The Importance Of Nutrition

I recently completed the well-known Precision Nutrition course, and am now able to call myself a certified nutrition coach. I know what you are thinking: why would a physical therapist need to become a nutrition coach? The answer is simple. Our bodies are only as good as the fuel we put into them. That means, optimal nutrition supports rehab.

During my years as a PT I have always strived to give my patients the best rehab experience possible. When I founded Feldman Physical Therapy and Performance I decided that every patient would receive a head-to-toe evaluation up front and a discharge screening afterwards to ensure that we truly solved the person’s problem and didn’t just hide his or her pain. Well what a patient eats, how he eats, when he eats and how often he does it are a part of that all-important equation, too.

Unfortunately, in the current age of marketing, the world of nutrition and diet is flooded with poor, misleading and often downright, wrong information. I’ve often found myself wondering where some this information came from. I knew that some of it was wrong, but wasn’t 100 percent sure of what was right.

In my quest to guide my patients to the best nutritional information available, I talked with many knowledgeable people and the course that was repeatedly recommended as a source of valid, reliable, evidence-based information was Precision Nutrition, which is why I chose it for my certification as a nutrition coach. As a lifelong athlete, I thought I had a good knowledge of nutrition, but through the course I discovered that my knowledge barely scratched the surface.

No matter what you have going on in your life, or what your goals are, nutrition is an important component, but when you are recovering from an injury or training for an event or competition, it becomes even more important. If you want your body to be able to heal itself and be ready for what you are going to throw at it or ask it to do the next day, you must give it the proper tools. Those tools often can’t be found in a pill bottle or supplement powder, and they aren’t the same for everyone, but what they do have in common is a sound plan for rehab and sound nutrition.

When I first decided to become a certified nutrition coach, my plan was to simply integrate the knowledge I gained into my current treatments. That’s been great, however it’s also become clear that this service has a market of its own. Today I am excited to announce that we now offer sports nutrition consulting to help our clients devise a nutritional plan that will help them meet all their goals.

I look forward to continuing to integrate this into our practice. If you or anyone know is interested in a consultation, please have them contact us at (845) 475-8769.