Watch the webinars from the schools I recommend to see which school would be right for you. Or read on below to find out more about each school before watching the webinars.
Considering enrolling in any of the above health coach training programs?
Click the button below and enter your name and email and I will offer you a special incentive from each school.
This post is for aspiring nutritionists and health coaches as well as health practitioners who want to take their clinical efficacy to the next level with nutrition training programs.
I have lost count of the number of clients who have come to me after seeing over a dozen doctors and spending thousands of dollars to diagnose and treat a condition or array of symptoms they have been suffering with for quite some time.
During this wild goose chase, their quality of life, relationships, and career suffer. They are consumed with feelings of hopelessness, trying to adjust to a new “normal” level of ill health as most doctors tell them they are fine.
It breaks my heart every time I hear this because this kind of confusion and suffering is unnecessary.
People just need to find a practitioner who has enough knowledge and heart to light their way during a dark and confusing period – someone with the skills to think outside the box and dig deep enough to be able to explain how they got where they are and to draw the map to where they really want to be.
Many of the ideas and beliefs we hold about health in modern society are broken. We embrace a “band-aid” approach to health by administering medication to mitigate a symptom, which only creates more symptoms and further compromises the body's inherent healing ability (and likely creates the “need” for another medication).
There are conflicts of interest between drug companies, doctors, researchers, and medical journals everywhere. These conflicts of interest prevent us from seeing the body as one whole systemic unit and therefore prevent us from taking back our health.
Throughout my decade of private practice and five years working with large groups online, we’ve had over 800 clients and subscribers who have made dramatic career transitions to become nutritionists and health coaches after having been in completely different fields.
Once they changed their lives, they “caught the bug” of how amazing achieving better health on all levels can be, and they wanted to pay it forward and help others.
I love that and would imagine that might be why or how you’ve landed here on this blog.
Every week, our team receives nearly a dozen inquiries about health coach and nutrition training programs from people who want to study to do this work.
So that you can choose the best path for yourself, read about the health coach and nutrition certification program overviews below and watch the recorded webinars I conducted for you with the founders of my three favorite nutrition programs. This way you can experience each person/school’s teaching style and philosophy, while gaining an in-depth understanding of their curriculum. This will also help you know what you will be able to do career-wise with your certification.
If we are going to shift our society away from all the health myths out there, then we need more health coaches who believe in healing by addressing the root cause (mind, body, and spirit) instead of individual symptoms. We need more practitioners with an integrative approach that incorporates profound respect for the intelligence and power of the human body to heal and balance itself when given what it needs.
We also need more health coaches and practitioners who are willing to listen intently, hearing the subconscious issues and the “story” of their clients, and thus discovering the emotional roots of physical health concerns that, when ignored, can become the elephant in the room.
We deserve more.
We deserve to be healthier, happier, and more connected. We deserve to take back our health, starting now.
If you have passion, heart, and a solid work ethic, don't worry about how you will earn a living doing this work. Trust that by following your inner guidance, you will.
I did, way back in 2003. If you are unfamiliar with me and my work, you can read about my organic path here. It is one from a sparked passion that led to schooling, then to private practice, developing three TV shows, writing bestselling books, and developing six cutting-edge online programs – all which have enabled me to use my life force to help millions get healthier.
I did not know how I was going to make a go of this new career, I only knew that I wanted to help people and that’s all you need to know right now.
The world needs you to be fully YOU and to give what you’re here to give.
When I was still in private practice, I preferred the nutritionists I hired to have both clinical and holistic training before hiring them.
Therefore, I always recommended they attend both The Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN) and The Functional Diagnostic Nutrition (FDN) program.
Had I known about back then, I would also have put my nutritionists through this program after they had one year of practice under their belt.
(Note: All programs are online/distance learning.)
One attends IIN to become a certified holistic health coach. In the IIN program, you will learn a myriad of dietary theories that will help you customize dietary protocols for clients based upon bio-individuality, their personality, and their emotional capacity for change. These protocols will help your clients heal and maintain their newfound level of health. There is no other school out there that teaches so much about food and how to pull pearls of wisdom from many different dietary theories to create a completely customized “food as medicine” protocol for your clients.
While IIN is now offering advanced courses (I teach their advanced fertility and prenatal course) after their primary certification, the primary certification is not highly clinical, and you will not learn to run lab work or dive more deeply into severe health conditions with this certification alone.
