Before I took the MV Viome Nutrition Coach Certification program, I was already a health, fitness, and nutrition coach and was feeling pretty good in my body. (See my before photo attached)
I joined the program because I wanted to learn more about Precision Nutrition and how the technology worked and how effective it was to catch diseases before they manifested as symptoms.
I was not disappointed.
Learning about Metatranscriptomics and its measurement of RNA activities was a game changer. Nutrition tailored to individual needs really can be done. As a nutrition coach, I have always provided lots of guidance and info on nutrition for my clients. However, I could never be exact because everyone's biochemistry is unique. My clients would work with me and we would use different methods to test and find out which foods worked for them. Those methods always took time. ex. Elimination diet or allergy tests or journaling.
Viome's Full Body Intelligence Test took the guesswork out and provided a list of Superfoods, Enjoy foods, Minimize foods, and Avoid foods tailored to each person's specific microbiome needs. They also confirmed to me what I was suspicious of with my genetic predisposition from my family history (heart disease.) Even though I was healthy and fit with normal biomarker measurements (glucose and blood pressure), it told me that my LDL pathway was not optimized, plus a few other pathways needing improvement.
I was consuming a lot of 'healthy' fats prior to the test, thinking they were healthy so I would eat as much as I wanted. I ate organic and local foods. I was active. I mediated. I had a great social network. Everything that one would associate with a healthy lifestyle. However, the test confirmed otherwise. I needed to avoid these fats so that my LDL pathway could improve, because I was genetically predisposed.
Everyone's score is different. It really depends on your genetic heritage, your environment, your lifestyle, and what medications you may already be taking. And just because you are genetically predisposed to something, it doesn't mean that gene will be expressed. Your environment, especially the foods you consume, can affect it.
The Viome app is so handy when I go grocery shopping or to restaurants and have to double-check whether these food items are on my Enjoy or Minimize list.
Weight loss was not my goal for joining the certification. As a fitness coach, I thought my weight would maintain pretty much the same, because I was fit and had high energy all day. It's been 6 weeks since I followed the Viome food recommendations to about 95% of the time, and I've lost 2 pounds without reducing caloric intake or working out extra hard.
The good news is that my Viome results showed that my biological age is younger by 6 years than my chronological age. YEAH! :) So all the 'health practices' that I've incorporated into my life are working. I just needed to fine-tune further.
If you are someone looking to take a proactive approach and to prevent disease from happening in the first place and wanting to know which foods work with your specific microbiome, I highly recommend the MV Viome Nutrition Coach Certification Program.