Who Is an Integrative Health Advisor (IHA)?
When you work with Dr. Bojana Jankovic Weatherly, you also have access to an Integrative Health Advisor (IHA)—a board-certified nutritionist and certified health coach who collaborates closely with you and your medical provider. The IHA’s role is to help you turn medical guidance into practical, personalized habits—removing barriers, building clarity, and supporting your path toward sustainable, meaningful change.
An Integrative Health Advisor is more than a health coach. They are a skilled wellness strategist who integrates behavior change science with clinical nutrition insight. Their mission: to help you align your health goals with your daily life—your values, relationships, career, routines, and broader life vision—so change becomes not just possible, but lasting.
What Does an Integrative Health Advisor Do?
“As an IHA, I assess each individual’s overall well-being and help guide the conversation toward their core health concerns and personal goals. Together, we implement small, strategic changes that build momentum and lead to lasting results. I serve as both a motivator and accountability partner, helping you stay focused and follow through on behavior change.” says Melissa Reade, CNS, CDN, NB-HWC and BOJANA MD practice’s IHA.
Your IHA bridges the gap between your provider’s recommendations and real-life implementation—helping you build awareness, troubleshoot challenges, and transform insight into action.
Why Work with a Nutritionist?
For those managing chronic conditions—personalized nutrition is foundational. An IHA brings clinical nutrition expertise to address concerns like blood sugar imbalance, hormone shifts, gut dysfunction, cardiovascular risk, or autoimmune issues.
Whether you’re managing symptoms, supporting energy, or optimizing hormone balance, the IHA helps you bridge medical insight with sustainable behavior change.
“Our role is to help you connect the science of nutrition with the art of habit-building, so wellness becomes a lived experience, not just an ideal.” — Melissa.
Working with an IHA offers:
- Personalized nutrition and lifestyle guidance aligned with your treatment plan
- Practical support for meals, food sensitivities, and daily choices
- Strategies for navigating life transitions, travel, and busy seasons
- Accountability, mindset support, and access to trusted wellness resources.
How Can IHA Services Help Me?
“I support each patient by helping them identify, refine, and sustain the core habits that truly move the needle—so they can thrive not just in their health, but in every aspect of life.” — Melissa
In a world of overwhelming wellness trends and conflicting advice, your IHA cuts through the noise to provide personalized, evidenced-based support. Whether your goal is to manage a condition or simply optimize your health, your IHA offers compassionate, customized guidance.
Examples of common areas where the IHA provides support:
- Digestive health: From SIBO to IBS, your IHA helps you implement food plans, track symptoms, and build confidence with tailored strategies.
- Sleep: Your IHA helps assess sleep hygiene, manage blue light and stimulation, and identify hidden lifestyle patterns impacting rest.
- Stress resilience: With techniques like breathwork, movement, nervous system regulation, and productivity tools, your IHA helps you manage stress from the inside out.
- Sustainable routines: Your IHA supports goal setting, time-blocking, and habit formation to make consistent progress even amid life’s chaos.
What to Expect from Your Integrative Health Advisor
Before your visit, your IHA reviews your chart and collaborates with your physician to ensure personalized, aligned care. Your first session is a co-creative conversation to define your top priorities and set a manageable pace. Your IHa offers practical strategies tailored to your goals, which may include:
- Therapeutic meal planning, elimination diets, and gut-healing support
- Daily routines for sleep, movement, and mindset
- Tools for detoxification, stress resilience, and lifestyle alignment
- Guidance for managing blood sugar, inflammation, and energy
Each session is customized to meet your evolving needs— turning insight into sustainable action.
Some patients benefit from weekly sessions, while others prefer monthly check-ins with in-between support. Together, we’ll establish the rhythm that best supports your progress.
“Our goal isn’t just short-term results,” Melissa says. “It’s to help you build lifelong skills—learning to trust your body, recognize what truly supports your well-being, and feel confident making choices that align with your health and values.” — Melissa
Is There Evidence for Health Coaching?
According to a review of studies published in Patient Education and Counseling, patients who engage in health coaching are able to better manage their weight, they are more active and enjoy better mental health. This translates to superior management of chronic disease in people who work with a health coach.
A review of studies from the American Journal of Health Promotion found a positive correlation between health coaching and at least one health behavior, including nutrition, physical activity and weight management. Common features of effective programs were goal setting, motivational interviewing and collaboration with healthcare providers, all of which we implement in our practice.
Evidence points to the fact that the most important factors in developing chronic disease are environmental, rather than genetic. In fact, it is estimated that among US adults, > 90% of type 2 diabetes, 80% of coronary artery disease, 70% of stroke and 70% of colon cancer cases are potentially preventable by healthy lifestyle and nutrition habits.
Together, we can change your microenvironment and habits, which reduce the risk of chronic disease, and can reverse chronic disease. If you want to have control over your habits and environment, we are here to help you. We look forward to empowering you to be the creator of your own health story.
If you’re ready to take meaningful steps toward better health, I’d be honored to support you. I’m Melissa Reade, your Integrative Health Advisor, board-certified nutrition specialist, and certified health coach. With advanced training in clinical nutrition and behavior change, I bring both the science and the strategy to help you implement your provider’s recommendations and make sustainable progress toward your goals. Together, we’ll create a plan that resonates with your lifestyle, values, and health priorities—so you feel empowered, informed, and supported every step of the way. You can learn more about me on our team page.here.
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To book a visit, please call 646.627.8000 or email our practice manager, Bridget Shaffo, at bridget@drbojana.com. I would love to be your Integrative Health Advisor.