If you’re already practicing clean eating, or following a Paleo, vegetarian, or whole foods diet, you already know your food choices have a big impact on your health. But not everybody does.
About 76 percent of adults don’t eat enough fruit, and about 87 percent don’t get the recommended amount of vegetables, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And it’s no secret that poor nutrition often leads to chronic conditions like heart disease, obesity, and diabetes.
Want to learn more about holistic nutrition? Have you thought about starting a coaching business to help people learn to eat healthier? Are you interested in working in a health or fitness setting to teach people how to develop healthy habits, lose weight, build muscle, make better food choices, and improve their health? Earning a nutrition certification may help you achieve your goal. Here are five steps to determine if a Holistic Nutrition Certification is right for you.
1. Assess Your Knowledge
Start by taking inventory of what you already know. Do you already have a certification or degree in a field related to health and fitness? Have you had a unique experience related to food and nutrition that transformed your own life? Do people already ask you for advice about dieting, weight loss, and holistic health practices? If you’ve made it this far, chances are pretty good that you can answer “yes” to one or more of these questions.
2. Explore Your Options
If you’ve been thinking about become a health coach, take a look at your options. There’s more than one nutrition certification program out there that can help you develop your knowledge and skills, identify your niche, and find a target market. Do you want to help people develop better eating habits to lose weight, improve performance, or prevent disease? If natural foods are what you usually read about, talk about, and is the basis for your own eating habits, a Holistic Nutrition Certification will help you take the next step to help more people.
3. Evaluate Others Doing Similar Work
Ever wonder how already-successful health and nutrition coaches got started? Take action and find out. Identify a group of successful nutrition coaches doing the kind of work you’re interested in, and find out how they got started. Some may have college degrees or professional licenses. You’ll also find that many successful health coaches got started by completing a certification program. Reach out to expert coaches you admire, and ask for their advice or some direction. It’s one more way to find out if earning a Holistic Nutrition Certification matches up with your goals and interests.
4. Identify Your Primary Goal
Some people start out exploring the idea of earning a nutrition certification just to increase their own knowledge about food choices, healthy eating habits, and how food impacts overall health. Do you have a general interest in learning more about health and nutrition, or are you specifically interested in mastering the concepts and principles of holistic nutrition? Or maybe you want to combine your passion for fitness and add value to the people you serve by mastering the key principles of holistic nutrition. What’s your primary goal? That’s something to think about. If your primary goal is both learning all you can about natural foods and using your knowledge to help people, a Holistic Nutrition Certification may be right for you.
5. Think About Your Passion and the People You Want to Help
Another way to help you determine if a Holistic Nutrition Certification is the right fit is thinking about your passion and the people you want to help. Are you more interested in teaching people how to lift weights, workout, and develop healthy exercise habits? Do you want to specialize in helping people lose weight? Do you want to combine personal training skills with nutrition coaching? If you have a passion for healthy eating and want to help people, a Holistic Nutrition Certification will put you on the right path.
Want to master the knowledge and skills to help people improve their health, make smart food choices, and understand the benefits of clean eating? Learn more about our Holistic Nutrition Certification.