We recently connected with Bailee Richman and have shared our conversation below.
Bailee, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about a time you helped a customer really get an amazing result through their work with you.
After years of working as a health coach for larger corporations, I decided to open my own practice in February 2025. To jump-start my business, I offered three months of free coaching to four clients. After hours of thoughtful phone interviews, I finalized my first group of clients—one of whom was Sherry, the client I’ll be sharing about today.
From the very first call, I wanted to truly understand Sherry—not just her health goals, but her daily reality. What she shared was heartbreaking: she was living paycheck to paycheck, moving between homes because of financial instability, and struggling to find any sense of consistency in her life. Health had naturally fallen to the bottom of her priority list. She hadn’t exercised in years, often struggled to eat three meals a day, and had very little belief in herself.
The moment I heard her story, I knew she needed support. I chose her as one of my clients because I saw both her challenges and her potential.
When we began working together, she dropped a huge bombshell—she actually is an alcoholic. Every night she drank to fall asleep, and admitted that the nightly buzz is what often gets her through the day. I was shocked, but I asked her one important question: “Are you here to really change?” Her answer was a firm, heartfelt “Yes.” That was all I needed to hear. From that moment, we moved forward together.
Our first step was simple: together, I guided her through recalling a typical day of eating, drinking, and activity. As she reflected and shared, I helped her connect the dots and see patterns she hadn’t noticed before. From there, we set small, short-term goals she could measure each week. Her very first goal was just one thing—track everything she consumed for a week, without judgment. This exercise wasn’t about restriction, but about awareness. It allowed her to see her habits clearly, and it gave me the information I needed to guide her effectively.
What happened next was transformative. By tracking her days, Sherry quickly realized she was drinking more than she thought and eating far less than she assumed. With that awareness, we started layering in small, realistic changes to her diet and routine—changes that fit her life and felt achievable. Each success built her confidence, and for the first time in a long time, she began to believe in herself.
Because of Sherry’s history with alcohol, she needed very individualized care—something I cannot emphasize enough. Every person I work with is unique, which means every plan must be tailored to their needs, lifestyle, and readiness for change. With Sherry, that personalized approach was essential.
As time went on, she began to regain control of both her health and her life. After the first month, she was feeling hunger cues again—eating three to four times a day—and even started walking outside for the first time in years. By the end of the second month, she had quit drinking altogether and introduced a simple resistance band routine into her daily life. And by the close of our three months together, Sherry was ready for her next big step: she joined a gym and, for the first time, invested in herself by signing up for my full coaching program for an additional 3 months. She saw the value in reclaiming her health—and more importantly, in herself.
Sherry is still actively working on improving her finances—which, of course, is outside my scope of practice (haha)—but the ripple effect is undeniable. By learning how to better herself and prioritize her health, she’s beginning to create stability in other areas of her life too. She discovered what going back to basics really means for her: fueling her body with food and water, moving consistently, and showing up for herself day after day.
The truth is, not one person can thrive without health as a foundation. When you make your well-being the priority, every other area of life naturally follows with more discipline, clarity, and success.
Sherry’s story reminds me why I do this work—it’s not just about workouts or nutrition plans, but about helping people believe in themselves again. Watching her transform from someone who felt hopeless to someone who now invests in her own health has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my career. And if Sherry can do it, so can anyone willing to take that first step.
Bailee, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I consider myself one of the lucky few who knew what they wanted to do from a young age.
I’ve been an athlete for as long as I can remember, but I quickly learned that exercising alone doesn’t always give you the body or health you desire. Growing up, I was made to feel bad about my weight by both friends and family, which left me feeling disheartened and discouraged. At the same time, the education I received around food and nutrition was often confusing or flat-out wrong.
One memory that still sticks with me is from a middle school Home-EC class. We were taught that to meet our daily dairy needs, we could simply swing by a drive-through and grab a milkshake. Even at 13, I knew something about that advice didn’t add up—and it sparked a curiosity in me to dig deeper and figure out what “eating right” really meant.
Those early experiences—feeling the sting of being judged for my weight and realizing how broken our nutrition education system can be—ignited my drive to take control of my own health. That’s when I first discovered the power and importance of nutrition.
As I got older, I decided to keep growing within the fitness field, earning my personal training certification at 18, while also pursuing a deeper understanding of food and health through my undergraduate degree in Nutrition and Food Science at the University of Maryland. Upon graduating, I officially began my career as a health coach—blending my background in fitness with my knowledge of nutrition to help others build healthier, more sustainable lifestyles.
