“What I do know about nutrition came from years of experience but something else too.”
Someone emailed in recently and asked a question about nutrition. This person identified as a beginner regarding fitness and considered themselves a hardgainer. I can already tell you right now that this individual probably has what it takes to achieve great things physically and reach most of the goals they set for themselves. The fact that they were emailing me, seeking out advice, and doing their research extensively, likely puts them in the 1% of beginners.
They were simply overwhelmed by the information they’d found on the topic of fitness and nutrition, and asked me to clarify some basics of nutrition. They had an understanding of how much protein they should consume but began to lose their way when it came to carbohydrates, fats, micronutrients, and more.
I gave them some personal one-on-one advice, with the best recommendations I could, but I also had to make it very clear that I am not a nutritionist. I’m just a guy who has zero degrees in nutrition or anything else for that matter.
What I do know about nutrition came from years of experience but something else too. You can google all you want but you’re likely going to be overwhelmed or exhausted from sifting through all the crap articles with contradicting advice. The “something else” is nutrition courses.
Most of us don’t have the time, money, or the privilege to take on courses at a university or college where attendance is necessary and you have to not only pass midterms and exams but prep and study for them too. Especially if the only motivation for the course is personal knowledge. There are a bunch of very good, very thorough free courses online. And some of them come directly from some of the biggest, most renowned schools in the world.
Hey, I’m not trying to sell you anything. These courses are free. I’ve composed a small list of five free nutrition courses you can take online, today, to make you smarter and help you make gains.
Stanford Introduction to food and health
Coursera.com is a website that offers hundreds of courses that you can complete from home and many of which are entirely free to take.
One of those courses is the Stanford Introduction to Food and Health, by Stanford University. I completed this course myself and can personally advocate for its clean and comprehensible delivery of nutrition fundamentals and even includes a cooking workshop in the final module.
This course has four sections, all of which are completed upon passing a quiz. The sections are titled: Background on Food and Nutrients, Contemporary Trends in Eating, Future Directions in Health- Part I, and Future Directions in Health- Part II. Each section is a mix of reading material and videos, and as I mentioned previously, ends with a quiz on said material. Each section should take about an hour to complete.
Follow this link if you would like to enroll in the course. Like I promised, it’s entirely free. All you have to do is make a free account on the site.
Diploma in Human Nutrition
Similar to Coursera, Alison.com offers free courses with paid options. Alison has many nutrition courses to choose from, some branching off into health, business, and personal development.
These courses are free, but you’ll have to put up with advertisements. Also, completing the course will not actually result in a diploma, obviously.
Most of the nutrition courses on Alison are very short. For example, the Human Health- Diet and Nutrition course has three modules and can be completed in a day.
However, the Diploma in Human Nutrition is actually a robust 10-15 hour course covering topics like protein synthesis, lipids, macronutrient metabolism, vitamins and minerals, and more.
The Diploma in Human Nutrition is one of the few free courses on Alison where you will be rewarded with a certificate entirely for free.
Follow this link to go straight to the course, or follow this link to visit all of the nutrition courses on Alison.com.
Diet and Nutrition (Short Course)
This course is offered at eLearningcollege.com. This is a short one, in fact, you can probably finish it in two hours if you’re a quick reader. However, the reading material is thorough and quite good, to be honest.
100% free as long as you make an account, there is only one module in the course and it is a free PDF download. Once you’ve read through the PDF you can take the course exam and earn yourself a certificate of completion upon passing.
The course is rated 4.4/5 and covers various topics such as key nutrients, nutrition and human health, and more.
Here is the link if you would like to check out the course.
Nutrition: Vitamins and Minerals
This free course is offered at open.edu and covers a more specific area of nutrition: vitamins and minerals. It goes over the two main groups of vitamins: fat-soluble and water-soluble, as well as the effect they have on the body such as the fluid balance of the body.
They rate this course a level 1: Introductory, and estimate about ten hours of study. You will earn yourself a certificate of completion, which is nice, but not a formal certification of any kind.
This kind, of course, can be very beneficial for a hardgainer looking to dabble into the world of supplements. A lot of the supplements on store shelves make bold claims right on the label. Remember, labels are not accurate, especially on these kinds of products. That “increased muscle mass” claim could be backed by a small study impossible to replicate and funded by the supplement company themselves.
This kind of course, focusing on vitamins and minerals can educate an individual and help one avoid falling into a supplement trap.
Visit this link to see the course and enroll for free.
Introduction to Nutrition and Food Safety
You’ll find this course over at futurelearn.com. This is a four-week course requiring two hours of study per week. Four main topics are covered: Nutrition and longevity, Nutrition in adulthood, Pesticide residue in food, and Food adulteration and inspection.
This is an introductory course, meaning that it will cover fundamentals and the basics of nutrition. A certificate upon completion is available only once you pay for an upgrade, however, the course itself is free to take.
Futurelearn offers other benefits such as offering a mixture of reading material and video content as well as adding a social aspect to the course by allowing the student to interact with classmates and discuss the course material.
The course is developed by Taipei Medical University and proved to be very thorough and quite engaging.
Click here to check out the course page and enroll for free.
There you have it, smart gainers. Five free nutrition courses to get you started in the world of healthy eating and continuous gains.
All these courses offer robust and trustworthy material. Now, when you come across some poorly executed article you found on google suggesting that eating more than one egg a week will explode your cholesterol- you can shut it down with your nutritional knowledge.
Thank you for making it to the end of the article, I appreciate you taking the time to read this. If you want to support me or support the website, consider sharing this post or telling your friends about us.