All roads lead to Rome, as the saying goes, and how you get there is as individual and unique as you are. Maybe you want to improve your health and feel and/or look better, but how? People who are trying to set up their wellness program may opt to work with an acupuncturist, a naturopath, or a functional medicine doctor. For lifestyle change, you might decide to practice yoga or tai chi regularly or perhaps you decide to work with a personal trainer or a health coach. Everyone’s project–their hopes and goals and obstacles and challenges–is different.
It makes a difference, then, to know what you want and how to find the right support system. Doing so makes your healing journey that much more fruitful.
Since I am both an acupuncturist and a health coach, I have a perspective on Chinese medicine, coaching, and the reasons to potentially combine both (or not) that is based on first-hand experience.1 When you have a better idea of what these options can do for you, you do better. Part of achieving goals is the skill of being able to make a good choice for yourself. Hence this blog post and the potential lightbulb moment insights that it shares.
Whenever you are beginning (or refining) a holistic healthcare plan, you want to know what the common ground is before you make your investment. If you are deciding between a health coach or an acupuncturist as part of your team, it helps to keep in mind what each one can do, no matter what your goals might be.
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An acupuncturist:
- Determines the root cause(s) of your health concern;
- Identifies syndrome patterns and creates an approach to revise them;
- Treats you via acupuncture; bodywork therapy; herbal medicine; and more.
A health coach:
- Helps you to identify your goals, your whys, your weaknesses and your strengths;
- Is a cheerleader and chief encouragement officer on your team;
- Challenges you and hold you accountable.
How does this look when you have a specific goal, though? And why would you pick one or the other (or even, maybe, a combination)? I’ll share three scenarios here below. Keep in mind that what each one can do, as per what you just read here above, applies all three scenarios. The following, in contrast, gives you information on approach and scope of practice specific to each given context.
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When your goal is weight loss…
Acupuncturist: Your acupuncturist can do a lot for you if weight loss is your goal. Treatment will usually consist of acupuncture, herbal medicine, and/or bodywork. This can:
- Interrupt or ameliorate food cravings;
- Improve your gut health and reduce systemic inflammation;
- Include aesthetic treatments so that you look and feel your best.
If there is metabolic dysfunction or a leaky gut, or weight you cannot get rid of no matter what and you’re chronically inflamed, then your practitioner will be able to address these issues. If you are anxious and craving sugar all the time, we can help with that too. Some acupuncturists are quite nutrition-oriented (I am one such) and can help you put together a food plan. Finally, we can do cool things like give you cupping treatment on your abdomen to minimize bloating or tui na (manual therapy) if you have pockets of fat or lipedema.
Health coach: Unless the health coach is a licensed practitioner of some form of medicine (I am, of course), their scope of practice is limited to mindset, behavior change, and information sharing. That doesn’t mean it’s lesser, but it is different, and you can expect that the health coach will:
- Help you to identify your roadblocks and, with you, create ways to overcome them;
- Work with you to develop a self-care program that supports ongoing change;
- Provide nutrition education and options for healthy eating.
Most of the time, your health coach is not also a licensed healthcare provider. Some are, some aren’t. If they’re not, they’ll probably lean more towards working with any diagnosis that you’ve been given while keeping things very much on the behavioral change level. Since I’m an acupuncturist too, I have the option of bringing in a depth to the health focus that a coaching-only situation might not usually entail. Either way, a health coach for weight loss can be a great resource for all of the above reasons. Especially with the first bullet point. You do want to identify your road blocks and overcome them with support and accountability to keep you on track, right?
That would be how things go with your health coach.
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You want to avoid or reverse a diagnosis…
You’ve gotten your diagnosis at your MD’s office but you’re not altogether that keen to sign on for a lifetime of Pharma drugs. It could be that you have a family history of a common issue and you’d prefer not to go down that ancestral road. Do you have a complicated condition, like Ehlers Danlos syndrome, MCAS, dysautonomia?2 Maybe the issue is a chronic condition and you want a better understanding of it so that you can manage things in a way that makes sense to you. So now what?
