The elephant in the room. . .

It’s true. There’s an elephant in the room!

You were likely told in nutrition school that you already know everything you need to know about the principles of a healthy diet. And that’s true too.

But today I’d like to invite you to consider the next steps.
What beyond a healthy diet are the keys to a successful holistic health practice?
Come check out the upgraded Holistic Nutrition Lab website and watch the videos where I reveal the key factors of a successful nutrition practice.

And allow me to tell you a story, a story about the elephant in the room. . .

I made some amazing friends in nutrition school. And I bet you did too.

One of my schools had an online forum where I spent each night exploring the latest topics of nutrition conversation and contemplation. That’s how I met Jenny ~ on the online nutrition school forum.

Jenny and I became fast friends, talking about vitamin B12 absorption, the potential oxidation of cooked chia seeds and what kind of natural approaches we might take to remedy the gray hairs starting to sprout from the top of our heads. Seaweed? Holistic dye? The discussions went on and on.

Jenny was one of those brilliant explorers amongst us.

She’d learned everything and anything she could about nutrition on her own and was eager to transform her passion into a private practice.

She was poised to transpose her standing as the go-to person for dietary advise into the role of a nutrition professional.

Though we lived across the country from each other, Jenny and I traveled to each others’ houses, met each others’ families and spoke on the phone almost every day. We started our businesses at the same time. We discussed names, compared website ideas and business card designs.

And when our nutrition school told us the time was right, that we already knew everything we needed to know, we went hunting for our first clients.

Things moved quite swiftly for me.

Although I’d never had a private client at that point, I’d gone through quite a lot of schooling and had co-taught an Eat to Beat Cancer class with a local naturopathic physician for several years. I felt pretty confident in my ability to provide nutrition counsel.

With the help of word-of-mouth referrals, I was quickly able to build my practice more steadily than I thought possible.

The best part was that I was seeing results.
My clients were making changes and feeling better. They were thriving!

It wasn’t such smooth sailing for Jenny.

She hadn’t put herself out into her community as much as I had, so the clients were harder to come by. And when they did come, she was shaky on how to proceed.

I remember she had one client who was chronically constipated. Jenny tried everything she knew. She cleaned up her diet ~ removing the diet soda and the Snackwell cookies. She added flax seed meal, increased her client’s water intake and encouraged her to make fiberous green smoothies. But still no poop.

Jenny was devastated.

By the end of nutrition school Jenny was disheartened and discouraged.

She took down her website.

She shredded her business cards.

She never did pursue a career in nutrition though she is still devoted to food and healing and can speak eloquently on the subject.

This brings me to the elephant in the room.

The elephant in the room of nutrition school is, well. . . nutrition!

Nutrition is the art and science where food meets the body.

I learned something unique with each of my different educational experiences. . .

I learned the science behind the fatty acid molecule.

I learned the anatomy of the inner ear.

I learned about the array of dietary theories ~ from raw to cooked, from sprouted to krauted.

And I learned about supplements and nutrients.

I wouldn’t do a thing differently.

But what almost every single opportunity lacked was the connection between the food and the person, the individual person, and their unique physiology.

Diet is not generic.

One size does not fit all.

In fact, I was listening to a lecture last night by a doctor discussing the gut/brain axis. He proclaimed in jest that his favorite saying these days is: It’s the environment, stupid! What he means by that, of course, is the internal environment, the physiological environment into which the food is being fed.

That internal environment is what nutrition is all about.

And it’s what we explore in Holistic Nutrition Lab ~ the place where the food and the body actually meet ~ the elephant in the room. . . nutrition.
Come check out the Holistic Nutrition Lab website and watch the videos where I discuss the key principles behind functional nutrition.



And please join me for a free 90 minute seminar:

Functional Nutrition 101

February 21st, 2014 9am PT / 12pm ET

How to use the guiding principles of Functional Medicine to captivate and enroll health coaching clients – while giving you the top tools to help them.

Do you sometimes feel like a fraud in the field of nutrition, masquerading as a health coach without the tools to truly help people combat their health issues?

Skip the years and the tens of thousands of dollars of training and learn directly from one of the experts in the field of functional nutrition.
In this free seminar, you’ll discover:

• How to feel like you know enough in that very first client session.

• What to ask that will help to inform the next-steps in your bio-individualized nutritional plan.

• What you need to know in order to take your nutrition training (and business)

to the next level.

This is brand new content and I’m committed to helping you take your coaching practice to the next level, so that you can gain more unconventional knowledge and abilities to activate real healing for others.
Sign up for this FREE seminar now at www.holisticnutritionlab.com

Together, let’s shine some light on the elephant in the room.

Warmly,

Got Questions? Don’t hesitate to contact us at support@fxnutrition.com.

By: Andrea Nakayama, FxNA Founder & Functional Medicine Nutritionist

Functional Nutrition Alliance provides the comprehensive online Functional Nutrition training in the Science & Art of the Functional Nutrition practice. Learn to address the roots of your clients’ suffering with client education, diet & lifestyle modifications.