Episode 166: Hear from an FNA Student!
Are you interested in joining the next round of the Funk'tional Nutrition Academy in September, but what to hear what it's *really* like inside the practitioner training? Today Integrative & Functional Dietitian Chelsea Sanfilippo shares her experience of the past 6 months.
Learn More About Mindset & Functional Nutrition
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Erin Holt [00:00:02]:
Welcome to the Funk'tional Nutrition podcast. I'm your host, Erin Holt. I'm a functional medicine nutritionist with a feisty attitude and over a decade of clinical experience. I work with women all over the world through my online programs, and I'm also the founder of the Funk'tional Nutrition Academy, a twelve month practitioner mentorship where I help other nutrition pros level up with functional medicine methodologies. I've got a bone to pick with diet culture and the conventional healthcare model that are both systematically failing so many of us. Creating a new model is my life's work and this is what the show is all about. Please keep in mind this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment. If you like what you hear today, I'd love for you to subscribe, leave a review in iTunes, share with a friend, and keep coming back for more. Thanks for joining me.
Erin Holt [00:00:58]:
Now let's dive deep.
Erin Holt [00:01:02]:
Hey, friends. I'm coming to you with a quickie today. This is for those who are interested in the Funk'tional Nutrition Academy. We opened up registration to practitioners Monday morning. Within 24 hours, we had half the seats filled, which is so incredible. And I want if you're listening to this and you've already signed up, I want you to know that we celebrated you. The funniest thing, my husband Scott set up the Funk'tional Nutrition Academy website and he must have used his email. So now whenever we get a purchase made through the website, he gets notified into his Apple Watch.
Erin Holt [00:01:38]:
So literally, we celebrate you. Like, there is the whole Holt family. The whole Holt household celebrates every single person that signs up as you sign up. So I just want you to know that that is happening. It makes me laugh every time, but I don't want to change it because it's so fun. So we are celebrating you. Anyway, quite a few people reached out because they wanted to hear the experience of people in the actual program. So today we have a short 13 minutes conversation with Chelsea Sanfilippo.
Erin Holt [00:02:11]:
She's currently an FNA student. She is an integrative and functional dietitian, and she is @gut.hormone.nutritionist on Instagram. Here's what she had to say about her experience in the Funk'tional Nutrition Academy, and I hope this helps you make your decision. If you're listening to this in real time, I want to let everybody know that we extended the early bird pricing, $500 off. That is both for the pay in full and the payment plan price. We've extended that through the end of today, midnight tonight, Eastern time. So would love to have you in the program. Here's what Chelsea has to say.
Erin Holt [00:02:50]:
Okay. Hello, friends. I opened up the Funk'tional Nutrition Academy two days ago Monday morning. And so this is going to be a video with Chelsea Sanfilippo by request. People have requested they want to hear from people in the actual program. So Chelsea, who's an integrative and functional Rd, is going to come on if I can figure this out, Chelsea, you might need to request in. Let's see if I can figure this out. Oh, you did.
Erin Holt [00:03:27]:
In the first 24 hours of opening up registration, we filled up half the spots, which is bananas. Hey, there you are. Hi, how are you?
Chelsea Sanfilippo [00:03:37]:
I'm good. Can you hear me okay?
Erin Holt [00:03:39]:
Oh, yeah.
Chelsea Sanfilippo [00:03:40]:
All right, great.
Erin Holt [00:03:41]:
We have dogs barking in the background. Anyway, so I was saying that we filled up half the spots the first 24 hours, and then today at 11:00 a.m., in an hour, 11:00 a.m. Eastern time, we're going to do a live stream. So in order to get access to that, just make sure that you fill out the application form and we'll get you all set up. So, Chelsea, I was just giving you a little intro. Chelsea is you can see her handle @gut.hormone.nutritionist. And I just want to chat with you a little bit about your experience in FNA because obviously you're going to have different things to say than I might. So we can start it off with what made you sign up.
Erin Holt [00:04:18]:
So maybe I should say Chelsea's in the second cohort. So she's currently in month six of the program. So what made you sign up for the Funk'tional Nutrition Academy, and did you have any hesitation? Did you have any obstacles that you had to overcome before saying yes?
Chelsea Sanfilippo [00:04:33]:
Yeah, I definitely did. I actually had to have a discussion with my husband because I was like, it is a lot of money, obviously. So everyone I think not everyone, but I think a lot of people are going to think about that. They're going to come in thinking, okay, well, is this a smart decision? Should I make this leap? So for me, I just thought, like, okay, this is for my career, Erin's awesome. Like, what drew me to this program was actually you Erin like, I just liked your philosophy so much. It really resonated with me. It also was because nutrition is more my jam.
