What Is Functional Nutrition?
Functional Nutrition doesn’t treat the symptom — it looks at the root cause.
Functional Nutrition is about individualised nutrition plans, environmental and lifestyle changes required for the whole person, not just the symptom.
Functional Nutrition is an integrative approach that requires time and participation by the client. It is not a quick fix like a medication or a supplement; it is a long-lasting plan that allows health to reign.
For too long medicine has been about stopping the symptom, but Functional Nutrition is about observing and listening to the symptoms and finding what underlies the problem.
For instance, a gut issue can present with many different symptoms; like autoimmune disease (and there are 80+ now), food sensitivities, depression and or anxiety, bloating, indigestion, to name a few. If we only treat the symptom such as using a PPI or antacid for indigestion, an SSRI for depression, or methotrexate for an autoimmune disease, then all we have done is dull the signal that tells us something is wrong in the body.
It’s like putting a band-aid over a flashing red danger light on the dashboard of your car, believing that it will fix the problem, when in fact it is inevitable that your car will break down. By looking at the root cause, we then don’t dull the signal/red light but rather fix the issue that’s causing the signal or symptom. If you do not address or listen to your symptoms when they are whispers, they will start screaming at you, and sometimes it will be too late.
What Tools Are Available For Functional Health?
Observation is a powerful tool in Functional Nutrition, by taking a case history that leads back to birth and looking at traumas, environmental influence, medication use, supplement use, as well as looking at current lifestyle habits, a Functional Nutritionist will be able to ascertain the diet and lifestyle changes required. If the client is not in a health emergency, the functional nutritionist will spend time building trust with the client and suggesting nutrition and lifestyle changes.
Usually by making these changes, the symptoms begin to ease due to the root cause being handled by the changes. Most root causes result because we do not give the body the right ingredients. We are not modern-day bodies, we are bodies that have evolved over many thousands of years. Our body does not thrive living a modern life eating ultra-processed foods all hours of the day. Instead, our body needs the ingredients it has always had through-out the millenniums including movement, sleep, sunshine, connection, grounding, real food, breath, and nature. But most people live their lives and never step out of their home, or office or car, never get out into nature, don’t take their shoes off, fear the sun and eat ultra-processed food.
The role of a Functional Nutritionist is to first look at diet by taking a thorough diet diary. Most people say they eat well but are eating well based on dietary guidelines or outdated advice. Many people are ashamed of some areas of their eating and prefer to forget or omit the reality of their diet. When we start writing it down, we can see immediately the correlation between the individual’s lifestyle and diet and why their health is failing. It’s also important that the functional nutritionist knows how to source the food that they recommend to reduce friction for clients who are potentially changing their life and habits.
Once the food part of the changes is in full swing then we begin to look at environmental and lifestyle changes. These are key to make sure the bodies circadian, mitochondrial, lymphatic and circulatory systems are receiving the ingredients they need for optimum health.
If in two months after changing everything and there been no relief to the client then clinical nutrition steps in. This is when tests for food sensitivities and or allergies, DNA testing, vitamin and mineral deficiencies, blood markers may need to be completed. Modalities such as supplementation, homeopathy, herbs, chiropractic or medicine may need to come into play at this point in time. Great Functional Nutritionists know and trust other practitioners and are proud to support their clients in expanding their support circle and seeking help.
Functional Nutrition should be at the beginning of anyone’s health journey. Taking an integrative approach with other practitioners can ensure no need for lifetime medications (although there are always exceptions to the rule). Most people start with the lifetime medication and never get to the root cause, requiring another medication and yet another medication to battle continuing degradation of health or the impacts of the medications themselves. The average Australian pops 46,000 pills in their lifetime, without ever addressing food, nutrition and lifestyle changes. The average Australian may live longer but they are living sicker, up to 15 years before their death not feeling alive, healthy and agile. A Functional Nutrition consultant is to help the body live the healthiest it can and have longevity. This career is not complicated, but rather fulfilling to see the dramatic changes happen in the body when we give it the right ingredients.
How to Become an International Certified Functional Nutritionist/Consultant
The Nutrition Academy 400 hour course (12 month) will teach you how to help people in your community or your family to make the changes on an individualised level with an integrative approach. It gives you the philosophy and science which will guide the consultant – you – to an understanding of the simplicity of giving the body the ingredients it needs to heal. It builds the confidence in you to trust ‘common sense’.
A Nutrition Academy graduate for Functional Nutritional Consultant can go on for further study encompassing the microbiome, becoming Gut and Psychology Coach, as well as learn a clinical approach using DNA for the human cell and the microbiome. Graduates can also go on to do a certified homeopathy course to increase the tools they use to support the diet and lifestyle changes as well as become masters in herbs. The world is your oyster once the fundamentals are laid down. We can help with career outcomes.
What Does a Functional Nutrition Consultant Do?
A Functional Nutrition Consultant can do many things, here is a list to whet the appetite.
- Consult individuals
- Create a product based on functional nutrition
- Write about food, nutrition and lifestyle
- Speak at local functions and internationally
- Do Workshops to help groups change
- Hold Webinar for education and accountability
- Work for an integrative doctor helping their patients make changes to diet and lifestyle
- Work within the fitness industry
- Work within the Spa and Healthy Hotel Industry
- Work in a health retreat setting
- Become a Healthy Chef.
- Create Meal Plans
- Become an expert on food sourcing in the local area
- Work for corporations looking for healthy outcomes for their employees.
- Get on the local radio for weekly tips on diet and lifestyle
The career options are as broad as your imagination. I have personally done many of these things in my 46 years as a Functional Nutritionist. It has been the most incredible fulfilling career. It is my love and my passion. It is a highlight always when someone comes up to me to tell me that they heard me on a radio program, watched me speak, read my book, consulted with me, done one of my programs, taken one of my functional supplements or foods and how I had changed their life. My comeback to them is always:
“I didn’t change your life, you changed your life. You took what I told you and you put it into action”.
Action is more powerful than information. But we need the information first and the right information in order to act and make the changes that then propel our health and wellbeing to greater heights.
We need more Functional Nutritionist teaching the fundamentals to health so that we can create a tsunami of change to help ourselves and future generations.
Come learn with me www.thenutrition.academy
Cyndi O’Meara
Functional Nutritionist
