As we chat with Andrew, you'll gain invaluable knowledge on how athletes can leverage their response to stress to excel in competition. But that's just the beginning. We'll also deep-dive into the world of certifications, exploring whether a string of titles and courses truly equates to expertise in the nutrition field.
About our special guest: Andrew Garritson MS
Andrew is currently pursuing his doctorate in Sport and Performance Psychology at the University of Arizona with a focus on the biology and psychology of stress. Andrew has tempered his theoretical research and graduate thesis “Limb Asymmetries and the Impact on CMJ Performance” with working in collegiate strength and conditioning, personal training, and online coaching settings.
Andrew's certifications read like an alphabet soup of expertise, with accreditations from esteemed institutions like the Nutritional Coaching Institute, the American College of Sports Medicine, and many more.
He isn't just about academics and certifications, but has generated over 3,500 programs his clients have successfully executed with great success. Between all of his coaching and training ventures alone, Andrew grossed over $6.8 million in revenue generated from his consultations for various businesses before establishing his own brand, Training Snobs. Andrew's career is a testament of his commitment to continuous growth and ever-present sense of curiosity.
As the President of the Nutritional Coaching Institute in Phoenix, Andrew has been pivotal in developing educational programs that have impacted over 19,000 coaching professionals and generated over $38 million in program revenue. He's demonstrated a commitment to furthering the coaching industry by authoring primary and continuing education courses approved by national certification bodies, such at the National Academy of Sports Medicine. He's a seasoned presenter with over 300 presentations and talks delivered, covering a wide range of topics from coaching systems and communication to gut health and biomechanics of resistance training.
About the Show
We cover all things related to sports science, nutrition, and performance. The Sports Science Dudes represent the opinions of the hosts and guests and are not the official opinions of the International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN), the Society for Sports Neuroscience, or Nova Southeastern University. The advice provided on this show should not be construed as medical advice and is purely an educational forum.
Hosted by Jose Antonio PhD
Dr. Antonio is the co-founder and CEO of the International Society of Sports Nutrition and the co-founder of the Society for Sports Neuroscience, www.issn.net. Dr. Antonio has over 120 peer-reviewed publications and 16 books. He is a Professor at Nova Southeastern University, Davie, Florida in the Department of Health and Human Performance.
X: @JoseAntonioPhD
Instagram: the_issn and supphd
Co-host Anthony Ricci EdD
Dr Ricci is an expert on Fight Sports and is currently an Assistant Professor at Nova Southeastern University in Davie Florida in the Department of Health and Human Performance.
Instagram: sportpsy_sci_doc and fightshape_ricci
As we chat with Andrew, you'll gain invaluable knowledge on how athletes can leverage their response to stress to excel in competition. But that's just the beginning. We'll also deep-dive into the world of certifications, exploring whether a string of titles and courses truly equates to expertise in the nutrition field.
About our special guest: Andrew Garritson MS
Andrew is currently pursuing his doctorate in Sport and Performance Psychology at the University of Arizona with a focus on the biology and psychology of stress. Andrew has tempered his theoretical research and graduate thesis “Limb Asymmetries and the Impact on CMJ Performance” with working in collegiate strength and conditioning, personal training, and online coaching settings.
Andrew's certifications read like an alphabet soup of expertise, with accreditations from esteemed institutions like the Nutritional Coaching Institute, the American College of Sports Medicine, and many more.
He isn't just about academics and certifications, but has generated over 3,500 programs his clients have successfully executed with great success. Between all of his coaching and training ventures alone, Andrew grossed over $6.8 million in revenue generated from his consultations for various businesses before establishing his own brand, Training Snobs. Andrew's career is a testament of his commitment to continuous growth and ever-present sense of curiosity.
As the President of the Nutritional Coaching Institute in Phoenix, Andrew has been pivotal in developing educational programs that have impacted over 19,000 coaching professionals and generated over $38 million in program revenue. He's demonstrated a commitment to furthering the coaching industry by authoring primary and continuing education courses approved by national certification bodies, such at the National Academy of Sports Medicine. He's a seasoned presenter with over 300 presentations and talks delivered, covering a wide range of topics from coaching systems and communication to gut health and biomechanics of resistance training.
About the Show
We cover all things related to sports science, nutrition, and performance. The Sports Science Dudes represent the opinions of the hosts and guests and are not the official opinions of the International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN), the Society for Sports Neuroscience, or Nova Southeastern University. The advice provided on this show should not be construed as medical advice and is purely an educational forum.
Hosted by Jose Antonio PhD
Dr. Antonio is the co-founder and CEO of the International Society of Sports Nutrition and the co-founder of the Society for Sports Neuroscience, www.issn.net. Dr. Antonio has over 120 peer-reviewed publications and 16 books. He is a Professor at Nova Southeastern University, Davie, Florida in the Department of Health and Human Performance.
X: @JoseAntonioPhD
Instagram: the_issn and supphd
Co-host Anthony Ricci EdD
Dr Ricci is an expert on Fight Sports and is currently an Assistant Professor at Nova Southeastern University in Davie Florida in the Department of Health and Human Performance.
Instagram: sportpsy_sci_doc and fightshape_ricci
Welcome to the Sports Science Dudes. I'm your host, Dr Jose Antonio, and filling in for Tony Ricci is Cassandra Evans. We call her Cassie. You can find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Rumble and YouTube. Our special guest today is Andrew Gerritsen. Andrew is currently pursuing his doctorate in sport and performance psychology at the University of Arizona, with a focus on the biology and psychology of stress, so we'll talk about Celia's stress, his adaptation, so you're going to edify us on that. Andrew's tempered his theoretical research and graduate thesis limb asymmetries and the impact on CMJ performance with working in collegiate strength conditioning, personal training and online coaching settings. Andrew has like 5 trillion certifications it reads like an alphabet soup of expertise with accreditations from NCI, American College of Sports Medicine, and there's many more and I'm not even mentioning them because I just don't feel like it. Crossfit Don't forget CrossFit.
Speaker 1:A lot of CrossFit. Don't forget about that one. He's also president of the Nutritional Coaching Institute, which we will talk about. It's in Phoenix. He's been pivotal in developing educational programs that have impacted over 19,000 coaching professionals and generated a lot of money, apparently $38 million in program revenue. So, Andrew, welcome to the show. Appreciate you coming on joining us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Guys, it's always so funny whenever you get introduced by someone, because you never know how pretentious some of your bio in your media sheets sound, until it comes out of someone's mouth and you're wow, I, I should definitely chat gpt that better next time yeah, just so everyone knows, um andrew probably has more certifications than like anyone I've ever met in my life.
