Introduction
[00:00:00] Detective Ev: Well, hello my friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Health Detective Podcast by Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. My name is Evan Transue, aka Detective Ev. I will be your host for today’s show on the ways FDN is different than other programs out there.
We are doing a shorter and sweet episode today in preparation for our 200th episode, which will be our next release. If you are listening to this on Apple podcasts, sometimes it labels it out of order. I think the reason that they do that is because it’s just how many times you’ve uploaded. There’s been times where if you do this long enough, there’s accidental uploads. There are things that didn’t come out right, and it’ll say that we’re at like 203 or 204.
But if you actually look at the literal number of episodes on Apple Podcast, which can be found near the description of the podcast, you will see that it is in fact about to be the 200th episode on the Health Detective Podcast, which is absolutely insane. Really excited for this.
But today I wanted to do not only a short and sweet episode, but I wanted to address something that comes up pretty commonly. One of the things that comes up very commonly for people considering the FDN course is how does this compare to other courses? Why is this unique? What does this teach me? I wanted to go over those things today.
FDN is Different and Had What I was Looking For
One of the things I will not be doing today is pulling up a specific list or description of every other health coaching thing out there, or every other functional health-oriented program out there. I think it’s really easy, even if it’s never my intention, to start coming across as if we’re attacking or going after one of the other programs when we do it that blatantly. That’s not what I’m here to do.
What I want to do then is highlight the good parts about FDN and then let you make the comparison for yourself so that you can make an informed decision. We are never saying this in a cheesy way. It’s not a sales thing. We know that there are people out there who need the FDN course.
You might know this, you might not, I was not working for FDN and then just came in and started doing a podcast for them. I went through this program myself five and a half years ago, and that was three and a half years before I ever started even considering working for FDN, let alone actually working for them. This was never in my thought process, to work for them.
So, when I hype it up or say something like this, I actually mean it. I was one of those people who was looking for a program exactly like this. This is something that I really wanted. I was looking for something that could help me with the objective data side and could tell me precisely what was going wrong in my body so that I could make a plan to help myself get better. I found that and a lot more at FDN.
Do Your Research
So, again, we’re not going to be talking about other companies so directly but do your own research. Make an informed decision. I’m going to highlight the things that I know typically differentiate us from other programs.
Then what you need to do because only you know you’re own unique needs. You need to go out and look at those other programs that you might be considering and see what do they offer. Then think about yourself and your needs.
Which program offers more for my needs than the other one. If it’s another program, go do that. That’s completely fine. Most of our practitioners either come into our program having already done other things, or they end up doing other things just because we’re all unique individuals and we need some different stuff. Again, this is totally fine.
Why FDN is Different: Lab Access
So, the things I want to highlight about FDN, one of the most obvious ones is the lab training and lab access. We allow you to get access to lab testing through our medical director program. This is one of the many perks of being an FDN, it’s probably one of the biggest ones.
You don’t need a medical license. We trust you enough if you go through this program because that’s why this program’s a little tough, right? We’re not just letting everyone through. If you get through this and graduate, which we will help you do, but it’s going to take some work, you will have access to our medical director program, which is our team of doctors that signs off on our facilitating lab orders for clients.
Let’s say you the listener, were my client and I’m the FDN practitioner. I want a specific type of lab test to go to your house and you agreed to run this on yourself. I’m not running anything on you, right? I’m not sitting in your house taking a cheek swab or a urine sample or something like that. That would be illegal. I’m not doing anything like that.
What we’re doing is I share the information with our medical director program. They ship out the kit for you and you get it to your house, and you run that test on yourself. Then you have signed off on me getting the results and we go over those results together. So that’s a really cool and unique thing that we’re able to do as FDNs.
Why FDN is Different: Lab Training
We have access to over 60 labs and counting, including a lot of the most popular ones that people are interested in. Whether it is genetic testing, DUTCH testing, HTMA, GI MAPs, hormone testing, blood analysis, we have it all. Definitely everything I’ve ever needed.
Now, the other side of that is where the market is going, there are more options for direct-to-consumer lab testing. Now, does that cover everything that we have access to as FDNs? No, because some of the stuff they’re never going to allow direct-to-consumer anyway because it would create a lot of issues. But a lot of it is becoming direct to consumer.
So then of course, the biggest difference is the fact that we actually get trained in analyzing these things. If you are running some of these tests direct-to-consumer, I guess from a philosophical standpoint, I do believe people have the right to do that, you’re really not setting yourself up for success.
I mean, if I run a lab that I don’t even know anything about, okay, cool, I spent $300, $400 maybe. Now the data is either useless or at worst, potentially harmful. If I don’t know what I’m doing and I start making assumptions, or I go online and I look up what a specific marker means, now I have this very vague, cloudy picture of what my test results actually mean. I have the potential now to make myself worse with the protocol or decisions that I choose to engage in based off these lab results.