If you want to do what I did in private practice (including food and self care counseling along with running lab work and working with top-notch supplement formulas), I highly suggest both IIN and FDN together as an incredible pairing of the holistic and clinical components so that you can concurrently run lab work and have supplement accounts.
The second major bonus about IIN is that it will teach you how to counsel with food and beyond and to meet the client on their level because it is never just about the food. You cannot get a client to adopt a new model of behavior that changes their health unless you address the whole person and understand how to motivate them toward action.
And finally, IIN will give you the tools to set up a health coaching business of your own, which takes the stress and anxiety out of starting your own business. IIN has a renowned faculty, and their program now counts for up to 30 college units.
I attended IIN in person in NYC back in 2005/2006 and am a huge proponent of this school. I would not have achieved the level of success I have without this program and all that I learned from it. Please don't underestimate the value of the counseling component. IIN embraces the idea of healthy relationships, career and creative satisfaction, spiritual connectedness, and movement you enjoy as “primary food.”
They like to refer to the food we actually eat as “secondary food.” Both “foods” are always changing and shifting according to the needs of the individual, and this program trains you how to consistently adapt so that you can create highly-customized protocols for each client, thus setting them up to receive the highest level of support and success while under your wing.
Since I am part of IIN’s Ambassador program, if you choose to attend this school, I can offer you a special savings opportunity.
I’ve recommended IIN’s distance program to hundreds and hundreds of people who have now graduated, and all loved the program.
Click here to learn more about IIN or to sample their classes for free (one of the best ways to know if you like the program)! More on how to find the sample class below.
To sample a free nutrition class, please click here and navigate to the Health Coach Training Program page and scroll down to where it says (or do a CTRL+F search for) "Try a sample class".
The FDN Certification Course is another online course that gets incredibly clinical about finding the root cause of health issues using top-quality lab work. Click here to get $500 off enrollment for being part of my community.
They train you to become a “health detective,” focusing intently on the many facets of digestive health. This includes identifying leaky gut or dysbiosis and pathogens (bad bacteria/parasites/yeast/mold), while also training you to identify liver and kidney issues, and all manner of hormonal imbalances including sex and stress hormones.
FDN can help you understand how to use and customize intelligent supplement protocols, while teaching you which labs to use/run to help clients heal from the root cause. There is significant support on how to interpret lab results and client cases, assisting you to create the correct protocols to build health from the ground up.
FDN provides you with a step-by-step method to engage your clients and patients in the healing process so that the clients get the results they want. By gaining a complete understanding, you will be able to treat the client's root cause versus just treating from testing results.
This is an excellent program for the science-minded individual who wants to end the cycle of trial and error and get to the root cause of health issues. It is also for those who want to get lab and supplement accounts for your practice along with the training on how to use them intelligently.
Click here to learn more about the full FDN program.
If you are interested in starting for free, click here.
For details on the full FDN Certification program, click here.
I'm also thrilled to tell you about a 5-day workshop series from FDN that shows you how to use functional labs to improve your health!
You may wonder why not every health professional recommends functional labs. It's because not everyone understands how to interpret the results. It can be overwhelming to navigate which markers to look for, which ratios are most important, and even which tests to recommend to clients. But with this workshop series, you'll gain the skills and knowledge needed to understand it all easily.
And the best part? It's offered at a very low price you won't want to miss.
Functional lab testing is a critical tool for our health journeys, and I'm delighted to be able to offer this opportunity to you. Don't miss your chance to learn from the best!
In this exclusive 5-day workshop, you’ll join FDN experts as they analyze 5 essential functional labs:
These are the same functional labs they teach inside the full FDN certification course.
Here’s what you’ll get access to…
… all for just $97.
I cannot encourage you highly enough to take the plunge and make a career out of this noble and rewarding work. By becoming a health coach, you will become part of the change of going from “sick care” to “health care” and from disease to vitality. This is an amazing legacy to leave.
Because I want to support you in your journey, if you are considering enrolling in any of the above health coach training programs, enter your name and email below and I will offer you a special incentive from each school.
There are many excellent health coach training programs available today. This blog originally launched with eight programs (as you will see in the comments below).
I took it down to the ones recommended here because I have a close personal relationship with each of these schools and their founders and a deep understanding of what they offer. I am in complete alignment with their food, nutrition, and practice philosophies and trust the integrity and value of their curriculum.
Many of our former clients and those in our TWJ community have gone through these health coach and nutrition training programs with tremendous success.
Considering enrolling in any of the above health coach training programs?
Click the button below and enter your name and email and I will offer you a special incentive from each school.