Speaker 1:Um, you have like 30 crossfit certifications, which is that? Which is that even possible? Is that even possible, I mean?
Speaker 3:No, they have their own journal. It's called the CrossFit journal.
Speaker 1:So there's there's, there's CrossFit science. It doesn't work in other journals. Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 3:You know, it's constantly varied movements performed functionally at high intensity or something like that, and it was early on in my coaching career and, yes, I think that's um. It may not have been the wisest investment to dump all that money into those, because they're not cheap either. They definitely get their. They get a pound of flesh off of you for sure how much are the certifications just?
Speaker 3:you remember? Yeah, um, so the main one was level one and at the time, I think the first one I went through was in 2009 or something like that, and I think it set us back about a thousand bucks, holy shit. Yeah, all you guys in the sports science field are under charge, and NSCA need to step it up. You know, it's actually not uncommon for online certifications and certifications in general these days to require financing for people to pay for them.
Speaker 1:That's freaking crazy, I know.
Speaker 2:You can though I do know that you can use if you have like a leftover. What do they call it? The 529, the education funds that are traditionally used for like tuition, and sometimes I think there's newer ones that can be used for other types of schooling, but considering they do consider certifications as like continuing education and so if you have one of those funds you can apply, apply that investment there.
Speaker 3:That's actually really insightful. We usually go with private lenders for some of our stuff that is a little more expensive, and so this is why you already have that money there.
Speaker 2:So I mean, like for me, my dad set that up for me, obviously when I was a kid. It's not like I knew anything about saving money, but when I got older, I mean I still spend a lot. But when I got older, I did do a personal training certification, and so I was able to use the leftover money from there to pay for the personal training certification, which was nice.
Speaker 3:That's amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I wrote that down. Hey you. Okay, you're a PhD candidate, correct?
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, okay, it's a different world. My doctoral journey has been fraught with geez, like four different programs. There's a whole yeah, it's. It's a deep story that would take longer than the hour we have allotted okay.
Speaker 1:So if you were to predict how many years you have left before you earned the phd?
Speaker 3:right now. Well, actually, so to recant that for a second um. I was a p, I was a doctoral candidate in the phd program and then I went this id route, so I dropped the um. Excuse me, dealing with a little bit of covid today, um, but then I swapped to the university you've had six shots, buddy, you know six.
Speaker 3:you know I'm a little woozy, I'm a little boozy, like that shaboozy song. It's actually pretty catchy. Um, but yeah, I went from a clinical psychology program, um, from a performance psychology program, whereas I gained that candidacy, and then I went into a clinical psychology program and then I went to a performance psychology program and there were different things that prompted each step, mostly in the fact that I think when I was going through the clinical psychology route, which is probably one of my prominent interests right now, it is interesting to think that once students pass their first year they are then alloc, and to be a department head at the same time while working in a brick and mortar doctoral program just didn't really align very well. So that's where I had to get creative and find a program that ultimately fit a lot of where I was able to facilitate that.
Speaker 2:So so that 20 hours a week is for the PsyD part.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So for a clinical psychology program, because they want you to do a practicum and you have to have I think it's anywhere from 1200 to 2000 hours, and this was some years ago, so forgive me if the numbers are a little wrong, everyone that's listening, don't freak out. But yeah, it was like $2,000, sorry, 2000 hours prior to being able to apply for an internship, and then basically you would have an internship and your postdoc. And this is the fact and figure. That really startled me and I thought something was inherently wrong is that they're like yeah, if you're, if you're lucky, you'll get an APA internship and we'll pay you a 12 to $18,000.
Speaker 3:I'm like what are you? What are you talking about? Like that's, that's kind of crazy. And then they're like as a postdoc, you'll get bumped up to 24 to 30. And I'm like, bro, that's poverty to be in someone's mind like that. Do you want that? What are you talking about? And so it really is like an archaic way of potentially preparing people to be really great clinicians, because you're going to find that so many people are trite because they just can't like the cost of living. Crazy, you can't do that.
Speaker 2:Well, that's very similar, for, like the rd is that you have to have 1200 supervised hours and it's completely unpaid.
Speaker 2:In fact, you're actually paying to do the 1200 hours, crazy, yeah, and so I do know, like I did a I guess like a combined program which is like the newer model. So while I was taking my classes I was also doing my internship hours, but there was no way I could have a job at the same time while doing my. I mean, I managed to work, but very challenging for most people. They actually have to apply to the internship after school.
Speaker 2:So if you think about it like you're doing four years or you know however long it takes for you to do your master's, and then you have to apply into a dietetic internship program and then take six months to 18 months to to do that as well. So it's and it's okay, you know. So yeah, very crazy.
Speaker 3:It is a hundred percent. So I'm kind of curious to see, because we see that, you know, in the academic world, admissions are actually starting to decrease and people are starting to revert back to trade schools and not incurring significant amounts of debt to have the opportunity to have a higher earning potential on the back end of that. So that's kind of, you know, one of the reasons why I think companies like the Nutritional Coaching Institute are positioned in a way to potentially, maybe mildly, disrupt some of the traditional education system from the perspective of you know, how do we make skills that are monetizable and that are, you know, applicable and realistically and very helpful for the consumers that are looking for those professionals? And how do we take that and make it available without having to go through random classes, like the history of Arizona State University, which blew my mind, that you know the average credit hour cost it was $1,800 for that course for what, like it didn't make sense.
Speaker 1:So you know, I have some soap boxes to stand, but it actually brings me to the question Um, let's talk about the nutritional coaching Institute, uh, and let's compare that to dietetics, right?
Speaker 2:You know traditional dietetics. This is going to be fun. I love this conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so let me give a little background. My first introduction to dietetics was actually I was an undergrad major in biology and it was the first time I heard someone say the only people I could give advice on nutrition are dietitians and I thought, well, that's really weird, because my uncle was a bodybuilder. But this is back in the 80s and I'm like well, it seems like bodybuilders give each other a lot of advice on eating, so are they going to go to jail? And clearly none of them went to jail, and even today we have a lot of bodybuilders that give each other advice on nutrition. So how does the Nutritional Coaching Institute, how does it deal with that issue that always comes up about? Hey, this is a space for dietitians, not you backwards cap wearing. You know nutritional coaching people. I'm talking about you, andrew.