So, the training and the access combined is really where FDN differentiates itself more so than any other area from other courses out there and other programs out there.
FDN Teaches Clinical Correlation
We will help someone who has no training or background in lab testing. You will be very advanced in this by the time that you are done with the course. More importantly, you’re taught a way of thinking cause that’s really what this is all about.
You’re taught clinical correlation. The simplest way to describe clinical correlation is it’s everything that a diagnosis isn’t. A diagnosis says a specific marker or set of markers is out of the reference range, and thus you meet the diagnosis criteria or the diagnostic criteria.
When we’re talking about certain diseases like depression or panic disorder, no, they’re not running a blood test at this time of recording this to diagnose those things. I get that that’s not always how it works. But an easy example would be something like Type II diabetes. You are either in the reference range or you are not in the reference range, and they have to test it a couple of times.
If you appear in the wrong place a couple of times you will get that diagnosis based solely off the numbers being out of the reference range and nothing else necessarily. Yes, you’re probably going to have some symptoms. I would assume any good doctor, especially with Type II diabetes, would correlate that appropriately. But remember certain things, there’s not necessarily a set-in stone symptom profile to get that diagnosis. It could be as simple as the reference range being out of whack.
In FDN, we are teaching clinical correlation. This is not diagnosing. Clinical correlation is kind of cool because if someone comes in and is symptomatic, which every single client that you ever work with as an FDN will probably come in symptomatic. Otherwise, they would not be working with you.
Correlate with the Client’s Symptoms
There are, of course, some very smart people out there who have the ability to kind of see five steps ahead and realize that maybe they should engage in something more preventative before getting sick. But I will be honest at the time of recording this, again, that is pretty rare. That’s not something I see very often.
People usually need a reason to start coming into you and talking about really serious stuff and trying to get better. That’s not something that they do typically without feeling some type of pain, whether that’s directly or maybe indirectly through a family member or a spouse or whatever it might be.
When they’re coming in then for these types of symptoms, it is very often that one of two cases is occurring. They either have a diagnosis and the doctor or Western medicine was not able to do anything for them, or they never received a diagnosis, and their condition is quote/unquote “idiopathic” or it’s a mystery. They don’t know.
When we are utilizing these lab tests, what we would do is we are trained that if the person has a set of symptoms, we’re trained to try to figure out which markers and what things going wrong on the labs correlate with the person’s symptoms. A very basic example of this is one of the hormone tests that we do.
Correlate with the Client’s Feelings or Activities
We measure four times throughout the day, their saliva samples that we take from the individual. The individual, rather, gives it, I guess, themselves. So, when the individual, the client, has the hormone test, they will spit into it in the morning. They’ll spit into it mid-morning, early afternoon, then regular afternoon, and finally about an hour before bed in the evening. Cortisol is being tested in all four of those markers.
When we see someone’s cortisol is at a relative elevation on maybe the third marker, we know that that might correlate with certain symptoms like high stress. It could correlate with certain things, just like fighting with a spouse, eating a food that they’re reactive to. So, clinical correlation’s really interesting cause it could correlate with the symptoms, but it could also correlate with the feelings or activities that the person’s engaged in.
When I say relative elevation, here’s what I mean. Again, continuing this example of the cortisol thing. When you look at cortisol in a pattern throughout the day, what you will get to see is something that is descending. It kind of flat lines more or less late afternoon to evening. It’s not a complete flat line, but if you looked at it at first glance, you would say, wow, that looks pretty much like a curve that just goes down and then is almost flat.
FDN Teaches About Relative Elevation
So, it starts relatively high in the morning when we’re waking up, and then it kind of dips down to late morning, early afternoon. Then after that it’s pretty flat until the point that it’s almost nonexistent at least in terms of what it looks like on the graph in the evening. When we see that, a relative elevation would mean that it is something that is elevated, not necessarily out of a reference range, but it’s relative to the person. Those four markers should be going down.
If you test someone’s cortisol in the morning, late morning, early afternoon and evening, you should see it go down. If the third marker, the early afternoon is up, it might be within the reference range but for us, we know that that’s weird. We know that relative to the other markers, it is an elevation – relative elevation. Does that make sense?
If we should be seeing four markers that are going down in order, then when we see one in the middle that starts going up relative to the other things, that’s a problem. We could start correlating that with things that are happening to the person symptom-wise, or activities that they are engaging in, again, whether it’s a food that they’re sensitive to, a fight with their spouse, maybe they feel a little wired at that part of the day.
There are many routes that we can go with this, but we are going to start correlating. Now, that’s not a diagnosis.
It’s Validating and Motivating
The diagnostic thing is not, hey Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so, you have relatively elevated cortisol at this part of the afternoon. No, that is not what we’re doing. What we are doing instead is correlating that together, showing them why they feel the way that they feel, and then this does a couple of things.
