Episode 139 | Jul 17, 2025

Healing the Gut with Client-Led Coaching, With Anu Simh

What makes a health coaching relationship truly transformative? This week on Health Coach Talk, Dr. Sandi welcomes board-certified functional health coach and author Anu Simh to explore how coaching that centers the client’s voice and lived experience can lead to powerful, lasting change. Anu is the founder of 9 Arms of Wellness, where she helps busy women heal their gut, reclaim their health, and stay off the diet roller coaster for good.

“It’s not about telling your client what to do, but co-creating solutions with them. That’s what transitions it from client-led to client-lived… I think a board-certified coach is able to create that space for a client and make a client feel heard.”

Anu Simh, NBC-HWC

In her conversation with Dr. Sandi, Anu explains how she blends science-backed gut health education with a deeply personalized coaching process that invites clients to lead the way. She also shares what it means to stay in your lane as a health coach while building trusted collaborations with doctors and other practitioners, and why this clear scope ultimately makes you a more effective coach.

Anu’s journey to coaching began with her own gut struggles and a lack of satisfying answers from conventional care. With a science background and passion for research, she took matters into her own hands. Eventually, she left her job as a high school teacher and became a board-certified health coach, integrating her love of education and microbiome science to empower women through coaching, courses, and now her debut book, Flourish from Within: Feed Your Gut for Lifelong Health.

This episode highlights the uniquely supportive role health coaches play in today’s complex healthcare landscape. From translating scientific jargon into relatable analogies to helping clients reflect on their goals, coaches fill in the crucial gaps left by time-strapped providers. Anu makes a strong case for how health coaches provide more than just accountability, but they provide context, compassion, and continuity of care. For coaches, she offers an inspiring look at the impact of client-centered coaching and the power of staying grounded in your scope while collaborating with physicians to achieve better outcomes.

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Transcript

Dr. Sandi: I love to bring health coaches onto “Health Coach Talk” to inspire you, whether to become a health coach, to see what’s possible if you are already a health coach, or you are looking for a health coach, either because you’re a practitioner and you want to refer patients or because you are thinking about working with a health coach yourself as a client.

That’s why I brought on Anu Simh to the podcast. Let me tell you about her. She is a board-certified functional health coach and the founder of 9 Arms of Wellness. She specializes in helping busy women lose weight and keep it off by focusing on the root cause, gut health. Her personalized science-backed approach has helped hundreds of women achieve lasting results. And she’s now training other coaches in her methodology.

She’s the author of the upcoming book, “Flourish from Within: Feed Your Gut for Lifelong Health,” which blends cutting-edge microbiome science with practical, plant-forward strategies and over 50 gut-friendly recipes. Through her book, courses, and programs, Anu empowers people to get off the diet roller coaster and off the medications for lifestyle diseases by restoring their gut and reclaiming their health.

Based in La Jolla, California, Anu works virtually with clients nationwide. She is passionate as an educator, a skilled plant-based chef, and a firm believer that feeding your microbiome is key to flourishing at any age. I know you will enjoy my conversation with Anu Simh. Welcome, Anu.

Anu: Hi, Sandra. Thank you so much. I’m so excited to be here and talk about all things coaching.

Dr. Sandi: Well, I’m excited to talk with you in this booming, growing profession that is so needed. So, you have said that you believe even education should be client-centered, client-led, which is a basic philosophy of health coaching, what makes the coaching process so powerful. But we think of education as just standing here, I’m giving a lecture, I’m imparting facts, but how could you see it from a different lens as client-centered?

Anu: Yeah, I mean, I think even education, it needs to be client-led because it’s not about telling your client what to do but coming up or co-creating solutions with them that makes them feel like they’re part of this. And that I think is what really transitions from client-led to client-lived. So, we want to create solutions that are connected with their lived experiences, with who they are, and solutions that they feel comfortable really working on and their goals. And I think that, Sandra, is something that I see a lot.

We are flooded with information today, right? We have information overload, but what’s missing is that context, that capacity. And I think a board-certified coach is able to create that space for a client and make a client feel heard. And that I think is just the basic thing that a coach brings to the table. And sometimes I don’t know if we really think about it that much because coaches are in different… We think about coaching in very different ways, if you think about a basketball coach or just a coach. But a board-certified coach, I think we are trained to always believe that it needs to be client-led. And I think it’s wonderful. It’s a great starting point.

Dr. Sandi: Yeah. So, can you tell us about your background before becoming a coach? And what was that aha moment where you decided, “I’m going to become a health coach,” and then went the extra mile to become board-certified, which is the gold standard because you went through the National Board for Health and Wellness Coaching, the professional organization, and you chose to… That’s a rigorous exam administered by the National Board of Medical Examiners, but you chose that path to reach that point that you are now nationally board-certified as a health coach.