Speaker 3:I put it on sideways before you finished Doesn't count.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 1:So, there's this conflict and one of my good friends I mean Cass, you know him Doug Kalman. He actually was the biggest critic yeah, biggest critic of dieticians, saying that, ironically, most of the books you learn let's take fitness and sports nutrition as its category Most of the books you learn fitness and sports nutrition nutrition are actually written by non-dietitians. So how do dietitians intellectually come up with the idea that they are the experts in nutrition when they're learning from non-nutritionists? Ie, andrew Gerritsen is involved with a lot of non-dietitians, so talk about that conflict well, dietitians are dumb and licensure is illegal, so no, I'm kidding.
Speaker 3:I'm kidding, no, just to get the most inflammatory potential thing out of the way. So I'm less anxious on the back end of this conversation. I feel like I mean you know you bring up some great points and I think that Wait, wait, wait, stop.
Speaker 1:Stick to the licensure stuff, because I think the licensure stuff is interesting. It is Talk, the economics of licensure and why it's not there to protect the consumer. It's there to protect the provider, but anyways, go on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and the revenue for the state Sorry.
Speaker 3:No, no, no, Please. Yeah, if you would like to expound on that for a second, cassie, because you're a dietitian, correct?
Speaker 2:I am a dietitian and the licensure is kind for dietitians New York, new Jersey, I think California is one of them as well. Florida, a couple of years ago, passed something and I know a lot of dietitians were very, very, very upset about this. But they passed something law or some sort of amendment, if you will to the licensure is that if you are simply providing general nutrition advice or guidelines for health and wellness, then you do not have to be licensed in the state of Florida. You don't have to be a registered dietitian Once you are attempting to provide what they would call medical nutrition therapy. Or, for instance, there are people online that say like this is the gut health diet. So once you get into that realm, at least from the state of Florida licensure standpoint um, now you're crossing over to MNT. You do need to be licensed and you do need to be a dietitian.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean I would actually share a lot of those same perspectives from how we operate and that's um, you know, I think that licensure serves a lot of purposes and, colloquially, and just kind of thinking about it from a practical perspective, um, in some ways it saves the masses from the masses, and what I mean by that is like when you take the average of the people that aren't licensed and compare them to the average education experience level of people that are licensed, there's just going to be inherently a disparity that's going to favor the side that is licensed, because there's data on that.
Speaker 1:don't know if I believe you I don't know.
Speaker 3:I mean, you look at medical malpractice as the number three leading cause of death as of 2023. I don't know about 2024. Um, you could make that argument for sure yeah, because they're licensed. They're very much licensed and you know sepsis and everything else that happens in the medical setting. It's it actually pretty crazy, but I think you know just from a principal's perspective.
Speaker 1:Also, if you want to cut hair, you got to be licensed. If you want to massage someone, you got to be licensed.
Speaker 2:You want to sell health insurance, you have to be licensed.
Speaker 3:These are all scams they kind of are, and I don't know as much about the socioeconomics that go in behind licensure.
Speaker 3:I do know that when we originally were founded as most pursuits seem to be, jason Phillips, the founder of the company, along with Travis Zipper, who's no longer with us they they dealt a lot with the CrossFit community, and so it's kind of ironic that I do have a lot of CrossFit certifications in hindsight, because I never put the two together. But. But they wanted to make nutrition information available to people that didn't want to go to a dietetics program, something that was a little more applicable, a little more in the applied sciences and stuff that wasn't necessarily cutting edge or bleeding edge, but rather was readily available in the applied sciences and stuff that wasn't necessarily cutting edge or bleeding edge, but rather was readily available in the majority of nutrition textbooks and where they identified um. One of the giants that's currently leading the space is precision nutrition, one of our competitors, and they've certified over 20 20 688 people in nutrition as of uh, I think, like earlier last week, and not that I keep track, but we uh, you know isn't that more of a coaching certification than a?
Speaker 1:it is a hundred percent.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's that's where we draw our distinction as, uh, applied nutritional coaches, in that fact that we take basic applied science. It just happens to be grounded in nutrition and there's nothing that again, like we're not going to split hairs on how many kilojoules is in a carbohydrate and how that manipulates and you know, your gut microbiota are going to then change what happens from an energy harvesting perspective like that's not what we talk about. We do encourage people to actually learn how to start to interpret and read some of the literature in our more advanced courses, because we do think it really makes a big difference for people to be informed. But by and large, we just teach some basic nutritional science and we teach people how to apply it in vivo with real world clients, which I think is missing in a lot of educational settings, in that you're not really dealing with Mrs Smith, who actually has three screaming toddlers in the background and you know, I'm sure we've all seen the over zealous personal trainer that's like hey, you got to want it, you got to work out two hours a day and you got a meal prep or you ain't shit. And the mom's like I just want to lose five pounds, bro, like I want to nap, man, I'm tired, and I think that it's.
Speaker 3:You know, when you think about the dichotomy, the average consumer that comes through our doors tends to be about 36, 37. And so we're seeing that people are transitioning from their own previous careers and this seems to be kind of the inflection point for, I would say, a little more than a third of our consumers coming in um is that they they want to have a career that they're passionate about. And so how do we temper that? How do we temper that passion without having to go back to school for, you know, arguably four plus years, because you have to do your prerequisites over if it's been more than 10 years, and like all these other crazy things that really just impede people's ability to meaningfully create that impact in their local community. So what we do is nothing that's earth shattering.
Speaker 3:Most people can Google all the stuff and like cobble it together, but rather than having any novel information, we actually seek to make what is currently available more appropriate from a titration perspective, like how do we take this thing that is, oh my gosh, what is the microbiome? Like? We're not going to talk about that at all. We're just going to talk about, like some basic nutrition. Here's some supplementation practices examinecom, you know, like the CISSN if you want to go learn more about sports nutrition, and we actually farm out and refer a lot of our consumers to various platforms that have, you know, proven methodologies that seem like they're relatively successful.
Speaker 3:Although I will say that there is a big fault in the job industry right now and this is one of my big pet peeves and something we're seeking to change in that no one's conducting a census, no one's actually collecting information or data around the online health coaching industry as a whole. So that is something that we started last year and we actually do have some norms around that, and they actually tend to be a little bit better than the average personal trainers from a tenure perspective and from an earnings perspective. So that is promising and I do hope to convert that eventually into you know, something that may parlay into a quasi associates degree where there is some kind of degree conferral without a lot of the additional courses that seem like they.
