Health Coaching on Bridging the Gap Between Medicine – Interview with Cecilia Dinorah Lapolli
- Apr 4, 2025
- 4 min read
Cecilia is the COO of Terra Health Coaching, dedicated to ensuring smooth operations for long-term patient success. Passionate about lifestyle medicine, she focuses on chronic disease prevention and reversal. Raised in Napa Valley, CA, she now lives in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, where she earned an MBA in Business Administration & Project Management. Cecilia offers coaching in English, Spanish, and Portuguese and holds certifications from Wellcoaches and the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. She studied Health Science Education and Whole Food Plant-Based Nutrition.
Cecilia Dinorah Lapolli, Terra Health Coaching
How was Terra Health Coaching started?
Terra was founded by a healthcare investor who saw firsthand how disconnected the healthcare system was—especially between payments and actual patient care. More importantly, he realized that very little was focused on preventing or reversing chronic conditions.
Initially, Terra’s business model aimed to support small businesses, but when we launched our first pilot, COVID hit, and everything shut down. During that time, he and I connected while I was finishing graduate business school in Palma, Spain, and he was looking for health coaches. As physicians became overwhelmed managing COVID-related care, we pivoted to supporting doctors whose patients needed help managing chronic conditions.
Terra’s coaches stepped in, and from there, we scaled rapidly. I took on increasing leadership roles, and today, we are business partners overseeing a team of incredible coaches. We now support provider partners worldwide, as well as businesses of all sizes, helping to bridge the gap between healthcare and real, sustainable health.
What is your role at Terra?
I serve as both the Chief Operating Officer and a professional health coach. My role involves overseeing operations, ensuring our coaching programs run effectively, and working closely with our provider partners and employer clients to integrate health coaching into their care models. I also focus on expanding our services, supporting our team of coaches, and continuously refining our approach to deliver the best possible care.
Does Terra work with individuals, or just doctors and employers?
While we primarily work with healthcare providers and employers, we do offer support to individuals as well. Many people come to us through their physician or workplace wellness programs, but we also provide direct coaching services to those looking for structured, expert-guided health support.
What is Lifestyle Medicine, and why is it central to Terra’s strategy?
Lifestyle Medicine is an evidence-based approach to preventing, managing, and even reversing chronic disease through sustainable lifestyle changes—nutrition, movement, stress management, sleep, and social connection.
This philosophy is the foundation of Terra’s coaching model because it addresses the root causes of chronic conditions rather than just managing symptoms. Terra means, from the earth, just like a tree needs those roots to blossom, our health comes from the roots. Instead of quick
fixes, we focus on long-term behavioral change, empowering individuals to take control of their health in a way that is both effective and sustainable.
What does Terra think about the new weight-loss medications that are so popular?
GLP-1 medications, like Ozempic and Wegovy or Mounjaro and Zepbound, are game changers for many people struggling with obesity and metabolic conditions. However, medication alone isn’t a standalone solution. Sustainable weight loss and overall health requires lifestyle changes, and that’s where health coaching is critical. Where the medication helps here is that it enables people, who have always struggled with hurdles, to actually work on lifestyle changes. It frees their minds to look at healthier foods, it relieves pressure on their knees or back so we can go on that walk – it gives some people a period of freedom so we can build a foundation of healthy new habits.
At Terra, we support individuals who are using these medications by helping them build these lasting habits—focusing on nutrition, movement, and mindset—so they don’t just lose weight but also improve their overall well-being. Our role is to ensure that when the medication stops, their progress doesn’t.
What is one thing Terra can do better?
Data. We’re constantly improving how we track outcomes and measure the impact of our coaching programs. The more insights we have, the better we can refine our approach and demonstrate the value of health coaching in improving long-term health. We are really good at the soft data... for instance, we just had a patient successfully complete our GLP-1 Combo Therapy program and she lost +50lbs, she is off blood pressure and depression meds etc… so we have the hard data everyone needs to see. But we tend to focus on the more important things like her gaining the confidence to take new work headshots, to include herself on the Christmas card for the first time since having kids, that she is excited now to get dressed up and go out with her husband those are the wins we celebrate, but we need to continue to prioritize the hard data as well to show ROI to our larger partners.
What excites you most about Terra’s future?
Our next patient.
The healthcare industry is flooded with solutions—digital health platforms, AI-driven programs, and innovative tech that promises to do everything but tie our shoes. But at the end of the day, we focus on the real people behind the data. Every new patient is an opportunity to change a life, and that’s what keeps us moving forward. When we focus on our next patient, then the numbers work themselves out because when you focus on things bigger than your next patient – which most digital health companies do, then you lose sight of the purpose of what we have built.
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