Anu: Yeah. Well, I think most of us who are practitioners, we are, kind of, attracted to this journey because of our own struggles. And I was no different. Many moons ago, I had a lot of gut issues and I went the traditional route, doing all the right things, going to doctor, to doctor, searching for answers, didn’t find the answers that I needed. And then I still remember sitting in my car after the last uncomfortable conversation with the doctor, I thought, “Well, I have a science background. I need to make this work.” And we’re talking, Sandra, about a time when I had to go to UCSD and research the heck out of it because we didn’t have social media, we didn’t have the internet, that sort of thing.

So, at that time, I was a high school teacher. And I was seeing this in school, children were not understanding nutrition. And so I started bringing nutrition into my classroom. And the thing is I was in a socioeconomically, depressed situation at an alternative school, and they had not heard of most of the healthy foods. So, I felt like it was my passion to just bring that into the classroom and teach things through nutrition. And I had my whole thing going on as well.

And that’s when I discovered the microbiome, and I became very passionate about it and started researching a lot. The Sonnenburgs had come out with their book, “The Good Gut,” and the Human Microbiome Project had started. And of course, now fast forward, we have so much more information about it. So, all of that put together, I said, “This is what I want to do.” And that’s what led me to coaching. And then of course, it segued into board certification because I strongly believe that we need to stick to our zone. You are a coach, you’re a coach. You’re a doctor, you’re a doctor, not a lipidologist or a longevity expert. And that’s happening a lot. And that bothers me to the core. If someone, as a coach, is selling a lot of supplements and making money off of it, then you’re not ethically being there. So, all of that really matters. So, I wanted to be part of that movement because I feel like eventually, hopefully it’s going to really shift to licensing or I don’t know. I’m hoping.

Dr. Sandi: It is really so satisfying for me to hear you say that in terms of you’re a coach, you’re a coach. If you’re a doctor, you’re a doctor. You stay in your lane. And we see the big problem with people who are thinking they are becoming a coach. They want to order labs, interpret labs. They want to prescribe supplements. And that’s really practicing medicine without a license. And they think, “Well, I won’t do so well. I won’t be successful as a coach if I can’t do this.”

What I tell everybody is it’s the exact opposite. Your network is your networth. What I mean is that… And I hope that you can comment on that, and that is, okay, you have clients, you’ve established a relationship with nutrition professionals, with doctors, with psychologists. You have a whole network of people that you collaborate with. You make a referral for a consult. They will respect you. And then they will now start having patients, “Oh, I think that they would be a good match for seeing the coach, Coach Anu, for example.” So, you grow your business that way because you have a whole network of colleagues who respect you. These doctors and other clinicians don’t respect health coaches who are stepping out of their lane.

Anu: And, yeah, and it’s tricky and it’s hard sometimes because a lot of coaches are not just coaches. They’re also specialists in other areas. And then how do you kind of navigate between the two? And going back to your point about that, I think your book talks a lot about that, about having a relationship and doing that teamwork.

I work very closely with an MD here in La Jolla. And we have this great relationship. He sends me clients. And it is fantastic that he’s doing the diagnosis and coming up with the treatment. And he’s sending the client to me for the accountability piece, for the education piece, for that hand holding. And that teamwork is so incredibly important because it’s one thing to know. It’s not that our clients don’t have the education. They absolutely do, and they have the power within them to just even understand it. But taking it from that education piece to actually taking some actionable steps, that’s where a coach shines.

And I think that’s a very important job, you know, because today we have so much information, but taking someone from point A to point B and whatever it is that they feel is their idea about optimizing their health, that’s a great job, I think, to be able to get them there and exciting. And of course, as we know, change is not linear. You know, a client can come to me just saying, “Oh, I’m ready for change.” And we start working with them. And they can step back, you know, and just go back to just contemplating things. If we’re not having this relationship with the client, which is client-led, we really miss those opportunities. And that’s where I think it is so important to always say, “This is your journey, and I’m just a guide by your side.”

Dr. Sandi: Yeah. One area where health coaches can make a big impact and offer education is through writing a book, having a podcast, giving lectures, for example, and you wrote a book, “Flourish from Within,” and that’s the perspective of a coach. I’d love for you to share how was that experience of writing a book. And can you share your purpose in writing and what it’s about?

Anu: Yeah. So, in my conversations with my clients, you know, always client led, I do talk about the microbiome. It is a passion for me. I do have a lot of clients who come to me with having gone through different gut tests and they have problems, issues. So, I kept hearing, “Can you write a book? Can you write a book? You know, I mean, giving us all this information.”