Speaker 1:They constitute some pork inside of that, but so, so are the individuals going through your program? Yeah, are they wanting? So this is actually a new career for them there, or is it? I just want to learn a little bit about this and then I'll stick to my job, you know, as an electrician or plumber it's, but they actually want to go into fitness coaching.
Speaker 3:We see it. We see a fair amount of both. Actually, um we fee. We find that a lot of people may be curious, and this has been an uptick in recent I would say last six months. We found more people that are more interested in learning for themselves.
Speaker 3:As they're coming through and because of the applied nature of our program.
Speaker 3:You know, one of the one of the criteria for completion is actually you have to coach two real people for three months, and it's funny because the magic happens around month, like around anywhere from three to six weeks, in where your guinea pigs that's what we call the coaching clients your guinea pigs will start to go off the rails and start to like ghost you.
Speaker 3:They'll start to come up with all these weird behavioral things, and so, by and large, we find that the science is largely irrelevant to gen pop because they're not even attuned to what you know tracking your macros would look like from an energy balance perspective. So a lot of it actually turns out to be a lot more around the health psychology, around the health coaching aspect of how do we tactically get people to implement small changes that are sustainable in a way that works for what they're doing inside of their life, and so that's kind of where it seems to evolve a little more, so um notice that with some of the coaching so well, and to kind of touch on what you were saying, people finding a second career my cousin of mine, she's in Texas and she had a very successful career doing what I actually don't know.
Speaker 2:But now now she's doing coaching, like health coaching, and it really started exactly like what you were saying, as her own journey for her own health and learning more about nutrition and exercise and then trying to like encourage a couple of her friends around her and then it just kind of grew and grew to now where she has her own health coaching online business and I know a lot of them set up the I guess I don't know. The setup is similar in the sense that you know you have an onboarding, you give somebody like their calories, macros goals or anything like that, and then you find the small changes that they can make. So I feel like correct me if I'm wrong, but the online coaching is really more about the accountability and having somebody to encourage you rather than the actual like nutrition education itself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I would agree with that. I think that you know, with the advent of AI and that's here to stay and that's only going to grow increasingly sophisticated, um, I think that information tends to be less of the competitive advantage that we'll see, um, and we talk about branding and try to distinguish yourself as a professional in this day and age, much less even be utilitarian, you know. And what's to stop someone from taking wikipedia, which y'all talk shit about wikipedia, but there's some good resources and references at the bottom and I may or may not have used it on a paper or two, like it's fine, all the way to the bottom, all the way to the bottom. You just don't copy and paste the text.
Speaker 1:What's that? Just don't copy and paste the text no god bad. No, you just put quotes around people do it though yeah, it's like this stuff is so bad, it's so bad it's wild.
Speaker 3:Well, you should see the ip stuff. I I sat in a lecture on artificial intelligence and IP. Are you guys familiar with the Naruto monkey? No, no.
Speaker 3:So this is where they argued because there's a picture of a monkey and the monkey took a selfie and the guy that owned the monkey claimed I trained that monkey to do the selfie and they were trying to figure out whose intellectual property that was. Was it that guy's? And so this is the argument for artificial intelligence these days, and that the artificial intelligence isn't copyrighted, nor is it protected or is it to be used as trademark material, but rather if you manipulate it in any way.
Speaker 1:that's when theoretically becomes your own thing oh so, okay, so real life situation a student has ai write, let's say, a 300 word essay, um, and if they manipulate it enough, in essence it becomes theirs, because now it doesn't sound like a robot. However, a lot of them are too lazy and they actually just copy and paste what the robot says, and it sounds like a robot or I had a copy and paste and like didn't even bother like formatting it.
Speaker 2:so like you know, when a copy and paste and like didn't even bother like formatting it, so like you know, when you copy and paste something directly, the indents are off and like the thing is off like that. That happened too, and I was just like oh, okay. And the font will be Sergei.
Speaker 1:With like a highlighted background.
Speaker 2:Well, it is interesting too with AI because you can get them to generate auto.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know if it goes directly into the emails, but if you are coaching and let's say and actually we both, jose and I, both know somebody that works for a large scale online coaching company, sometimes you can have anywhere between 40 to 60 clients as a coach by yourself, and so now you're using AI to kind of generate these automatic emails that are going out, let's say, every week, like you know, maybe every Monday you want to say hi to all your clients, but you want to make it a little bit personal, but you know it takes time to write that email. You can ask AI to do this for you, like you know, generate an email wishing everybody a happy Monday, or generate an email response to this email, and so it really does streamline that process. My question is by using that and you know it obviously allows you to have a lot more, you know, higher number of clients and obviously generate more revenue Are you now taking the personal side of it out of it?
Speaker 2:You know, like now everyone's just kind of getting the same thing.
Speaker 3:Maybe they don't notice, maybe they do, but yeah, no, I mean, that's a great question and I think, again, it always comes back down to your brand identity and the brand DNA, like, if you cause, there are a fair amount of people and you earlier in this answer we'll kind of hearken back to your original question in that the original nature of coaching is to provide feedback and guidance. Right Now you can do that automated, the more obviously you can take a lot of information and titrate into the meaningful couple. Tactical implementations usually is what moves the needle. So what we're going to probably see people start to the reason why and actually let me back up for a second. So lifetime as a brand luxury health gym company, right, they did some research and this was in 2019, maybe 2020, just prior to the pandemic, and they were serving their audience. They were trying to identify why people would purchase personal training and they found that 1% on average of their entire member user base would be engaged in personal training at any given time. And the things that the three contracts that came back that were most relevant were people would look for structure, planning, program design, what to do right, they would look for accountability or basically someone to care whether they did it or not. They needed a reason to perform.
Speaker 3:And the third thing was variability right, because we know that monotony is not only in potentially indicative of strain, increased injury risk and all these other things, but we also know that it it for most people. We find that novelty really stimulates a lot of the brain. And so there's not that novelty. Obviously, we know the general adaptation syndrome there's no stimulus, it's going to be impotent, like it's just ultimately going to render a lot of the results inert. And so, thinking about those three things, you mentioned accountability specifically, and I would wholeheartedly agree because you can find structure online, you can find variability online. However, it's the sequencing and the titration of those three variables in terms of which lever do you need to pull at which time? And then also, how do you take meaning and how do you assign context to someone's lifestyle and what they're dealing with? And so that's where I think a lot of the relationship between a coach and a client, the accountability factor, especially in the general population, doesn't come from.