Chelsea Sanfilippo [00:05:10]:
And I love functional medicine, the Institute of Functional Medicine, I've been doing their advanced trainings, and they're awesome, but I feel like it's more geared towards doctors, for example, or nurse practitioners. And I was like when I looked into this program, and I kind of went through all the things that you kind of told me were going to be in the modules, and you kind of gave us a list of ideas in the agenda that we're going to go through or the curriculum, I guess, is a better term. I was just like, okay, this seems like it fits better with nutrition, people who are in nutrition and practitioners who are not, maybe on that doctor level. And so I just felt like this is a better route for me to go, even though I do the IFM I just felt like I needed more from a nutrition lens. And I just really liked your philosophy, honestly, because there's so many programs out there, and I've struggled a lot between the weight stuff and I felt like you really understood it and you were coming from a place of more like a middle ground, because I feel like there's those two extremes, and so that really resonated with me. And I wanted that support from you. And I liked the check ins. There's just, like, so much I could say, I'm not going to go on and on.
Chelsea Sanfilippo [00:06:33]:
But that's all that went through my mind when I decided to make the decision. And when I looked at the price, I was like, you can't really put a price on all of that. I feel like it is worth all of that. And my husband, when I asked him about it, he's like, well, if it's for your career, yeah, do it. He didn't hesitate to say yes. So I'm happy I did it and I've got so much out of it. But I'll let you ask more questions and not ramble too much.
Erin Holt [00:07:00]:
Yeah, that's really helpful to hear. And I think that the price is something that people have to consider. And I'll be very transparent in that. I did not set out to create the cheapest functional nutrition program. I set out to create the most comprehensive. I set out to create something that hadn't been done before. And if somebody's price shopping, if somebody's looking for the cheapest program, this isn't going to be it. And I'm pretty open about that.
Erin Holt [00:07:25]:
Now, you were trained conventionally as a dietitian. Did you have a hard time making the transition into more of the functional kind of philosophy?
Chelsea Sanfilippo [00:07:44]:
Yes and no, because my background, I went to Bastyr University, so that is a holistic health university. And that's what I did for my nutrition master's program. So I had a little trickling of that. It wasn't like full functional medicine, but it is very holistic. And looking at all did not I can tell you guys that what you get in Erin's program is much deeper, in fact, deeper than what I would get in my graduate program as far as analyzing labs, understanding labs, seeing all the case studies. It's very helpful.
Chelsea Sanfilippo [00:08:28]:
And going through those, the functional medicine part, I think that's the big piece is getting to that route, diving so deep, understanding that, and looking at it through different people, different lenses of people. So, yeah, I think that is something that I'm always going to have to be working on because I still work in a conventional setting, so I can't do all the tests in my conventional setting that I'm working in. I can't do all that, but I can in the private setting. So it's something, yes, I'm always working through, but I still think it doesn't really matter even if you're in a conventional setting, I still think this program is super valuable. And I can tell you my angle on why I think that is because for me, the program was more about practitioner believing in yourself, you know what I mean? Getting feeling confident, doing things like lives, which by the way, I've never done a live with someone else before, done my own, but I would have probably not done that for a long time without Erin. So it's not really all about the materials and conventional versus functional. There's so much more to this program. But I will say that I felt like it has made it easier for me to integrate functional nutrition, for me to understand it, for me to adopt it coming from that lens.
Chelsea Sanfilippo [00:09:56]:
And I still think even if you're in a conventional setting like I am now, whether you're nutrition or whatever type of practitioner that you might be, because there's all sorts of people in it, I still think you can utilize everything in here. And if you want to do the testing, you could obviously do that privately or you could do it through a doctor or someone else. So there's not really a limitation. I don't feel like it really matters if you work conventional side, you can still bring all of this in.
Erin Holt [00:10:26]:
One of the things, whenever I'm creating any program that includes the CCP, the YHR, that includes FNA, I always set the intention that every participant is going to get exactly what they need out of that. And that's not really for me to determine. We all come to things with different playing fields, different backgrounds and different needs and different goals and different visions for ourselves. And so I thought when you and I were talking, when you sent me an email, I thought it was really cool to hear your biggest takeaway. You said it helped you believe more in yourself. It was really the confidence and I just think that that's really awesome. Another thing that you said that jumped out at me was that you wrote seeing fellow colleagues in the program doing things really has inspired you to do the same. And I want to highlight that because as women, we tend to be pitted against each other.
