Do you have to be a coach to get Precision Nutrition Certified?

Guy Prihar is like a lot of folks who come to Precision Nutrition for help: really into science, and always up for a deep dive.

In 2016, then in his mid 40s, Prihar started to feel super sluggish in the afternoons. It got to the point that his energy dips were interfering with his work as a legal professional.

He’d always taken pretty good care of his health and fitness. So he wondered: ‘What’s going on? What am I missing? Is it a nutrition thing?’

His questions led him down a rabbit hole of nutrition information. He experimented with low-carb and keto diets, which helped with his initial energy slumps.

“The more I learned, the more curious I got,” he explains.  “After a while I decided I wanted more of my own information. I didn’t just want to rely on what people on the internet were saying.”

And that’s how he ended up taking the Precision Nutrition Level 1 Certification—with no plans of ever becoming a professional nutrition coach.

Curious about Prihar’s experience, we asked:

• What made you choose the Precision Nutrition Level 1 Certification?
• Why a certification? Why not just learn on the internet for free?
• What did you like best about the certification material?
• Was the Precision Nutrition Certification worth the money?

Here’s what Prihar had to say.

Guy Prihar had important questions about his diet, so he got Precision Nutrition Certified and became his own expert coach.

1. What made you choose the Precision Nutrition Level 1 Certification?

While Prihar searched for ways to learn about nutrition, he started hearing good things about PN. And he noticed that a lot of the online coaches he respected were PN Certified.

So he did a little digging.

“I heard that Precision Nutrition was really up to date on the latest research, the actual published data. And that’s what I wanted,” Prihar says.

“I wanted to understand how things work, and see the latest research. That’s what drew me to PN.”

2. Why a certification? Why not just learn on the internet for free?

Some people in Prihar’s situation would just head to the internet.

And that’s where Prihar started too. He got results from keto and low-carb, and the online groups he participated in.

But after a year, he wanted more.

It wasn’t that he necessarily wanted to make big changes to his own health and fitness. It was mostly that he wanted to learn.

He wanted to learn things for himself, from a reliable source.

And he didn’t want to waste his time on what he calls “bro science.”

He explains: “Suppose someone achieves a great body transformation for themselves. Then they present some sort of workout routine or nutrition as, ‘Here’s what I did. You should do this’. I never buy into that stuff, because I don’t necessarily trust someone’s self reporting. I want to actually see the data, and understand how things work.”

Plus, Prihar wanted a trusted source to bring everything together for him in one place, rather than having to try to piece it all together himself.

3. What did you like best about the certification material?

Like many science-minded folks, Prihar is wary of a lot of the information that is passed around these days.

Even more so because, while he now works in the legal field, he actually has a degree in biology.

“I really like that PN points to actual research that I can find if I want,” says Prihar. “I even went and looked at some of the papers PN cited in the textbook.”

He was also pleased to see that the scientific concepts he was familiar with were well-communicated.

“There was some basic information I already knew about, that I’d learned about years ago when studying biology,” he says. “I could tell that PN was doing a good job at presenting that information, which gave me more confidence and trust in the information that was new to me.”

4. Was the Precision Nutrition Certification worth the money?

Prihar’s answer is simple:

“Yes,” he says. “I wanted the most recent information, so for me it was worth it to get that.”

“I really liked reading the material. It was cool to revisit some of the biology that I had learned years ago in university, so I got a kick out of that.”

Unlike his university education, though, the certification got him thinking about the real-life application of the scientific concepts he was learning.

“I especially liked how this was more geared on a macro level,” he says. “Whereas before I would be studying, for example, genetic interactions or protein-protein interactions, PN takes it to a bigger level—like, here’s what we observe on a performance level, on a human level. Here’s what this means for people. I really appreciated that.”

If you’re a coach, or you want to be…

Learning how to coach clients, patients, friends, or family members through healthy eating and lifestyle changes—in a way that’s personalized for their unique body, preferences, and circumstances—is both an art and a science.

If you’d like to learn more about both, consider the Precision Nutrition Level 1 Certification. The next group kicks off shortly.

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