One, it’s just validating for them. I think that’s one of the biggest things. I know it was hugely validating for me to finally have someone be able to tell me the things that were wrong with me or not going well in my body. But it also motivates them to stick to the plan.
When we can show them on the lab work, hey, this is pretty clear as to why you feel the way you feel. Then you’re going to take actions for that, generally speaking, assuming that we have some actions to give you, and we are trained in just that. We’re trained in the lab analysis and then the following actions afterwards to help someone actually get through a protocol or start feeling better. That’s a great thing.
So, that training in the lab stuff, the access to it, one of the biggest differentiators with FDN. Number two is that it’s not a coaching course. Why do I say this? You’re like, well, isn’t this health coaching? I mean, it’s the industry that we fall under, but in my opinion, as someone who does this work, I would not consider this health coaching, no.
Why FDN is Different: It’s Not a Health Coaching Program
Health coaching to me, because I went through another program, another certification prior to getting my certification through FDN, I went through a program that was a true traditional health coaching program. Health coaching, look it up. What it actually is, the word and phrase has been completely deconstructed and reconstructed a million times, and every time it looks a little different.
What it was supposed to be is an individual, a health coach who helps someone else set and succeed in achieving their health goals. They will help them set them. I’m oversimplifying it, I’m not saying that they don’t do things that are more advanced than this. But hey, Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so. You want to run a marathon? Right now, you’re running two miles a week. That’s obviously off. So, we’re going to help them set specific goals. We’re going to hold them accountable so that they can get to where they need to go. That is important.
It is important to hold people accountable. If it wasn’t, then we would be able to do FDN in a matter of two weeks on every single client and we can’t. There obviously is something else more that needs to be done with clients.
There is course correction of course, but also just the general idea that most human beings are not able to apply a large amount of instructions in a short period of time unless there is enough pain for them to do so. We’re probably going to have to hold their hand a little bit throughout the journey. But FDN is not a coaching program.
Provides Info & Guidance on How to Get Well
FDN is teaching you the science. It’s teaching you the clinical correlation. It is teaching you how to take on a sick client and utilize lab testing to figure out where the biggest opportunities to get this person better is. That is what we train you to do.
The reason that this would be considered a differentiator in a positive way, in my opinion, is because there are enough coaching courses out there. Many of the people listening to this, I would not be surprised, probably already have some type of coaching certification. Maybe you don’t, but a lot of the people listening probably do. You don’t need another coaching certification.
Positive psychology, motivational coaching, there’s only so many things that you need to know to truly help people. Because the people that can’t be helped, no matter how good you are at what you do, to a degree, might not be able to be helped. I’m not saying that in a limiting belief type of way. I get it. Some people might be a little hesitant to get on board with what I just said.
But for the sake of the work that we’re doing, at the very least what I’m suggesting is that some people need so much help that that’s not your main job. I mean, you could do your FDN practice that way if that’s what you chose to do. But most of us get in this work cause we want to work with motivated clients who have the means and willingness to help themselves and we want to provide them with information and guidance in how to do so.
Investigate What is Wrong & Set Protocols
I don’t want to be sitting in front of someone virtually and pulling teeth trying to get them to do the things that we know that they should be doing. That’s a whole different step. It’s a whole nother level of consciousness. I want to be able to provide them with useful information so that they can see what is wrong with them, and that we can work through that together.
I’m not the guy that’s sitting here trying to motivate you necessarily. That’s not my job. Most FDNs don’t want to do that or have gone through a program that already teaches that. We are just focusing on the science. So when there’s 150, 160 hours of content, whatever it is now in the FDN course, we mean 150, 160 hours of content that is dedicated towards learning health information.
Not about coaching, not about positive psychology, not some stuff that you don’t need to know. Lab analysis, how to do the work, how to figure out what’s wrong with someone, how to come up with the protocols for any individual client no matter what they might be dealing with, that is what we are teaching you. And for many people when they hear that, that is a huge win for FDN.
Because a lot of these other places, even if they offer great information, spend a lot of time on the coaching side, which so many people are done doing. They don’t want to pay $5,000, $6,000 to learn more coaching stuff. I’m sure also too, there are phenomenal coaches out there that understand things so deep that I just can’t even, I’m not even close to that level yet.
Why FDN is Different: Get Lifetime Access to Course Updates
I will say that generally speaking, if you buy a couple of books on, again, positive psychology, motivational coaching, you’ll normally get more than enough information to get people on the right track with certain habits and things like that. Whereas, with FDN and health and getting people that are really sick, well, it’s going to take more than a couple of books, right?
No matter what route you end up taking, even if it’s not FDN, it’s going to take more than a couple of books to get you to where you need to go. I find that for the clients that we are taking on, a couple good books on coaching can get you to where you need to go, even if you don’t have that coaching background. So, that’s another big one that differentiates us.