Speaker 3:Hey, did you do what you're supposed to do? Because it's really interesting that we find that Gen Pop won't do things for themselves, but they will do things not to let other people down. And so when I'm trying to figure out a lot of my dissertation stuff here, it's really like why do people do what they do? And it's evolved from stress, which I'm sure you guys can appreciate, like it's this is the one topic and then it's this and then it's this, or like there's so many gaps, what are our research? And at the end of the day, the most meaningful thing for me is like human behavior what is it about the task appraisal? Or how do I see the thing as it's coming up, in my perspective and my experiences related to that thing? Do I have the resources necessary to complete it?
Speaker 3:And a lot of that stuff becomes irrelevant inside of a culture, community and supportive environment. And so number one reason why we find that people quit coaching inside of our ecosystem is that they get frustrated. And when we peeled that back a little bit, we found that frustration was most often contributed as a function of unmet expectations. And whether that's unspoken, whether it's a lack of clarity around communication, whether it's like either there's just some lack of technical competence that might also go into that, maybe it is a macronutrient thing, because we don't want to completely negate the fact that there are very real scientific principles that we just want to continue to respect until something else comes in and fills this place. But that's why, you know, obviously, jose here, and like all the other nutrition researchers that are just out there kicking ass and producing all this great information, that's why that's so important for people to stay up to date with, and we find that mainstream media will always lag five to 10 years behind. So coaches that do stay up are always going to have a significantly better advantage when it comes to knowing, at least the competency, the technical side of the house. But we find that exposure, in the absence of curriculum and experience, is the thing that seems to be the humanizing variable.
Speaker 3:On the other end, much to your second question here, cassie, and, like you know, absence of the AI. Like with the advent of AI, I should say, does the humanistic component become forgotten? And I think that it's not as dichotomous as having you have all connection. No connection, because AI is kind of the separating variable, but I think it's. How do we temper our ability to quickly sift through a lot of information, find a couple of meaningful things, have a meaningful conversation with someone, and then how do we then empower them to make those subsequent changes on their own.
Speaker 3:And I think that that's that's gonna be the fine line, that we'll walk here and really see what happens with gpt5 and so on and so forth, because if it can, if it can start emulating people, that gets weird quick. But still I mean I'll quit on a machine, no problem, like yeah, I'm good, I you know they have those machines that'll count your reps, and it's kind of nice. I'll look at it. And sometimes it'll get to 11 and I'm like I'm not going to do the 12th. One Can't tell me what to do. I don't know why I do it. You're anti-machine, aren't you? You're an anti-machine. No, actually I really. As I age and the more stressed I get, the more I appreciate the simplicity of just the raw effort that it takes to move the weight stack.
Speaker 1:Hey, sometimes simple is better.
Speaker 2:I'd like to add a construct in there too, in terms of why people have personal trainers, cause I'm just speaking for myself. I just want someone to tell me what to do. I don't want to make a decision anymore, Like I make decisions elsewhere. I just need somebody. I don't want to think I need somebody, just say, do this. But they have to be there, because if they like give me a thing to take home and do on my own, like, I'll like be, like I don't really feel like doing this one. It's not a hundred percent. I don't like this one.
Speaker 3:Like, yeah, that would be a great question to you know, gain y'all's perspective on in terms of 168 hours in a week. We know that people should be sleeping 56 of them. What are they doing with the other? You know 100 and some odd hours. Like how do we, how do we better implement? Why do people not do what they're supposed to do, knowing that they're paying an arm and a leg usually, or there's some skin in the game?
Speaker 1:no, like like you, cassie, I'm always surprised that people they will pay for an online coach that basically emails them more or less a generic program, because I've talked to enough of these coaches. A lot of them will use an ai generated training program which, as you know, it's very generic. Whatever it is, three sets of ten do this, do that. It's like the same old shit that anyone else could come up with who has, like you know, eighth grade education, um, but I'm always surprised that people actually stick to this stuff, like I, being someone who, like I'd be like I ain't going to take someone's advice who's emailing me, shit. But, andrew, is there data on the adherence of just pure, you know, online coaching? Because it's apparently a very big business and I'm always shocked. I'm like people actually follow this stuff. I mean, I guess they're not like us, cassie.
Speaker 3:We don't. We don't want an email telling us what we should do. I could Google that. Yeah, a hundred percent. Like GTS, google, you know? Hey, what time is that place closed? Google, did you let me Google it for you? No, but you know, you raise a great point and that's where I'd like to draw the distinction of like having a general. You know macroent, I call it spreadsheet coaching. Like, here's a spreadsheet. Yeah, send me your information, I give you back. So I titrate here. You go, like, go do this.
Speaker 3:And I think that only in certain populations is something like that successful. In fact, in our level one, we have people. They have to submit at least two. We recommend they take on five, but they have to complete two 13 week coaching courses with these individuals.
Speaker 3:And prior to when we were just doing self-study, when I first adopted my tenure in like 2018, 2019, I'm sorry, 2021, I came on board they had collected information for about two years and what they found was that 60% of people that would submit their project back when it was self-study. It was asynchronous. There was no courses. You just go through the modules. It's what you would consider your traditional online learning ecosystem, right, not very engaged. And they found that 60% of the guinea pigs would leave, whether it was, I'm sorry, 60% of the project submissions would have one, if not both of their guinea pigs leave or quit, and so it was very frustrating for them to go through this entire process, which is where I think traditional education has the upper hand, because it provides that effective accountability measure.
Speaker 3:You have to show up. I would have to look at my professor in the face and be like I'm sorry, can I have an extension? And I've done that a handful of times and it's like I want to die in my skin, because I usually respect the person that's teaching the course so much, respect the person that's teaching the course so much, and you know even to say like it is harder to have certain deadlines when you're not meeting with your dissertation chair. You know regularly, and they're just like yeah, whatever, I'm busy, and you're like you're busy, I won't bug you, and then you know the next.
Speaker 2:thing you know it's a year goes by, you're like, I think, too, it might be a little bit different if, like, they're coming to you for that type of coaching, right, because they're they're seeking out a specific topic that they they want to learn more about. But even just the online format in general and I'll just once again use my own experience, but, like for you know, online classes are certainly more convenient, right, I like that aspect of it. I much prefer an in-person class because they're more engaging. I tend to learn more or retain more of the information, and then I also am guilty of a class that might not be as interesting to me, like, for instance, I think, like ethics or something.
