Precision Nutrition Certification

About twice a year, Dr. John Berardi, opens up the online certification course for Precision Nutrition. I signed up last fall. Enrollment is limited and often sells out within the first 24 hours. Registration for the upcoming class starts tomorrow. You can sign up here.* If you are a certified trainer or registered dietitian then the course is eligible for CEUs from a variety of organizations including ACE, ACSM, CPTN, NASM, NSCA, Fitness Australia, PTA Global, and REPs UK. The course includes the above 495 page text, the workbook, dozens of template documents for running your fitness and nutrition coaching business, and access to video summaries (10 to 30 minutes each) for each chapter in the text.

I am not a trainer or dietitian. By itself, in most states in the USA, the Precision Nutrition certification will not allow me to use it professionally in any way whatsoever. Why then, did I sign up and make a significant financial commitment for access to this course? The short answer is that I’m passionate about nutrition that improves athletic performance. My interest in this area started back in 2004 when I first embarked on a fitness transformation using the Body for Life program. I read the Precision Nutrition blog daily. I love the Doctor Detective posts which are essentially short case studies focusing on health issues of various people and how these are solved by a combination of dietary changes, exercise and sometimes traditional medical interventions. There is a lot of misinformation in books and on the internet regarding diet, nutrition and athletic performance. And most people become evangelists for their chosen system. I like Precision Nutrition because it’s fact based, and is continuously updated based on the latest scientific research.

As text books go, the book is well written, current, and easy to work through. I love the case studies. My favorite so far is about a professional female athlete who was 5 foot 6 inches, 165 pounds and 23% body fat – i.e. not pro-athlete material. And she was eating only about 2500 calories a day while training extensively. The Precision Nutrition team worked with her, bumped her daily calories to closer to 4000, changed the composition of the foods, changed her workouts – she lost 25 pounds, and dropped to 9% body fat. Intuitively this is hard – she got fatter and heavier on fewer calories….crazy but true. I love how it’s easy to customize the Precision Nutrition guidelines to each person, each unique physiology. Again, you can sign up here.

If you’re not ready to commit to the full certification program, Precision Nutrition also has free course materials. You can sign up for a free 5-day course based on Precision Nutrition here.

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