Why I Coach Nutrition ?

My Story

I’ll never forget the six-hour bus ride home from Buffalo to New Paltz, NY after my championship swim meet senior year of college. I had failed to make the National cut-time for my event, and I realized this was truly the end of my competitive swimming career. Since my freshman year, I had been swimming close to six hours a day; I had prioritized swimming ahead of friendships, relationships, and at times, even my coursework.  The hardest part was that I knew I was physically fast enough. I had hit the cut-time just three weeks prior to my final meet in practice. Yet, I was unable to perform at my peak potential when it counted the most. Deep down, I knew I had done everything in my power to accomplish my goal, at least in regard to my physical training.

Eventually, I was able to see the situation with clarity. As I gained perspective, I began searching for an x-factor.  I realized then what I was looking for wasn’t some elusive training method. It was something so simple, something so often overlooked and neglected in college: proper nutrition. I had no concept of caloric intake, portion control, nutrient density, or even macronutrients. I would always wonder why some days I felt like a fish in the water, gliding through a practice with ease, while other days I might as well have been swimming through mud. In retrospect, I believe a lot of this came down to my diet.  Looking back throughout my high school and college career, it amazes me that as athletes we were never “coached” by a nutritionist or dietician. As I would come to find out, that was one of the many differences between a Division III and Division I athletic program. During Christmas break in my freshman year, I was catching up with a high school teammate who had gone to a Division I program. He told me how he had an athlete-only dining hall and an individualized nutrition plan he was supposed to follow.  It was based on his age, height, and weight and even broke down his daily macronutrient intake.  Meanwhile, even the most basic nutrition guidelines were absent during my college career.

Nutrition ironically began to take a more prominent role in my life as I substituted the pool for a weight room. As I stumbled through articles on bodybuilding.com and men’s fitness magazines, I was inundated with advertisements for different supplements, nutrition advice, and diet plans. This information often referred to as “bro-science” is plentiful, yet my scientific background was getting the better of me. The more I read, the more I found conflicting information; not to mention there were rarely any scientific studies substantiating the claims. The majority of the information available was anecdotal at best, and I was at a loss for what to believe. Did I really need one gram of protein per pound of body weight to put on muscle? Should I eat as fast as possible after a training session at the gym in order to see the best results? Was it better to eat before or after a morning cardio session? These were the types of questions I wanted to answer. 

During this time, I moved down to Charlotte, North Carolina, and began working as an analytical chemist while pursuing a nutrition certification. I wanted to find a way to combine my chemistry background, love of coaching, and passion for nutrition and fitness. It turned out that becoming a Certified Nutrition Coach and Personal Trainer was the exact way to do that.