Hope everyone is well!

I wanted to write to let everyone know that after a few years of “waiting for the right time”, I am taking the leap and following through with my promise – I AM GOING BACK TO SCHOOL GUYS!

Last week I attended the University of Bridgeport’s Graduate Admissions Open House, and I walked away from it as an official Human Nutrition, M.S. applicant!
I will know whether I have been accepted into the program within the next week or so.
The next 2.5 years of my life are going to be crazy but I am so ready for it right now. The past 2 months have completely transformed me, and now I am sitting here with a big red RESET button in front of me – I’m pressing it.

It is my goal is become a Certified Nutrition Specialist and practice functional & holistic medical nutrition therapy after graduation! I would love to have my own nutrition practice that also integrates specialized fitness programming delivered by an elite group of specialized trainers.

L O A D I N G . . . 

For most of this year, I have been spinning my wheels, trying to understand myself and where I am going. I felt very unfulfilled. I felt like I was falling behind. I felt overworked, inadequate, and obsolete. And the worst part of it all is that I lost my confidence.

This is not who I am. I think subconsciously my body knew what was wrong, but it was like my brain was blocking me from accepting the truth of reality – I was holding myself back from achieving my full potential. And when I figured it out, I also discovered that the people who have been in my life the longest have felt this way about my situation for a.long.time.

Amanda Bucci said, “…the people you aspire to be like were just like you, and then they started confronting their fears. They started stepping outside of their comfort zone.
They said yes to that opportunity.
They did the inner work that had to be done while they were going through a hard time in order for them to come out stronger on the other side…”.
Anyone interested in watching the entire video can click here! I highly recommend taking 4 minutes out of your day to watch it.

Someone recently shared with me a quote from Will Smith that I will be keeping with me these days, “God placed the best things in life on the other side of fear”. I am the most scared and vulnerable that I have felt ever or at least in a long time. Or maybe back when I thought I was most scared that this is even more overwhelming. But even so, I know that this feeling of fear that I have, I must cling to it and hold on to it through the fire to achieve my vision of success.

I want to help people heal from Gut Dysbiosis. I am confident that my own experience paired with my upcoming education will be the perfect combination. I want to help change and shape the nutritional landscape of America. I want to help educate people that taking care of their bodies through nutrition is the key to evading disease, and I want to do it with a common sense approach that steers folks away from fad, bullshit yo-yo diets. I want to teach lifelong sustainability to moms and dads and I want them to teach their children how to eat and stay active. I want a legacy of health.

So here is where I am starting..

At the beginning of April I enrolled in a Sports Nutrition & Coaching certification through Precision Nutrition.  Co-founded by Dr. John Berardi, I am super excited that I have access to a credible certification program that will springboard me into my graduate program. My PN1 certification is providing me with a solid basis in nutrition education that is extracted from university level Master’s & PhD programs, AND the Art of Coaching. I am about a quarter way through the program and should have this completed by no later than September as long as I keep myself on track!

I have learned SO MUCH already – what the metabolism actually is, how our body’s break down different macronutrients, how our cells absorb molecules from our food and convert it into energy,  and even how all 25 feet of our digestive system plays a role in nutrient absorption and keeping your body functioning! I am working so hard to soak all of it up like a sponge so that I can apply it.

In Conclusion

I know this is a little bit of a different kind of post today, but I hope that you enjoyed it and might be looking forward to following my journey. I plan on documenting client nutrition and new concepts that I learn during my education.

Ultimately my goal from day one has been to help people find relief from painful, uncomfortable, and mentally taxing gut troubles that I too have personally experienced and still work daily to maintain peace.

But I am ready to kick it up a notch and take this to the next step. I want to be THE RESOURCE you look to when you think of gut health in the future.

Thanks for reading – I am looking forward to having you along for the ride.

XO Steph <3