Janice Naimy's unique blend of professional expertise and personal passion creates a holistic approach to health coaching that is as genuine as it is effective. Join Delivery Rank as we delve into the world of The Positive Health Coach and discover the transformative journey Janice is paving for those seeking not just health guidance, but a personalized roadmap to thriving in their own unique way.

As the founder of The Positive Health Coach, could you share the inspiration and philosophy that led to the creation of your coaching practice, and how does this philosophy guide your approach to health coaching, personal training, and nutrition?

I became a personal trainer in 2002, after being laid off. I enjoyed working out and wanted to be a part of helping people become healthy. I believed that eating healthy year round was better than dieting to lose weight then gaining it back. After a few training injuries I moved more towards community health with the YMCA. With the Y I began teaching the YMCA’s Diabetes Prevention Program as a Lifestyle coach. As an evidence-based program it had the research to prove a lifestyle change can improve your health and lower your risk of chronic disease. I loved this type of work! After the Y, I  became a Certified Health Coach. Then I decided I wanted to learn more and went back to school to become a Certified Master Health Coach. We dig deep to get to the real reasons someone hasn’t been reaching their health goals and work from that point. I help clients find motivation, be accountable to themselves and build healthy habits.

Your passion lies in helping individuals navigate their health journeys. How do you go about tailoring your coaching and training to find what works uniquely for each person, making the healthy choice the easy choice for them?

I think we can all agree that telling someone how to be healthy doesn’t work in the long term. I find out where my client is on their journey. I enjoy using my skills in motivational interviewing to find out what my clients know, what they want to know or achieve with their health and how I can help them get there. I help them build a wellness vision and develop their long- and short-term goals and action steps. The client is in the drivers’ seat, no one knows them better than themselves. When clients realize they are in control of their goals and setting the action steps they are more likely to follow through. 

Balancing personal interests, such as spending time with your husband and Labrador, with your professional life is important. How do your personal interests influence your coaching style, and do you find ways to incorporate them into your coaching practice?

I make choices every day. Every day, every meal we can decide whether to make healthy choices or a not so healthy choice. It is a balance, no one is perfect everyday with diet and habits, I don’t expect my clients to be perfect. I know if I want to feel good every day, making the right choice is important to me. Making the wrong choice can leave me tired, bloated, moody and not feeling my best. I made the choice to let go of things that no longer serve my body. Since I made the choice, I don’t miss the foods or habits I gave up!

Wellness is often a holistic concept. How do you integrate physical fitness, nutrition, and overall well-being into your coaching, fostering a comprehensive approach to health for your clients?

It begins with just moving your body. If the client hasn’t exercised in a while or has a physical limitation or maybe they just can’t seem to fit it into their schedule. We start with what they can do to move more. Same goes for nutrition, I guide them to think more about one goal at a time and make small changes. Big scale goals and overhauling your entire life at once usually doesn’t last. I also help clients to think about their environment to help them be healthier. We talk about sleep, reducing stress and how family and friends play a part in the behavior that wants to change.

Success in health coaching is often more than just numbers on a scale. How do you define success with your clients, and can you share a story that exemplifies a client's success that goes beyond physical metrics, embodying the principles of positive health?

Yes, health coaching is not just numbers. In fact, we don’t concentrate on the scale but in the overall goals the client wants to achieve. Most clients start with “I want to lose weight”, or “I can’t seem to lose weight”. I had a client who had been exercising 2x a week for 2 years and no change in her body. She eats what she thought was healthy food, mostly home cooked meals. She wasn’t born or raised in the states, so she doesn’t eat out much. She worked the night shift and was going to school. We started talking about her goals and she told me she was frustrated from working out so hard and not seeing the results on the scale, sometimes skipped meals due to her schedule and not being hungry. During our sessions I discovered that she didn’t know a lot about our fruits and veggies. She wanted to make healthy choices but was eating more fruits than vegetables. She was open to trying new foods, but needed a way to eat more often. She thought skipping a meal would help her lose weight. We talked about how she needs to have a calorie deficit but not too much of a deficit otherwise she would not be losing weight. We talked about what vegetables she liked and how she could fill up on those. Smoothies became a topic because her son wanted to try smoothies. When we talked about recipes for smoothies, she wasn’t aware that adding in more vegetables and less fruit could be a way to get more greens in her diet. After working on this habit, we addressed how she could have more food to help balance what her body needed in calories due to her workouts. She found freezing her smoothie, packing some veggies as snacks and taking them to work gave her the nutrition she needed and fit in her lifestyle. A few weeks later the weight was finally coming off and she had people coming up to her at the gym and at work telling her they noticed the difference. Next, we focused on her sleep patterns, and how being sleep deprived wasn’t helping her in the long run.  She started to sleep more and have less stress. Her yearly physical showed her blood glucose numbers were down, which made her and the doctor happy. Her success was her overall health, she felt amazing, was sleeping better, no more bloating and her family was eating and snacking better just by making some small changes. She didn’t talk about the number on the scale as much because she knew she had the right balance now and things were headed in the right direction. I measure her success with her getting more sleep, being sick less often and overall feeling better, no more exhaustion from school and working nights, even though she still did both. She had also implemented healthy choices which the entire family enjoyed and was sticking with them. 

If you would like to find out more about The Positive Health Coach, visit https://thepositivehealthcoach.com/