Speaker 2:I did everything I was supposed to do, you know I, but I was more. I didn't retain anything, I just was like checking off the boxes, trying to get through the assignments as quickly as possible, just so I could say, hey, I'm done and I got my grade, because it's part of the program. But if you could ask me what my class is on, I couldn't tell you. You know, and that's that's the downside of the online aspect of schools.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I would absolutely agree. You know, and I think too. Um, I mean, there's no industry data set that looks at course completion online. What we found was that the average online completion rate for the self-study was close to 9% year over year, and the thing that I was like that's abysmal. Imagine paying $2,000 for a course and maybe you have a 91% chance that you won't complete it.
Speaker 3:These people these days are so obsessed with collecting, collecting information, never leveraging them, which is why we we tout ourselves as an applied nutritional coaching certification track and that, like, you can do the self-study. But we actually try to push people into the cohort realm, which is where I think, again, the academic world did really well and we borrow a lot of principles from that, and that we actually have a lecture and we have a lab and we have two different calls that people will attend every week and we talk about the content and we help them apply it in vivo and then we kind of wash, rinse, repeat, and so that's actually then I think our graduation rate is closer to 92% of the people that enlist and enroll inside of those courses. So we're really trying to rectify a lot of the stuff that the online education industry is perpetuating just from like a bullshit perspective, because it's not really about the. What they're trying to get from an outcome is revenue and it's not necessarily impact or the results. That the people that are really fired up whenever they purchase quickly see that it's it's a lot more than than what they originally anticipated and there's no support system for them to help navigate that.
Speaker 3:And I think it's really crappy that you know more. More cohorts aren't coming. So that's one of the reasons why I'm sharing a lot of you know our delivery method so freely on this podcast and that I hope someone hears that. I hope that they are an online educator and I hope that they think how can I actually make this stuff more meaningful, more tactical and more applied for my people? So that way the consumers who are ultimately the people that we're all responsible to have a better experience and are more trusting, more willing, because every time we have a shitty coach that gets out there hurt someone, give some poor experience that actually then hurts the entire coaching industry, and so you know, I think we all need to work together on how to improve that experience for the clients and the consumers out there.
Speaker 1:Andrew, how many uh 1% of people will ask for or need an online coach, or hire an online coach, or doing it solely for the purpose of losing weight?
Speaker 3:I would say that's overwhelming majority of our clients that, um and again, my sampling is going to be different because these are Guinea pigs.
Speaker 1:Um okay, so just stop there and I'm going to sort of I'll move this over to the dietetics world, cassie, is weight loss considered a medical nutrition therapy?
Speaker 2:No, at least to my knowledge, no. When it becomes MNT, though, is if that person has diabetes, and so now you're prescribing weight loss, but you have to have special considerations down for the fact that they have diabetes.
Speaker 1:But now we know most adults are overweight and diabetic. So now can a personal trainer not train them for weight loss?
Speaker 2:Like depends on what state you're in.
Speaker 1:But I would imagine that happens all the time.
Speaker 2:I mean lots of things happen all the time and go relatively unnoticed or unbacked, and it's normally until I mean lots of things happen all the time and go relatively unnoticed or unimpacted. It's normally until I mean look at certain prescription drugs that make it out on the market and they're fine until they kill a couple of people or a lot of people, and then they're supposed to pull them off the market. I think FenFed is a great example. I'm sure we could think of some more recent examples that didn't get pulled.
Speaker 1:I guess the question is what's the enforcement mechanism If if I have, if I open up a gym and 50% of my clients are overweight and type two diabetic, who's enforcing this law that? Oh, by the way, now you're dealing with something medical and not something fitness. Well, in.
Speaker 2:Florida. Uh, somebody has to report you and it's actually uh, yes, and I happen to know somebody that does this sometimes but it's actually really interesting because a couple of years ago it's kind of how the change in the law came about was that there was a woman who was doing like some sort of health and wellness coaching in California and nutrition counseling and whatnot, and she had a well-established business in California. Her husband was in the military, was transferred to Florida, she moved to Florida, she kept doing her business and somebody got wind of it and somebody reported her to the licensing board. So generally, at least from the state of Florida standpoint, somebody's reporting you. Somebody sees you make some sort of claim online and then files a report and then the state state looks into it did she fight it?
Speaker 2:she did fight it and I think it was the catalyst in what kind of forced florida to change their um, their law in terms of it's okay to do general health and wellness coaching or nutrition, uh stuff, but you cannot do so okay.
Speaker 1:So this is more of a pragmatic question. So if an overweight diabetic comes in and just says, hey, I just want to lose weight, and Andrew's like okay, I want you to eat this way, I want you to train this way, and in three to six months you'll lose five to 10 pounds of fat, that should be fine, right Cause that's what everybody, or did they not say they were diabetic?
Speaker 3:A good coach would uncover that in the intake and that's almost everyone who walks into a gym.
Speaker 1:I mean 50% of people who walk into a gym, right, andrew?
Speaker 3:what do you say? I mean, we actually talk about this at length. We've had had courses obvious uh, in our history that were considered very questionable and potentially well outside of scope of what an online nutrition coach should be doing. We're in the process of rectifying that, but one of the things that we're transitioning and when I say that just to give you some coloring um, it was not uncommon to hear bioidentical hormones and potential dosing procedures in some of our previous courses, so obviously there was a. There was a big gut health boom that you know was kind of about the same time that a lot of these other courses um were starting to come into fruition.
Speaker 3:Now, the pre my predecessor, um Travis James zipper, who I mentioned earlier. We actually have a whole memorial fund forum. Um, that the ISSN is is wonderful with taking care of Um, but you know we actually look for um. He was going for his doctorate in clinical nutrition, so he was working on going through that stuff himself and, in the absence of having anyone that is in that credential or has any kind of subject matter expertise, uh, we've actually recently hired Alan Aragon to help us focus more specifically on just the nutrition facts and science to get away from a lot of that stuff, but we talk about a process called clinical collaboration, which is understanding when something is potentially outside of your scope of practice, and there is an educational component that does undergird that in terms of you have to have awareness around what the signs and symptoms of diabetics might entail or you know, some of the other common health conditions that we'll find tend to permeate the industry, with people that are looking for, you know, some kind of weight loss interventions or looking to have some kind of body transformations.
Speaker 3:But, by and large, we tell people that, hey, if these are the things that you notice, or if you feel like process is stagnated and something isn't right, then you need to refer out, and we actually teach people how to collaborate with clinicians in their area.
