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What is Health Coaching Like at PartnerMD?

Lifestyle & Wellness | Membership | Wellness

What is health coaching like at PartnerMD? What might your first appointment look like? What can you do to best utilize our health coaches? Short Pump health coach Brandon Rice walks you through what he likes to do during that first meeting with a patient and how he helps people put together a plan to achieve their goals for the long term.

Health Coaching at PartnerMD: The First Meeting

We're going to get to know each other a little bit better. What are your likes? What are your dislikes?  What do you need to know in order to be as successful as possible?

Is it a better understanding of what is a carbohydrate, a protein, a fat? What types of exercises you can do while in the office? What is sleep? What is hydration? What are all of these things that really encompass health and wellness?

And then what information do you need in order to be successful? It's super fun to be able to come in, learn, and get a better understanding and ultimately have something to look forward to as soon as you get a better feel for that information.

You leave with a lot of excitement, a better outlook, more positivity, and more tools in the tool belt to feel like you can accomplish what you want to do. I always really look forward to having a conversation with people for the first time. If you have the opportunity, I'd love to see you at Short Pump, but definitely take advantage of your health coach, to be able to just expand your horizons a little bit.

Health Coaching at PartnerMD: Time to Start Making Changes

Now what? We're done with that first meeting, we've done the introductions. How do you leave the office or leave the virtual call that you were just on and start implementing those changes on a regular basis?

1. Use your schedule. Finding time during the day in order to prepare a meal or to get a good amount of sleep or to find time to go out for a walk or exercise is going to be a lot of time management.

Come into that first meeting with a calendar ready to have a conversation. Make sure you feel like you can utilize time during the week to do things on a regular basis.

2. Utilize your purpose. Why am I doing this? Is it to lose weight? Is it to focus on lowering my blood pressure? Is it to be able to play with my kids and not have low back pain? All of those different things are little decisions that add up to a big solution.

And so taking advantage of these decisions that I'm making — knowing that when I'm doing that, I'm getting closer to accomplishing my goal — that's going to be a big thing. Having the mindset of utilizing what my purpose is and every time I do these things, I get closer to my goal, is going to be a big benefit to you. So come in with a solid mindset.

3. Understand the InBody. PartnerMD health coaches have this really cool thing in our offices. It measures skeletal muscle mass, body fat, percentage of body fat, lean analysis, where does your muscle fall on your body? And then gives you your metabolic rate.

What is my metabolism? How can I utilize these other things that I might not have known beforehand in order to better use the tools to do what I want to do? Learn about the InBody. Get a better understanding of what that's going to mean and then how can you take advantage of a number that you might not have liked. What can we do in order to see improvement over time?

4. Bring your information. If you're going to a physical therapist, obviously, we can get that information from your medical doctor, but anything that you feel is relevant to us. Allergies from food. A work schedule.

What can you do to feel like you're getting the most out of this experience? And the more specific that you can be, the better we're going to be able to make sure that you can start finding solutions for the things that really matter to you.

5. Find new goals. We're not going anywhere. We want to make sure that you have everything that you need. Set new goals over time. Use the health coaches for the accountability and the motivation to feel like you're continuing to move forward and you're focused on the future and progress over time.

It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work to come see a health coach and learn and start to put new things into practice. But ultimately, you want to have that success story. You want to be the person that can look back over the past few months and say, "wow, I'm really proud of what I did and hopefully that can continue in the future." Feel free to reach out. We would love to meet you.

Access Wellness University & Certified Health Coaches

PartnerMD memberships include access to our members-only wellness program, Wellness University, which delivers more than 70 physician-approved courses and certified health coaching targeting the 4 areas most critical to your health, including stress and sleep, brain health, nutrition, and strength and mobility.

With offices in Richmond, VA; Midlothian, VA; Short Pump, VA; McLean, VA; Baltimore, MD; Greenville, SC; and Atlanta, GA, you can experience primary care built around you, one focused on wellness and prevention to help you stay as healthy as possible, as long as possible. Learn more about health coaching at PartnerMD