After years of working in the field under larger corporations, I realized that many of the health programs advertised online simply aren’t built to set most people up for long-term success. They often claim to be “personalized,” but in reality, they lack the depth and adaptability people truly need. That realization shaped how I built Coconut Health and the approach I take with every client.
To me, a real personalized plan isn’t just about picking foods you like or workouts that match your current fitness level—it’s about creating something that flexes with real life. A plan that can handle the unpredictability of busy schedules, family responsibilities, career demands, and all the curveballs life throws our way. That’s what true individualized coaching looks like, and it’s the foundation of how I work with my clients.
In my program, I conduct guided weekly online meetings where I work with clients to set realistic short-term goals designed to build consistent, long-term change. Instead of handing over a rigid, pre-made plan, I collaborate with each client to identify what’s realistic for them in that moment. This allows them to progress at a pace that works for their lifestyle while also building habits that last.
During these sessions, we also tackle challenges as they come up, adjusting goals week by week so the plan always fits into real life—not the other way around. In addition, I incorporate educational topics through tailored PowerPoint presentations based on what each client wants to learn more about. This way, they’re not just following a plan, but actively building knowledge and confidence to manage their health independently.
That combination of weekly goal-setting, individualized education, and real-time adaptability is what makes my program unique—and what ensures that clients walk away with results they can sustain for a lifetime.
What I am most proud of is that after just three to six months of working together, many of my clients are confident enough to continue their health journey on their own. In my view, that’s how it should be. Too often in the health and fitness industry, the focus is on client retention—keeping people around longer to secure long-term revenue. But that’s not the philosophy I believe in.
With nearly half of the U.S. population struggling with obesity, there’s no shortage of people who need support. What matters most is creating real change in people’s lives and, by extension, in our society.
When you work with Coconut Health, my goal is not to keep you tied to a coach forever—it’s to empower you with the knowledge, tools, and confidence you need to thrive on your own. I want you to understand what “going back to basics” looks like for you—because no two people are the same. Individualization is at the core of my program, and that means your version of “the basics” may look completely different from someone else’s.
True success, to me, is when a client no longer needs me—because they’ve built an individualized foundation that works for their lifestyle and fully trust themselves to live a healthy, balanced life. That’s what Coconut Health is all about: building independence, not dependence.
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
Up until now, the best source of new clients for me has been word of mouth. When a client has a positive experience, their friends and family naturally start asking questions:
“You look amazing! How have you been losing weight?”
“You stopped drinking soda completely? You’ve been addicted to Mountain Dew for years!”
“You seem like you’re in control of your life again. How are you able to do it?”
After one person completes their health journey, I often have several others reach out, curious about what a personalized version of “going back to basics” would look like for them and how it could fit into their unique lifestyle.
Looking ahead, I’m planning a larger marketing push to reach people beyond my immediate network. This means sharing success stories on my social media, optimizing my Google profile so potential clients who look me up online know that I’m a credible coach to go to, and creating further outreach on a national scale.
My goal is to show that achieving your goals—both internal and external—is best done with professional guidance, ensuring realistic, sustainable habits are built along the way.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
Making the decision to open my own business was one of the biggest pivots of my life. It was sudden, but the moment I chose it, I knew deep down it was the right move for me.
For years, I had dreamed of running my own practice, but I always pictured it happening later in my 20s. At the time, I was working at a large corporate company, building my career in both coaching and customer service. I enjoyed it for a while, but over time, I realized something important: the program I was coaching under wasn’t a program I would choose for myself if I had the freedom to do it my way.
I became a health coach to truly help people reach their goals in a way they could sustain for life. But within the corporate framework, I felt limited—I wasn’t able to empower clients in the way I knew was possible. That realization lit a fire in me, and with that shift in perspective, I made a quick but powerful decision: I quit my job and started building my own business.
Since starting my practice in February 2025, I’ve been fully dedicated to growing it—and it’s been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. For the first time, I feel like I’m helping my clients not only lose weight or hit short-term goals, but also learn how to maintain their health for the long run.
When you choose to make a big pivot, you learn a lot about yourself. It teaches resilience, courage, and the importance of saying yes to opportunities that may feel new, scary, or uncertain. And in the end, those are often the choices that change your life the most.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://thecoconuthealth.com/
- Instagram: @thecoconuthealth
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecoconuthealth/
