Where cooking and coaching collide
So…… PN, or Precision Nutrition if you didn’t know, is an information and coaching business originating in Toronto Canada.
When I started getting interested in nutrition (around 10 years ago), I began the predictable journey of extensive internet cruising to unearth resources and viable courses to support my education. After a few bad judgements, I eventually ended up at PN which ultimately became my first point of reference whenever I wanted to explore a certain area of nutrition.
In a world of ego driven dogma and biased commercial interest, PN was refreshing in its’ objective and agnostic presentation of the available information, very much styled by one of it’s founders Dr John Berardi.
You could explore the references of studies and resources, used to generate the scientific stance of the article in question.
The reluctance of PN to affiliate with any definitive ‘body’ of opinion and to often answer with “well…… that depends……” followed by an objective explanation of interpretable information; appealed to the cynical, investigative researcher in me.
I completed their first nutrition certification in 2012 and then followed up with the excellent V4 of their ‘Level 1 Nutrition Certification’ , completing it in 2020.
Unfortunately despite my enthusiasm I had found out that hardly anyone wants to have a chef talk to them about nutrition or nutrition coaching.
That is the domain of the Nutritionists, Dieticians or maybe even the Personal Trainer.
This was a frustrating blow to my ego and yet it is only recently that I understand how necessary this response was, even if only to me.
As a chef I have spent a large portion of my working life, interacting with food. My education in the subject is a ‘forever’ journey, yet I consider myself certainly pretty competent.
Also, for the past 10 years I have had the slowly blossoming influence of nutritional education creeping into my food, both professionally and at home. However it’s only been recently that I’ve realised that I have maintained a thin, yet undeniable chasm between my cooking and the science I have so diligently studied.
I have always thought my nutrition was top notch….. with my arsenal of skills to apply and my studious nature why wouldn’t it be…….?
But I’ve made the classic mistake of being an ‘armchair expert’.
When it comes to my own nutrition I’ve never truly monitored anything or even really achieved anything from it. Prior to becoming unemployed just as the Covid lockdown hit, I had been a pretty consistent member of a Crossfit gym for around 5 years. I was OK at it but I hardly had a physique that implied it. I also got frustrated with the progress I made in my strength gains. I was wise enough to understand the slow and steady rate that sustainable strength is acquired but I still felt like my progress was stunted somehow.
I did look at my diet but never really close enough. I thought I was so tuned into the food that I knew it inside out. I’m sure this is all pretty classic behaviour and ironically a behaviour I’ve been taught to expect and manage.
Over this past year I have been largely unemployed and as a cautionary budgetary measure I am currently not a gym member.
It is here that my lack of objective awareness to my own eating patterns, has been my undoing.
As my activity levels have dropped, my access to food has increased and my blaze confidence in my own diet has resulted in what can only be described as backfat and a belly shaped like a beer keg.
(I thought it was a strong man belly!).
This is sobering.
I had picked up a Performance Chef contract towards the end of 2020 which was intended to run until May, but due to factors beyond my control this was abruptly terminated mid January.
This was tough but has given me the opportunity to reflect on my true ‘expertise’ as a Performance Chef or Food Coach and create some constructive projects for myself.
At the forefront of this I have become my own client and intend on experiencing the entire process of body change and performance nutrition via the systems I have learned from Precision Nutrition, complemented with my chef skills to implement the food.
I’ve realised that it’s time I truly began to amalgamate and align my knowledge, by walking the walk and approaching food as I would advise if I were a client myself..
My only questions is…….
Can carrot cake count as a vegetable portion?