Erin Holt [00:11:17]:
And the lie that we've been taught and that many of us buy into is that success is finite and there's not a ton to go around. And if you being successful, Chelsea, takes away from my success or the availability that success or that I have to success. And that's not true. And so there's so much competition or there's so much potential for competition in different fields. And I just love that you said that, because you're not looking at fellow colleagues as competitors, you're looking to them as inspiration. You're like, hey, they can do it, I can do this too. And that makes me so happy because we need more of that. And I'm just really glad that that has been your experience in FNA.
Chelsea Sanfilippo [00:12:01]:
Yeah, absolutely. I think the colleagues are awesome. And I can tell you just because there's been people that I've connected with in the program and we're know thousands of miles away from each other, right. And that's really a great thing because Erin has created this community, too, of people who are super smart, super right, and they want to help each other. And a lot of us, I think, that are in this, those are the type of people that are in this program. They care about other people, other women. They want to support other women because it's for mostly women, all women, right. And so I found that the practitioners that are in the program to be very inspiring, very supportive and helpful.
Chelsea Sanfilippo [00:12:45]:
You ask a question and someone usually answers it. In the Facebook group or wherever. On my Instagram, I've even had other colleagues, I myself have felt this like, when I see them do something, I'm like, oh yeah, okay, I'm going to do it. But then they've actually messaged me and told me like, oh, I've been so scared to do a live. And you probably don't know this, Erin, because you're not in our messages, but some of them have messaged me and told me that they've been so scared to do a live, but they're like, OK, I'm going to do one now. And I'll tell them like, yeah, go do it, you can do it. And then they do so, like, that's the kind of stuff that's happening even that Erin doesn't even know about that's happening.
Erin Holt [00:13:24]:
That is so awesome and it's so nice to hear and to see that camaraderie. I don't want to keep you too long. I know you have an entire work day to get to. I just want to know what's on the horizon for you. What are your personal, professional next steps? Where can people find more of you? What do you have going on?
Chelsea Sanfilippo [00:13:43]:
Well, they can find more of me here at Gut Hormone Nutritionist. I also have a website that is oh, did I type it in here? I don't know. I also have a website that is Guthormonehealth.com, so you can go on there and look around. But I'm still getting my feet wet, so I'm still getting started on the business, that's all. I guess that's the best place to find me for now. I have a Facebook page, too, Gut Hormone Health, if anyone wants to check that out. But I spend most of my time on Instagram right now and eventually I'm going to open up programs and stuff that's on the horizon one day. But right now, I'm just like taking my time, getting used to all the business stuff and learning from Erin and building my confidence.
Chelsea Sanfilippo [00:14:31]:
So thank you for letting me do that today and be on here my first ever live with someone else.
Erin Holt [00:14:40]:
It's such a pleasure to watch you really come out of your shell. And one thing that I'll say that I think you're a shining example of, and I just get very excited. It's like I can see you take ideas and then kind of put your own spin on them. And I think that's, like, the number one thing that we could hope for when we go through any program, when we have any type of mentor. The goal is never to become your mentor 2.0 or like, some half baked version of your mentor. It's to glean the information and to run it through your own filters and then figure out, how am I going to package this up in a way that feels right and true to me. And I think you're just such a shining example of that. And I love to watch what you do and what you're putting out there.
Erin Holt [00:15:18]:
It's super fun.
Chelsea Sanfilippo [00:14:31]:
That's so nice, because that is my fear of I'm like, oh, my God. I don't want to say it the same way. I don't want to steal someone's idea. That is my fear, that I'm going to do that on accident, because sometimes you see so much, it's all kind of almost subliminal. Like, you see it and you're like, oh, my God, did I just steal someone else's thing? Did I just do the same thing? So I do have a fear of that. I am working on that, and I think your program is definitely helping me with that, for sure. But I always try to be mindful of that, so hopefully I don't. But Erin has never said Erin's so supportive.
Chelsea Sanfilippo [00:15:53]:
She always just cheers us on and so do the other people. So that's just like an internal thing that I always felt. So that means a lot that you said that. Thank you so much.
Erin Holt [00:16:03]:
Oh, well, keep doing your thing. I'm excited to watch you grow. And thank you for joining us here.
Chelsea Sanfilippo [00:16:07]:
Thanks so much. Bye. Hope you guys all join. Seriously, it's totally worth it. Worth every penny.
Erin Holt [00:16:13]:
I hope you bye.
Erin Holt [00:15:52]:
If you want to learn more about the Funk'tional Nutrition Academy Practitioner Training program, head to funktionalnutritionacademy.com. Funk'tional is spelt with a K just like this podcast.
Erin Holt [00:16:27]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Funk'tional Nutrition Podcast. If you'd like to submit a question to the show, fill out the contact form at erinholthealth.com. If you got something from today's show, don't forget subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and keep coming back for more. Take care of you.