Speaker 3:We tell them, generally speaking, most people, if you're going to work with people you're going to want to make a excuse me general population, most of them probably will have some kind of health consideration, considering 47% of the people are in the overweight or obese category in the world, and so we know that. Or, excuse me, in the US and when. So we know that you need to have a general physician, you probably want to have some kind of homeopathic, something or other, just have a second opinion. That's going to have a differing perspective and that's kind of the way that we temper some of the modern medicine, because we do know that polypharmacology runs rampant these days and there's not really like any kind of hey, what do we do about that? And it's it's actually a problem and a really big disservice to our end users. So we do suggest that they have some kind of home a functional medicine doctor, naturopathic doctor, um, not a chiropractor, please, for the love of God. Just anyone except for a chiropractor. I'm kidding.
Speaker 1:Why no hate on the?
Speaker 3:chiropractors. No hate on the chiropractors, um, actually I know a handful of great ones and so I do know that they recently had some licensure that passed that they cannot be general, uh, or GPs, like you know, general physicians or primary care providers, um, but we do also recommend that again. So, um, md, nd, fmd, uh, some kind of mental health professional, whether that's a therapist, who are people that help people work on, um, specific problems over a longer period of time and they tend to try to underlie, find the underlying root cause of that stuff, versus a counselor who actually helps a little more cognitive, behavioral therapy versus psychoanalytic stuff. But we also recommend a psychologist because that person can actually get in there and diagnose, which is a little more prevalent and kind of what we find again, the scope of practice. But, lastly, we find that you need to have someone that's going to probably help people navigate some of those injuries as well, such as, like a physical therapist.
Speaker 3:So, physician, psychologist, physical therapist, those are the three crucial components that we find mind, body, you know, kind of the internal stuff that we don't want to deal with but we do know probably needs to be addressed at some point potential with the majority of clients because they will engage in exercise and they will, you know, have dietary interventions that hey, did you eat more? But they're not necessarily superscripted. Or like, hey, you have to eat this, it's going to fix your clinical condition. Like that's not what we look for. We tend to deal mostly with supporting people through weekly coaching calls is actually the delivery method that we teach, but also the navigating a lot of the behavioral aspects underneath what would be considered just basic good food principles. You know, make sure you have some vegetables.
Speaker 3:I don't think that's crazy.
Speaker 2:A very collaborative approach, even though it was over different programs. That would be very interesting Because we obviously hear a lot of people maybe not complain but make a fuss about not being a licensed dietitian, not being able to give certain nutrition advice. But just from my own work as a dietitian in the private practice, a lot of stuff comes up that is totally outside the scope of my practice in terms of mental health and psychology, and I very rarely hear anyone complain about no one being a licensed mental health therapist or a therapist or a counselor in general. When it comes to these health coaches that are doing very and I'm not saying yay, nay, either way, but they are doing very much therapeutic work, especially when it comes to behavioral change and asking them and helping, encourage them to do that. Why do you think that that tends to be more acceptable versus, all of a sudden, we're talking about food and now you have to be licensed and if you're not, you're bad.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it just has to do with the people that are ultimately most affected, and so you know it's, once there's a lawsuit, you create a precedent, and that's one of the things that, when we think about legislation, it's really important for us to consider, and I don't think that psychologists are going out there and like prosecuting against you know, dietetic professionals, that when you think about like disordered eating behaviors, like oftentimes you will have to have a designation as a registered dietitian or an LMT to actually be able to reconcile some of those challenges that your clients are having. And so as far as why that doesn't happen, I actually can't speak to that. I've never looked into what the prevalence of that would be, but thank you for letting me know, because now I'm going to start prosecuting some dietitians.
Speaker 2:I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Not even dietitians, health coaches, are doing the same exact thing. Personal trainers, everyone Well, personal trainer might as well be your best friend, because you're going to pour your life out to them 100%.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because there's the commiserating right and, like you know, misery, love, shared company, and I think that a lot of it is really just taking into the gestalt perspective and that you can't really partition overlap and bleed over. And I think being a good professional is knowing when your scope of practice ends, where your competence ends, and ultimately, like what's going to draw out the healing process or the time to accomplish the goal longer, like you could. Sure anyone can figure out and I say anyone very loosely, but please understand this is tongue in cheek Anyone can figure out how to navigate PCOS and PCOS, for whatever reason, um is probably one of the most common things that we get asked about and I'm like that's not anyone's scope of practice. We're not going to address that. Here's some literature on it If you want to read about it. Here's some physicians that I suggest you meet with.
Speaker 3:But you know we we find that, um, it might take you 12 to 24 months to figure out that one clinical condition and like to somewhat know how to navigate around it, not even how to rectify it or resolve it, like you know, and we don't even know if that's necessarily something that can happen. And so when we consider that nature. It's like, isn't it a disservice, ethically, for you to then try to take on this potentially very robust milieu of what would be considered PCOS, whereas and you can just go find a and partner with a professional and have them help you navigate that in a three months time, you know? And so I think that there's a certain element of, of professional maturity that comes down to and this is one of the really cool things that I love about the majority of people that are well-established and tenured in their professions is that, like I don't know, You're like what do you mean?
Speaker 1:You?
Speaker 3:don't know, Like I don't know. Man, I don't have an answer for that one. You need to go find somebody to Google some shit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but now you see people that are trying to do everything. You see doctors trying to give advice. You see chiropractors trying to sell supplements and weight loss. So I mean I love people that say I don't know and I love being able to refer to someone that knows better. You know why not go to the expert source like you're talking about. But fortunately we have the other side of things, where there's so many people trying to be an expert on everything and I think it's challenging.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's no, that's a good point. And I have one final fun question for both of you. But before I get to that, a little, a little story about when I was a personal trainer as a grad student. So remember, this is back in the 1990s, when personal training wasn't you know a big thing, a whole different millennia. This is pre-internet personal training and this is this is why I got fed up with personal training.
Speaker 1:One, because I don't like most people, and two, they lie to you, but anyways, um, I had clients that were either they were really good clients, but they always seem to miss a payment or whatever, and it's like chasing money. But my best client in terms of payment, I mean she, in fact I charged her the most, she would pay always on time. I'd see her first thing in the morning and and a simple question so what'd you have for breakfast? She's like, well, you know, had oatmeal, had this and that, and I'm thinking, yeah, but your breath smells like whiskey. So she must've loved whiskey, because she always smelled like whiskey. So here she is telling me she eats oatmeal and I'm like, no, you're drinking whiskey in the morning. I mean, she was pencil thin and I'm thinking, okay, okay, this profession she. I know she's lying to me, but she shows up, she pays me, but she's still lying to me. She's a whiskey drinker, she's not an oatmeal eater. Um, so I'm like, oh my god, I can't really take this clients are a bunch of damn liars they are.
