About The Centre For

Sports Nutrition

CISN (the Centre for Integrative Sports Nutrition) was created to train and mentor exercise and nutrition professionals to nourish an athlete’s health and performance through an expansive way of integrative thinking.

Why we are different

At CISN we believe that if a sportsperson is to achieve their performance goals, they firstly need to aspire towards optimal health. This foundation focus on personalised health is one of the primary factors that makes us different from other sports nutrition education providers.

Central to our attention is the individual and their environment. We don’t just follow a strategy that’s designed for the ‘average’ athlete, because we know that the people in our care are all outliers in one way or another!

CISN bridges the gap between two very separate disciplines: conventional sports nutrition, sometimes called performance nutrition, and the integrative, or functional, approach in nutrition and health.

sports nutrition

About us

An active individual has many extra nutritional requirements in order to achieve peak conditions. Therefore, in order to support optimal performance, we must consider their macro and micronutrient requirements for competitive gain, as well as the most appropriate fuelling strategies. In addition to these traditional teachings of sport and performance nutrition, within integrative sports nutrition we integrate a body systems approach to an athlete’s health, reminiscent of that found in the teachings of integrative and functional medicine, plus nutritional therapy.

We respect the interconnectivity of the body systems and incorporate this integrative thinking into our teaching. As such, we encourage our practitioners to promote optimal wellbeing with their clients: not just to maximise their performance for one race, one competition, or one season. But to perform well, for life.

Instead of focusing solely on performance and fuelling strategies, we always seek to build and restore health. We always ask ‘why’. We zoom out and look at the bigger picture. After all, health feeds performance is our central ethos.

As inferred, we take the words ‘balance’ and ‘individuality’ very seriously. Some of the common complaints we see in our athletes without the right support include adrenal fatigue, overtraining, chronic fatigue syndrome, autoimmunity, and even premature ageing. Therefore, we must help our athletes find balance within their individual dietary and lifestyle patterns if they are to avoid overtraining, and instead enjoy a long and healthy sporting career.

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In view of our integrative approach in the evaluation of peak performance, we also consider:

History

In 2007 Ian Craig was asked to put together and deliver a postgraduate module called ‘The Competitive Athlete’ as part of the Centre for Nutrition Education and Lifestyle Management’s (CNELM) Masters degree.

At the time, he could not find a suitable textbook for the course, so he set about bringing together the principles from functional medicine and conventional sports nutrition teachings, and delivered his findings in a five-day course.

Since that time Ian has developed and delivered an exciting range of courses, edited the Functional Sports Nutrition magazine for 12 years, built up his own successful private clinic, and created and led several ‘functional’ sports conferences and courses, in the process becoming an expert leader in his field.

This career of integrative thinking and mentoring culminated in the launch of CISN in 2018, which has since diversified towards our current portfolio of courses.

Vision and values

We teach practitioners, who are working with athletes (elite and recreational), to focus on integrative and individualised health, which underpins our athletes’ physical, physiological, and psychological performance.

Above all, we want to give practitioners the skills, knowledge, confidence and tools to ensure the active individuals that they support experience better health and wellbeing, alongside their sporting performance.

Sports Nutrition

Meet the team

Ian Craig

Exercise Physiologist & Nutritional Therapist

Simone do Carmo

Exercise Physiologist & Sports Nutritionist

Mémé Watanabe

Nutritional Therapist & Social Media Coordinator

Rachel Jesson Natural sports cookery

Rachel Jesson

Certified Natural Food Chef

Jenny Howell

Nutritional Therapist & CISN Admin

Zunaid Timm

Digital Strategist

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