Acupuncturist:
- Can help you to understand both the biomedical view and the perspective of Chinese medicine;
- Identify your syndrome pattern and guide your body to a greater state of balance;
- Expand your horizons by treating you according to the tenets of traditional healthcare.
Are you worried about diabetes or high blood pressure? What about autoimmune disease or lingering effects of mold toxicity? Whether it’s avoiding that common condition that runs in your family (for instance, diabetes or high blood pressure) or doing something meaningful about a problem that is affecting your quality of life (EDS, MCAS, POTS, autoimmune disease, post-Lyme syndrome or a slow recovery from mold toxicity, for example), your acupuncturist will address your concerns through the lens of Chinese medicine and provide you with holistic healthcare support that can make a huge difference in your wellbeing.
Health coach:
- Challenge and encourage you to grow your understanding and awareness of the condition;
- Guide you through the lifestyle changes you need to make and foster self-efficacy;
- Support habit change, like cutting out sugar or adding in a reasonable exercise program.
A health coach will work with you when you have a diagnosis (or you know the family history you want to avoid) and are ready to make some lifestyle changes. What do you need to do in order to regain control of your blood sugar? How can you adjust your lifestyle to in order to live your best life with a chronic condition? What are those changes you need to make? Are they realistic and do-able ways to move forward towards your goals?
Your health coach is there to help you to hash all of this out. Your health coach will encourage you when you feel like your diagnosis is inevitable (or it’s here and there is no way to change that but you want to improve things). Your health coach will co-create a lifestyle plan with you and will encourage and support you as you learn to put that plan into motion. It is possible to stave off diabetes, for instance, but you need to strategizes. It is possible to ameliorate the effects of an autoimmune disease or EDS or MCAS, but you have to know yourself very well and take care of yourself accordingly. Working out how you improve your daily habits and mindset are the kind of things you will do with your health coach.
You’re here and you want to go there…
Maybe you are in therapy and making strides…but you don’t necessarily have a handle on anxiety. Maybe you are out of shape and want to do something about it. Are you stuck in a rut and don’t know how to change? Maybe you feel helpless or hopeless or overwhelmed. There are a lot of reasons to not be moving forward in a smooth and consistent fashion, and you are living according to the terms of one or more of these many reasons. Something is not right, or a few things are not right, and you want to change your dynamic.
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Acupuncturist:
- You are overwhelmed by your health status…nutrition education, herbal medicine, acupuncture, and/or bodywork therapies are what you need most now;
- Not everyone has a great reaction to Pharma drugs and herbs might be just what work for you;
- You have a specific health goal that requires medical treatment…Chinese medicine to the rescue!
An acupuncturist is probably going to be your better bet if you want to change a specific health-related trajectory. For instance, if you struggle with insomnia or anxiety, or you have gut problems or seasonal allergies or chronic pain, those are things for an acupuncturist. A health coach can help you to change your habits, your understanding of the condition, and/or your self-talk, but to directly address your health concern, that’s something for a licensed medical care provider. It can be a journey and, depending on how entrenched the issue is, you may have a project ahead of you.
Your acupuncturist can be a source of medical support and a resource that will help to get you where you want to go.
Health coach:
- Do you really know what you want, and why? A health coach helps with that;
- When you don’t know how to get there, your health coach will create a map with you;
- You’ve got a road block…your health coach will help you to get around it, over it, or through it.
A synecdoche is a figure of speech that relies on a part to represent the whole. If your insomnia or allergies or other is the part that represents a whole (your overall wellbeing), then you might consider a health coach.