So, writing a book about science and putting on a coach hat was very challenging. A part of me wants to just stay in the science and just talk about the science aspect of it. And part of me wanted to be, “I want to walk with the reader, not talk down.” So, that was really challenging, and it took me a long time. It took me over four years to figure out how to come up with, “Okay, this is how I have to do it.” So, I always started with, like, a transformational journey that a client had, you know, through that relationship and the role that the microbiome plays, you know? And I hope I succeeded. I don’t know, but I tried my best to go about doing it. So, this book is part-science, part-storytelling, part-coaching and part-food and diversity and all of that stuff. That’s so important for the microbiome.

Dr. Sandi: You know, often coaches take high-level concepts and medical jargon and have a story, a way to an analogy perhaps where they can describe something like leaky gut, something like the microbiome. There are people who may not understand the workings, but they’re able to create impact like, “Oh, I get it. I understand what it’s like.” So, anything like that you’d care to share that you have either in your book or that you use with clients?

Anu: Yeah, I do use a lot of analogies. So, I mean, it’s funny. It’s very interesting that my youngest client was seven years old, and he was diagnosed with ADHD and his mom really wanted to, kind of, figure out his diet and lifestyle first before resorting to medication. So, he came to me and so he was very interested in soccer. So, the analogy I use was like, “You have a team within you and they’re doing the passing, they’re doing the defense, and all of that.” So, that’s how I explained microbes to this kid. And he was just so incredibly taken with that. He had these forever guests within—trillions of bacteria in his gut—that were really rooting for him and they’re part of his team, that he took it very seriously. And his mom said that every meal, he was like, “Mom, how’s my team doing? Am I doing right by my team?”

So, that was pretty cool. In fact, he actually invited me to his show and tell about the microbiome. So, that was an interesting younger child experience. But my clients who come through to me for like, let’s say, high cholesterol, things like that, they don’t understand cholesterol. I mean, even we have a hard time understanding cholesterol because it is so layered and so nuanced and so complicated. So, I use analogies all the time. I draw things, you know, and always, “Hey, what do you know about cholesterol? What would you like to learn about it?” And it always starts with the client asking for the education. The client is saying, “I have my statin. Don’t want to do anything more about that.” That’s fine too. It’s the client’s prerogative to choose their style of treatment. So, yeah.

Dr. Sandi: I absolutely love that analogy. That can work with adults as well, finding something that they can relate to and have the… I’ve been described like… When we talk about functional medicine and all of the interconnected systems and the idea of “you have a city” and we have defense, we have a police force, for example, for defense. Well, that’s our immune system. We have to take out the garbage. It’s our detoxification system. Elimination, for example.

Anu: Yeah.

Dr. Sandi: Our roads, communication, our hormones. We have wires going to cellular networks. And people get it. They understand it because they can relate to something that, “Oh, I understand that now.”

Anu: And that really helps with the analogy, because if you’re talking to someone who loves gardening, you could use gardening as an analogy. But if it’s a… Like, I had a client who came to me because his wife sent him and said she really wanted him to stop smoking. And he was not interested in stopping. So, he was not even in precontemplation. So, how would I take this guy who was not at all interested just because the wife wanted him to do it? So, we started talking about what was his interest, and I found out that he was an avid golfer. So, everything, all our conversations, were about golfing. And eventually, he said one day, “I think I’m going to give this a try.” I mean, of course, it was a long story, but it really came from him. I was just there listening and pointing things out. So, it’s the clients who are doing the work.

Dr. Sandi: We knew that just described the essence of coaching and why it works so well. It’s the clients. So, the ideas for these stories didn’t come from you?

Anu: No.

Dr. Sandi: You didn’t just insert it. It was the clients. You listened deeply and you learned about someone has an interest…this child has an interest in soccer, and this man loves golf. And so it was from him, and that was how he was able to make those changes. And so we often think that we have to be the expert, we have to tell people what to do, and that never works. When it comes from them, that’s why coaching is so critical. And yet we have doctors who are thinking they don’t know coaching. They may think they don’t need a coach. So, why should doctors consider having a health coach on their team? And let’s say you were talking to a doctor and they posed that question to you, “Okay, and why should I need a coach? What is the coach going to do for me, for my patients, my practice?”

Anu: I think doctors go into this really wanting to help their patient, but then the kind of healthcare system that we have really doesn’t allow them to spend enough time with the patient. I mean, most of the doctors that I know have like a paltry 15, 20 minutes with a patient. It’s impossible to go into research, education, what’s top on the client’s or the patient’s agenda. I mean, they can miss so much because 20 minutes is… There’s no way.

