ISSA CFT (Certified Fitness Trainer) Course

[Omek]

I just enrolled in the home-study CFT program for ISSA a few months ago to become a personal trainer. I'm nearly done with the workbook and the reading. Just recently, I got to the nutrition section where they seem to refer to vegan and vegetarian lifestyles in a negative context. They don't say that it's necessarily horrible, but they tend to favor diets with whey protein and other animal products.

Has anyone used this program before? It's rather discouraging and frustrating when I'm really trying to learn some good training and nutrition techniques. Should I just ignore their nutrition section? They have a lot of thoroughly researched studies to back up their statements, but they ignore vegans and vegetarians altogether. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[deavman]

I understand your pain. As someone who has been vegan for many years, I had to go recently through the certification process. The nutrition section was horrendous for the utter ignorance the so-called nutritionist displayed. When we got to the vegetarian/ vegan issue, she claimed that although a vegetarian diet (with emphasis on eggs, milk and other supplements) was sufficient, a vegan diet had no standing to be discussed because it was a philosophical issue, not a scientific one.
I dropped out of the course nutrition section (in the middle of the first lesson) for obvious reasons. I was not penalized but when I took the nutrition test, I passed with only a 75% mark. I knew it was because I had different opinions on the mantra taught in those courses. My request for review was denied.

So I guess you probably should take everything with a grain of salt and pass the test according to their version of reality... unfortunately.

[Pete]

I've done this course. I basically spent an age digging up studies debunking their views & said things like "...although it is commonly believed that this is the case, the actual research points more towards this (& bunged in the relevant research)...". I would only suggest that if a person was not so concerned with the qualification though!
This dietary advice is a common theme in all personal training courses I believe, as I've yet to hear of a good one!
Luckily my examiner(s?) were ok & actually sent a note along saying how although they'd read many papers & much research they'd not come across my research before & I got 90-odd % (apparently some of my answers were illegible (curse of being left handed I suppose).
I'd suggest you're probably more likely to pass if you 'play the game' & the alternative means spending a LONG time digging through pubmed, emailing researchers, vegan nutritonists & doctors as well as making sure you've REALLY covered all your bases...& even then, if you get the wrong examiner, you'd still fail because you didn't give the text book answers (it may also have helped me that I run vegan bodybuilding, & I'm one of the few UK ISSA trainers? Anyway, I won't be doing ANYTHING nutrition related with them again, too much hard work having to fight the system.
Oh yea & one of my final question was "How would you plan a vegan strength athletes diet". I kid you not!
If you want to chat a bit more email me pete@veganbodybuilding.org