I am a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner (NTP) as well as an Assistant Professor of Music at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. I specialize in helping other busy musicians take control of their health through nutrition and lifestyle support. I work together with my clients to improve energy levels and endurance, reduce dietary-related performance anxiety, and bolster immunity to increase resistance to contagious infections. As an NTP, I utilize a 5-step process to deliver personalized nutritional therapy.
- Initial Interview – My client and I get to know each other and we go over health history and current goals.
- Nutritional Assessment Questionnaire (NAQ) – This is a 321-question tool that helps me to understand what symptoms are causing my client concern and to triangulate which bodily systems may need nutritional support.
- Food and Mood Journal – My client records daily dietary choices and any significant mood or digestive changes.
- Functional Evaluation (FE) and Lingual-Neuro Testing (LNT) – This is a physical examination where I palpate different points on my client’s body to get more information about which bodily systems may need more nutritional support. The LNT process helps me to determine which nutrients in food your body needs in order to function more optimally.
- Follow-Up Sessions – Depending on the service that my client purchases, I offer continued support through email, phone, or in-person follow-up sessions in order to track progress and provide advice, information, and encouragement to continue on the path towards health.
Please contact me through this form if you would like to set up a free, 20-minute exploratory session on the phone or in person.
Why I Do What I Do:
I grew up having relatives suffer health problems. My grandfather died of a blood clot when I was about five years old. I still remember the trip out to Iowa for his funeral. I didn’t really know what was going on, but I think I sensed the general mood of everyone around me. It was one of the few times I can remember “throwing a fit” and crying a lot as a child.
A few years later, my grandmother died from Alzheimer’s Disease after suffering for many years. I never knew how she was like before the onset of the disease. To me, she was a confused and increasingly helpless elderly lady.
My aunt died of leukemia a few years after my grandmother succumbed. I remember being very uncomfortable and somewhat frightened of the hospital (and of her bald head) when we would visit her during her last days. I always smiled and pretended like nothing was wrong so that she wouldn’t know I was so uncomfortable. I still remember the day my uncle Mike called the house to tell the news of Aunt Lillian’s passing. My older brother and I were playing computer games upstairs and my mom answered the phone downstairs. I heard her gasp and immediately knew what had happened. I looked at my brother and he knew too. He tried to distract me by redirecting my attention to the computer game. At her funeral, my dad spoke about his sister and cried. It was – and still is – the only time I have ever seen him cry.
My uncle died of cancer several years later. They attributed it to the years of smoking during his youth. Uncle Jim and I shared a love of music and piano, a bond that I did not have with any other family member.
Another aunt is living with diabetes and heart disease. Another uncle is recovering from a blood clot in his lung and melanoma excision. My mother was just diagnosed with osteoporosis. And I haven’t even begun to describe any of my wife’s family, many of whom suffer from diabetes and heart disease.
I always thought my passion for nutrition started in high school when I was a skinny basketball player desperate to find a way to build muscle so that I could survive guarding corn-fed behemoths from rival high school teams. My dad gave me a bodybuilding book entitled Natural Hormonal Enhancement that taught me the first things I learned about insulin, glucose, and body chemistry. But looking back on all of the grief during my childhood, I think I now know that my intense interest in nutrition stems from a desire to do anything possible to make sure that the rest of my family nor I will suffer from any more senseless health problems.
Usually people have personal health challenges that lead them into nutrition as a way to heal themselves. I have always considered myself a “healthy” person. But looking back I was indeed a pretty unhealthy kid, suffering from chronic ear infections, seasonal allergies, allergy-induced asthma, and severe back acne. To quote Joel Salatin: “Folks, this ain’t normal!” Over many years of reading, listening to the radio, and pondering, I have come to realize that much of the suffering is avoidable. After changing my diet to mostly eat real instead of processed foods, I hardly ever get sick, allergies symptoms have become much less severe, and my lungs and skin are healthy. I am a musician and another benefit of dietary change has been a dramatic reduction in performance anxiety. I have a friend who was told he would be in a wheelchair the rest of his life due to multiple sclerosis. But through diet and lifestyle change, he now enjoys full mobility, has very rare flare ups, and is happier than ever. There are different ways of doing things and we have more power to control the direction of our lives than it sometimes seems. My mission is to spread this experience, knowledge, and encouragement to anyone who will listen!
My Background:
I grew up in Eugene, Oregon (Go Ducks!) and then attended Willamette University in Salem, OR for an undergraduate degree in Music and Physics. My senior thesis project in Physics was to build a theremin electronic musical instrument and you can see the soundwave of it in my logo. After graduating, my next stop was Madison, Wisconsin, where I completed two graduate degrees in music – a Master of Music in Piano Performance and a Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance and Pedagogy. Madison was also where I met my wonderful wife Rosemary. I now live in Indiana, Pennsylvania and am a part-time Assistant Professor in the Department of Music at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. It has been an exciting four years so far. My duties include teaching private piano lessons, accompanying choirs, directing the pit orchestra for musicals, and occasionally teaching classes of up to 125 students music appreciation.
I am also obviously very passionate about nutrition. I have always been curious about what the best things to eat are, how food affects how we feel, and the connection between health problems and diet. I read my first nutrition book – Natural Hormonal Enhancement by Rob Faigin – in high school. I was, and still am, a skinny guy and the book offered hope of building some muscle so that I could compete better on the high school basketball team. For some reason, I always ended up guarding the behemoths from the opposing teams that outweighed me by 100 pounds! Not only was Natural Hormonal Enhancement about bodybuilding, but it also contained a great, well-researched section on biochemistry. Reading that book was the first time I learned about insulin, glucagon, and our blood sugar regulating system, and it helped me develop both a curiosity and a deep appreciation for the human body. My next inspiration came several years later after hearing Nora Gedgaudas, author of Primal Fat Burner, on my favorite radio program Coast to Coast AM. She was so knowledgeable and inspiring that I started reading nutrition books nonstop.
Here are some great books I have enjoyed over the last few years:
Primal Fat Burner – Nora Gedgaudas
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration – Weston A. Price
Healthy Gut, Healthy You – Michael Ruscio
The Big Fat Surprise – Nina Teicholz
Eat Fat, Lose Fat – Mary Enig, Sally Fallon
Nourishing Traditions – Sally Fallon
Know Your Fats – Mary Enig
A New Path – Arthur Haines
Antifragile – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The Vaccine-Friendly Plan – Paul Thomas
The Omnivore’s Dilemma – Michael Pollan
The Untold Story of Milk – Ron Schmid
Epi-paleo Rx – Jack Kruse
Wild Fermentation – Sandor Katz
Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself – Joe Dispenza
When the Body Says No – Gabor Mate
Unconventional Medicine – Chris Kresser
Why Stomach Acid is Good for You – Wright and Lenard
Here is some great music that I enjoy listening to:
- Classical – Rachmaninoff, Beethoven, contemporary composers, music of Norway, music of Africa and the African diaspora, music for clarinet and piano
- Jazz – Snarky Puppy, Bob James, Oscar Peterson, Herbie Hancock
- Gospel – Kirk Franklin, Hezekiah Walker, James Cleveland, Fred Hammond, Donnie McClurkin, Mary Mary, Rance Allen
- Pop/Rock/Soul/Disco/Country – Rush, Toto, Steely Dan, Chicago, Cat Stevens, John Prine, D’Angelo, ABBA, C.W. McCall
- Rap – DJ Quik, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, The Game, Big K.R.I.T.