Another way of looking at this is by considering broad categories, like menopause or pelvic floor dysfunction or chronic nightmares. People generally go to the doctor for these things, or–if they have found no relief in biomedicine–they go to a naturopath, an acupuncturist, an osteopath, or other. But what about if the issue feels like a symbol of the overall health status of a person? What if the primary issue is less the health concern and more what it represents to you? When you need to make sense of a health concern, set a goal, and progress towards achieving it, that is something a health coach can do with you. Often, in these cases, you would be working with both a health coach and an acupuncturist. Either way, if you have a healthcare provider that addresses your medical needs, then it’s the health coach that can help you to make sense of things in order to move forward.
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In conclusion:
Reality check: You can go to the best acupuncturist in the world and get a great treatment but if you leave and go eat at McDonald’s, stay up worrying all night, don’t exercise, have Dunkin’ Donuts for breakfast and a grab-and-go sandwich for lunch (then skip dinner because you’re bloated and miserable but later, you eat ice cream because your anxiety is ramping up) then the benefits of your excellent treatment are limited. Actively learning how to change these habits with a health coach might be your first and best choice in this case.
On the other hand…you can have the best diet in the world, you exercise, you get decent sleep, and your self-talk is healthy and affirming…but what if you’re still not where you want to be, health-wise? Maybe you have a chronic condition or you do need to figure out how to avoid a family legacy or–no matter how virtuous you are–you just can’t lose the weight. You need medical intervention first and foremost. This is when you might opt for an acupuncturist.
Often, though, people have some of the first and some of the second. Consequently, in my practice, I do see people who benefit most from a combined approach. In other words, there’s some applied Chinese medicine and some mindset and goal-setting. I dearly love Chinese medicine (both practicing it and getting my weekly treatment). Equally so, I hold that a person’s daily actions–their habits, their nutrition, their sleep, their running thought processes–are a cornerstone of their health.
Bottom line: everyone’s different. Everyone has their own, unique presentation and situation. For some of us, starting with one or the other is best. For others, a mindful combination is key.
What do you think? And where do you want to begin?
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Dr. Paula Bruno, Ph.D., L.Ac., is a licensed acupuncturist and herbalist, an AOBTA-CP traditional Chinese bodywork therapist, a health coach, and an author. She maintains an active and growing practice at her Austin, TX office. Dr. Bruno is also available for distance appointments for wellness consultation or coaching.
In her first career, she was a Spanish professor.
Dr. Bruno’s specialties as a Chinese medicine practitioner include: • Musculoskeletal health (acute or chronic pain relief; Ehlers Danlos syndrome & hypermobility support) • Digestive support, gut health, and weight loss • Aesthetic treatment, including scar revision • Men’s health • General preventive care and wellness support for all persons.
She is the author of Chinese Medicine and the Management of Hypermobile Ehlers Danlos Syndrome: A Practitioner’s Guide. Dr. Bruno also maintains a second website, holistichealthandheds.com, with resources and information curated specifically for people with hEDS and HSD.
When you are ready to discover what traditional medicine plus a vibrant and engaged approach to holistic health can do for you, either contact Dr. Bruno or book an appointment online.
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Two Hearts Wellness does not accept paid advertising on this website
Note: Material on this web site site is not intended to diagnose, prevent, treat, or cure any disease, illness, or ailment. A Chinese medicine practitioner in Texas identifies syndrome patterns but does not diagnose illness. Material on this web site does not purport to identify syndrome patterns.
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- Though I maintain my personal trainer certification, I no longer train clients. With patients and health coaching clients, I can and do either help with fitness programming, some in-office movement, and referrals. Working with a personal trainer can be a wonderful option, and an older blog post of mine compares and contrasts working with a trainer vs. working with a coach. “Health Coach? Personal Trainer? (Which, What, When, and Why)” is truly an oldie (I cannot believe that I wrote it in 2016!) but it still contains useful insights. ↩︎
- If you do live with EDS, MCAS, and/or dysautonomia, I do hope that you will take a look at my dedicated website, holistichealthandheds.com. ↩︎
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