Holistic Nutrition
In April I received my Certified Holistic Nutritionist designation from the AFPA with approval by the American Naturopathic Medical Accreditation Board (ANMAB) and the Canadian Association for Integrative Nutrition and eligibility for board certification both in Canada and the US as a nutrition professional. I chose this program as it is one of the few that is plant-based.
So what does “holistic nutrition” actually mean? Holistic means the whole as opposed to the parts that make up the whole. Nutrition is the is act or process of a human being nourished (by food) or more broadly, the supply of materials that organisms and cells require to live. Holistic nutrition looks at the whole of the person not just what is being consumed. This is in order to live long in health, to prevent disease, to treat disease, and to thrive in challenging environments (like athletic endeavours). To live, to prevent, to treat, to thrive.
It is not enough to look at what you weigh and what you eat. Everything that makes you you must be taken into consideration in order to address what’s going on physically and emotionally, and then supported through a whole food, plant-based nutrition plan. Lifestyle is of as much importance as your daily food intake. If you are sleeping 4 hours per night, moving your body only to get from A to B, stressed out with work or personal relationships and/or chronically feeling sub-par, simply changing your diet will not be the fix. If you are an athlete having a hard time recovering between workouts, just looking at post-workout macronutrients isn’t the solution. Nutrition is a crucial component for most but as part of an overall – a holistic – approach to well-being.
It makes so much sense!
We in the developed world have a decades long tradition of reductionism where we break down a whole into its pieces and treat the symptoms of that piece wherever possible. For example, a woman develops breast cancer and the protocol will be to lumpectomy or mastectomy that breast, radiation and chemotherapy and then 5 years on a pharmaceutical protocol to try to keep the cancer in remission. What about the cause? What about the rest of the person? What will truly heal her whole body for the rest of her life?
When you work with a holistic nutritionist, he/she will ask you about your life. Then will develop a nutrition plan along with lifestyle tweaks if need be. A holistic approach is for life, not for a quick fix. It will present the right way to live and to live well.
If you are ready to journey into a nutrition change to support where you want to be, send me an email at communityvegan@gmail.com. A first meeting will take about 90 minutes and begin your journey to whole.
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