Let’s take a simple thing as microbiome, right? First of all, the research is daunting. There’s so much out there, and a doctor who’s so busy with patient load may not really know everything about the microbiome. And that’s where a coach can really help, if the client is asking for it. And if the client is saying, “Hey, Dr. So-and-so, can you suggest a probiotic?” and the doctor is like, “I don’t know. You know, whatever.” And if they had a coach on the team, they could say, “You know, my coach can answer that question for you. My coach can help you decide and navigate, because it’s such a complicated science. There’s so much there. And is that something that would work for you?” I mean, easy, you know? It’s just so easy. And then you can come back to the doctor and say, “This is what we decided. What do you think?” And so it’s a wonderful, beautiful partnership. And I think all doctors are going to benefit from having a coach. They are going to be better doctors, better in their profession, just having someone there by their side to take on the load, you know?

Dr. Sandi: Take on the load is right because they’re burned out. I’m speaking with the head of medical staff at a large hospital system, and he’s also head of the emergency room department. And he said his doctors, they’re exhausted. They’re burned out. And so we know, and we have many anecdotal stories, that when a doctor has a coach on their collaborative care team, their quality of life improves. They can relax, they can rest easy because they know that their patients are in good hands, and they don’t have to be the one answering all of these questions. So, whether that’s a conventional, or a functional, or integrative medicine doctor, the example… The aim of a functional medicine doctor, I just heard someone say, “Well, I turned it over to my coach because I was getting exhausted. I put a lot of people on the elimination diet, and now I don’t have to answer those kinds of questions about, ‘Okay, it says gluten is not recommended, but what about this grain? Is that okay?’ ” And I’ve answered that question a hundred times, and those kinds of questions can be so easily directed to the health coach, who knows about those very specifics that are likely to be troubling to people. And so they want the question answered, the doctor doesn’t have time to answer, or again, is just getting burnt out from being in that place where they’re asked to answer all those questions.

Anu: Yeah. And those are some questions. And also, sometimes we can miss so many things. Like, I had a client who was on a PPI for a very, very long time, and the doctor had missed that she was on a PPI. I mean, imagine what it does to the microbiome and so many different things. And she was never asked the question, “How’s this working for you? Do you still need the PPI?” And I asked the question because she was my client, and she was on an incredibly healthy diet and making all these changes. Did she really need a PPI? And it turned out that she didn’t. So, she went back to the doctor and said, “Can you wean me off this drug?” And something like that is a great conversation that the coach can bring in, because that’s what a coach should focus on, what’s happening, what’s the…

Dr. Sandi: Yeah. And we know that because a coach is seen more like your peer, your equal, and they’ve had experience that they’re not judged at all by the coach. And when they go to the doctor, they might… Often for cultural reasons, they may feel embarrassed to bring up certain subjects. They may feel the doctor’s the authority figure. They may sense, “Oh, they’ve got a waiting room full of patients. I don’t want to bother them with this question. They’re out the door already.” And so even in well-intentioned practitioners, they may find that they’re just not saying anything. They may feel embarrassed to say, “I can’t afford what you’re recommending,” or they may… Like gas and bloating, they may feel uncomfortable talking about certain subjects with the doctor, but they’ll tell the coach because they feel very comfortable and they feel like they have enough time but also they feel like, “It’s like my peer, not this authority figure.”

Anu: Absolutely. A hundred percent true, Sandra, because there’s so many cultures where doctor’s God. Like my mom, she’s 92. And when she goes to the doctor, it’s like she just clams up. She’s just like this obedient girl, you know, who’s just wanting to be on her best behavior because she wants the doctor to like her. He is God-like for her, you know? And so I have to be there asking the questions and being that spokesperson for her.

Dr. Sandi: Yeah, they may not ask the very thing that they’re most worried about.

Anu: Exactly.

Dr. Sandi: Or feel like they’ll be ashamed, embarrassed by certain subjects.

Anu: Yeah. They don’t want to.

Dr. Sandi: So, this has been a fascinating conversation. And, Anu, where can people find you? Where can they find your book?

Anu: Yeah. Well, they can find me on 9 Arms Of Wellness. I have coaches who are trained in my methodology of coaching and they can find me there. And, yeah, doctors can find me, too. And my book is going to be where all books is sold, and it’s also available for pre-order on my website.

Dr. Sandi: Well, thank you for being with us today. Thank you for all the wonderful work you are doing to grow the field of health coaching.

Anu: Thank you.

Dr. Sandi: And helping so many people get healthier and thrive and have a healthy, well-functioning microbiome. A team.

Anu: A team, yeah. Thank you.

Dr. Sandi: All right. Bye now.

Anu: Thank you, Sandra. Bye.