Institute for Integrative Nutrition: Month 1 Recap

I’ve mentioned it a few times since I started, but in mid-January I became a student at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. The school is a yearlong course to become a certified health coach, and so far I’ve really enjoyed every single week. Not only am I a bit of a nerd in general who loves school and learning, but at IIN, I’m learning about topics related to a huge passion of mine (which you may have figured out by now!): healthy living. I thought it’d be fun to do a monthly recap post where I share some of my favorite concepts and ideas from the lessons, so this is recap #1!

First off, how the school operates: I love how classes are set up to fit into a busy schedule. The school has an app so that you can listen to the lectures on your iPhone or do work on your iPad on-the-go. Each week there are different video and audio lectures, discussion questions, workbook assignments, and quick quizzes, and I can complete them whenever I have time to.

Time management has always been a strong suit of mine. I think I really started to develop great time management skills in college when I was a full-time student who had an internship, waitressing job, and dog walking service all at once. Besides restaurant shifts and class times, everything else was flexible timing, and I learned to fit it all in well. These days, working full-time from home and freelance writing here and there, I mostly make my own schedule, so fitting in IIN has been pretty easy. I usually will do a bit of work one day during lunch, will devote an hour or two one weeknight to getting my learning on, and then spend one morning on the weekend completing the rest of the lesson. Some days I’ve felt like I’m crunching too much into the day, and when that happens, I give myself a break the next night to skip school and blogging and just relax. However, I like being busy and doing a lot, and so far so good!

Favorite Concepts: 

Bio Individuality – At the core of IIN is the idea of bio individuality, which recognizes that not one diet fits all. Every person is a unique individual with individualized nutritional requirements. Factors that shape our diet preferences include personal tastes and inclinations, ancestry, blood type, genetic background and metabolic rates. Though IIN stresses eating lots of fruits and vegetables in general, it doesn’t claim that one diet is “right” and teaches you about tons of different dietary theories that work well for different people.

Primary Food – Food is more than just what’s on your plate. The primary foods in your life – including your career, education, relationships, social life, spirituality, and physical activity – are what feed you the most. These things feed your soul and satisfy your hunger for life. I said it once before on here, but it’s worth noting again: You can eat all of the greens and nutritiously dense foods that you want, but if your primary foods are a mess, you are not going to be a happy, healthy person.

“Fitting Out” – This idea relates to maybe not feeling like you fit in with the norm of society, but accepting it and being your authentic self. I’m sure at some point or another we’ve all felt like we don’t fit in somewhere, and “fitting out” celebrates individuality and embracing personal growth. I think that “fitting out” is something I’ve been able to embrace in my adulthood rather than feeling like an outsider, and I don’t mind being different in some ways.

Positive Psychology – As someone who firmly believes in the power of attitude and positivity, I loved the IIN lecture on positive psychology. Basically it’s the science of focusing on positive traits and subjective experiences, centering yourself on the good things as pathways to happiness. One key idea that I took away from the lecture was the idea that our perspectives are broadened when we’re feeling good. Being in a positive mindset allows us to build our emotional, social and intellectual resources. Ever notice that bad days just seem to keep getting worse, or good days just keep getting more awesome? It’s because our mindsets and perspectives have a domino effect in our lives.

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Favorite Quotes: 

Being the quote junkie that I am, I’ve written several quotes down in my notes from lectures. Here are a few of them:

“Live in a graceful and grateful world.” Ever since I heard this, it has sort of become my life motto. What a beautiful thought, right?

“All living beings want to heal themselves by themselves.” This stresses the idea that us humans need to look more towards nutrition, rest, and the various factors in our lives, i.e. relationships and exercise, to heal us when we’re not well…and not just immediately be put on meds and look for quick fixes. Our bodies are intelligent and when they’re out of whack, they’re trying to tell us to change our behaviors.

“Clarity is key. The universe responds to clarity.” This came up in a lecture focusing on having single pointed focus in being an IIN student, but it can be related to anything in life. Figure out what your goals and intentions are, so that you can be clear about what you’re striving for and how to achieve it.

“Aim to eat food that is pure, simple, original and authentic.” This was said in a lecture about raw food and its effect on providing the body with nutrients, detoxification, immunity and cleansing. I ate a big bowl of fruit after listening to this lecture!

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IIN Ambassador Announcement: 

You may have noticed that I have a few IIN visuals on the sidebar of my blog, and that’s because I’m now an IIN ambassador! I didn’t want to discuss it until I’ve had some time as an IIN student, because I just feel like it wouldn’t be authentic of me to recommend you enroll at IIN without me actually experiencing it for at least awhile. Now that I’m into my second month of health coaching school, I can honestly say that it’s a great fit for me and I believe that health coaching is a movement that is going to dramatically improve the obesity epidemic. I am so excited to be a small part of that, and I can’t wait to positively impact people’s lives through my health coaching!

So in a nutshell, if you check out IIN through my sidebar visuals or the image right above and wind up enrolling, I get a kickback from it, which I would obviously appreciate. 🙂 If you have questions or want to know more about IIN, please do not hesitate to shoot me an email at nicole@foodielovesfitness.com. I’d be more than happy to chat!

Questions: Thoughts on any of these concepts or quotes? Have you ever considered health coaching?