Speaker 1:I'm, I'm like okay, I don't know how much more of this I can take. So, segueing to what Cassie referred to, I have noticed a proliferation of people MDs and PhDs who are not formally trained in nutrition or exercise or supplements. They talk mostly about nutrition, exercise and supplements Because why? It's fun, it's interesting. Apparently, their original field is so boring that, hey, I can't talk about you know, cell biology or immunology, because most people don't give a shit, but they care about exercise and nutrition. What are your top line thoughts on that? Because now it seems like, wow, there's another new person talking about this who has literally no background in it talking about this, who has literally no background in it.
Speaker 3:Cassie, I'll turn it over to you first.
Speaker 2:My instant thought is I think that, especially in today's society, with a growing emphasis on health and wellness, and even from the vanity standpoint, right, people want abs, people want to look good.
Speaker 2:I mean, we see with Ozempic where, like, a large number of the people using Ozempic aren't even overweight or obese, right.
Speaker 2:So I think a perfect explanation or thought or solution to this would be doctors should stick to doctors and that personal trainers and nutritionists really maybe should be paid more and be more of a professional like a doctor, so they can actually do that and doctors can stick to doctoring. But that's not going to happen, obviously. So personal trainers are still going to be considered you know, personal trainers and not normally having a lot of education, but I feel like they should be the ones, because they really are the ones that are pushing health behaviors that are actually going to help people, versus not saying that pharmacology is bad, but, like you said, polypharma is very common. We don't know. Really, you can't, you can't guarantee the interaction once you're on more than three drugs, and so I really feel like people that are promoting these health behaviors should be more rewarded than than doctors not all doctors, but then some doctors that you know, general practitioners, surgeons, stick to surgery. So I think that would be an ideal solution, but not a realistic one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, andrew, you know, I think just kind of reviewing and kind of going back to what you were originally saying, in that I lost my train of thought. This happens sometimes, guys Buffering. But my point is, when I think about different grades of professionals, I mean, like obviously you don't want an 18-year-old kid slapping blood flow restriction cuffs on a 65 year old retirees leg that has some neuropathy in her feet, right, like there's something to that. You're like this sounds like a bad idea. And so when I think about medical professionals, I think that, oh, what I was going back to earlier is that a lot of people want to be so valuable to charge more money and then ultimately kind of achieve this financial outcome. And I seen that it seems like that's the thing that's lurking in the background. And most people, when they say they want to make a positive impact, they also want to get paid. And so when people start to think about the more robust of a problem I can solve, the more clients I can take in, well, chances are actually most full time coaches can only have no 25 to 35 clients sustainable anyway. And so I think about the physicians that are going in there and they have a very great working knowledge of pathophysiology leaving school.
Speaker 3:But I had one client. He was a medical provider and I love him. His name was Dan I'll never tell you his last name and Dan had the worst self-care as an internist, in fact, and he was. He worked in a hospital. He would never drink water and he would always come in and we would do like a couple of sets of bicep curls at the end and he would be dying from some bicep. I'm like Dan, like he's like. Why is this so hard? He was super skinny, super lean, right.
Speaker 3:But when we think about, a lot of people, rather than learning how to become truly masters of their craft, want to be perceived as more valuable, have more certifications, while the insecure people like me, and then what they want to do is charge more to, rather than getting really good and being known for one specific thing.
Speaker 3:And so when we look at industry leaders, they're usually known for being really good at one specific thing, not being a smorgasbord of random talents and odds and ends. And so what I would say to physicians is get good at dealing with pathophysiology and learning these complex conditions and then working on some of the communication aspects, bedside manner, how to actually influence behavior from the preventative side, while we work on increasing resiliency and basically improving people's ability to tolerate stress physically, mentally, from the fitness side. And I think that if we understand and respect those two lanes, then the entire industry will get better. But when everyone's trying to reach their hand out, put their hand in the cookie jar, get a bigger hand, so to speak, because now they have more certifications or they have more credentials or they're now more, you know, widely read in a lot of topics, I think that that really is more self-serving than it is industry serving in my experience.
Speaker 1:So you know, just get good at what you're doing. Jack of all trades, master of none, a hundred percent. Got to be master something, hey, um, we're we're running out of time, so tell the audience a little bit about where they can find information on the nutritional coaching Institute. Also, uh, you will be at ISSN. I assume I will be, yeah absolutely.
Speaker 3:Yes, I sure will be. It's like in six weeks, so that's really exciting to see all you guys again. Yeah, so if you guys have any questions, we actually have an internship program. We promote a research grant. We have a scholarship. We try to do a lot of stuff to really get back to the academic world and to take care of the next generation of people. You can go learn about all that stuff on ncicertificationscom and, by all means, poke around. If you want to email me, you can always email me as well, andrewatncicertificationscom as well, and I'm happy to facilitate. I really love working with early career professionals, people that are looking to break into the coaching industry more than the established people, if you already got your thing, cool. But if you want some help, you don't know where to go, don't know what certifications to look at to get started. I have made a lot of mistakes in that world, so I'm happy to help and contribute where I can.
Speaker 1:So hey, issn is a great place for that, because there's a lot of students, a lot of students might be interested in this.
Speaker 3:So that's so exciting.
Speaker 1:I'd love to mentor.
Speaker 3:I'm an NSCA mentor as well, so for those of you that are in that organization, I love to help the new kids.
Speaker 1:So whatever I can do to help, Well, thank you, Andrew, for being on the Sports Science Dudes.
Speaker 3:My pleasure. I really appreciate you guys having me.
Speaker 1:Cassie, thanks for filling in for Tony. Appreciate it.
Speaker 2:I think I'm more handsome than Tony.
Speaker 1:Well, I would agree. I would agree. We'll meet once again Bonita Springs, florida, june 18 to 20,. The International Society of Sports Nutrition. Andrew, thank you very much. This will be posted in a few days. And again, thanks for edifying the audience on the Nutritional Coaching Institute. Appreciate it. Thanks, guys. Thanks, we'll see y'all, see ya.