Number three is the fact that we get lifetime access to all FDN updates so long as we are a graduate in good standing. Now, what is a graduate in good standing? I mean, one, it means that you’re doing things ethically. I mean, that’s not particularly hard to do in our world. I’ve never heard of an FDN yet doing things unethically. I’m just saying that is one of the requirements to be clear.
Number two in terms of what is required to be an FDN in good standing is that you will need to pay, I think it’s a $99 fee and it’s every two years. Not very often, not a very expensive thing.
Ways to Stay an FDN in Good Standing
You’ll also need to have some continuing education credits. How you can do that is one, you could do something from our programs that we think is worth the continuing education. It’s very easy to meet these requirements. You’re going to have to put in some work, but it’s nothing that can’t be done simply enough.
Or you could be a member of our Association of Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioners, and that will automatically qualify you for the continuing education stuff because that whole group is dedicated to advanced health and business training.
Not many courses are going to continue to give you lifelong access to the information that you learned, let alone the updates. I graduated five and a half years ago. The FDN course did not have as much in it then as it does now. Five years later from now, the FDN course will have much more in it than it did today. The price changes because of that. The price changes because of the economy.
I paid less five and a half years ago, and I still get a lot of the benefits, not all of them. Because like lab tests, right? There’s additional lab tests that are included in the course tuition now that I didn’t get, so fair enough. But everything else I get access to. When I go onto my website for FDN on my backend where I learn and stuff, I can go in there right now and see exactly what that main course has now, and I can go through it and see all the updated lessons. That’s a huge thing.
Why FDN is Different: The FDN Community
The other program that I went to after one year of not being, I guess active is not the right word cause it’s not like I even had an ability to be active. After one year from graduating, it’s as simple as that, they took away my access to the course that I paid for. That course was several thousand dollars. I don’t want to lose access to that.
So again, it’s one thing to have something that you lose access to. I think that’s completely wrong. But then on the other side, it’s another thing to actually get the information that people are now paying more for in the future. That’s a really special thing about FDN. So, that’s number three.
Number four, and I’m hesitant to bring this one up because I feel like it might sound cheesy, but it’s probably my biggest one cause it’s so true. It is the community at FDN. Reed Davis, the founder of FDN, says this himself. He was not trying to do this when he first started. He makes a joke that, you know, he started graduating people from the course and they wouldn’t leave, right?
They’re sticking around, they’re hanging out. They want to talk to other graduates, and it’s blossomed into this beautiful community. I mean, these people are my friends. Even before becoming an employee, these people are my friends. I go and meet up with them when I’m in a city. We grab lunch together, we hop on calls together. They have my back when I need help with something in business or a health problem. I mean, these people are cool.
A Very Supportive and Diverse FDN Community
They comment on my stuff on Facebook, right? And I know that sounds silly, but I mean, think about it. You have people from your high school probably on your Facebook that don’t like a thing of yours, and FDN will always be here supporting you in the things that you’re endeavoring in in life.
And we have a very diverse community. I actually admit it’s probably one of the most diverse communities I’m a part of. I mean, you have every religion here, every race, every age. You got people in 50 countries around the world now for FDN all coming together for one core thing. That’s actually pretty special because in today’s world, it seems like somehow we’re actually backtracking and becoming more divisive than ever before.
It is a very special thing that I can go in my FDN group and get to talk to every sort of person, all respectfully, because we decided to come together for one specific thing, and that is helping people get healier because we probably dealt with something, or at the very least, again, like I said earlier, someone close to us has dealt with it.
I do have a fifth reason for you guys. The fifth one, is the fact that we are not functional medicine, and this is huge for people. I need to actually say this more because people don’t get it until I say it explicitly. It’s my fault. I need to make sure I emphasize this more. We are not functional medicine.
Why FDN is Different: FDN is Not Functional Medicine
Here is the difference between Western, functional, and FDN. Western medicine is allopathic. They see a symptom, they get a diagnosis, they treat it with drugs and surgery.
Functional medicine, not universally, because every functional medicine doctor, or practitioner is a little different. It’s kind of annoying that they’re all using the same title because it’s not necessarily fair to the ones who are not operating in the way that I’m about to say. But I will just say this, most of functional medicine, from what I’ve seen that’s for sure, is basically Western medicine with supplements.
You have a diagnosis. All right, great. We’ll try to get you off this medication, cause many of them are doctors. We’ll try to get you off this medication for this supplement and you can try this diet temporarily and stuff like that. But it’s never really getting to the core of the issue. I mean, they do a little better than Western medicine, don’t get me wrong. But it’s treating symptoms, it’s treating the diagnosis, it’s treating the paperwork.
That’s not what we do at FDN. We are looking for those underlying issues. We are trying to help the person in a very advanced way, get their lifestyle under control and the things that are messed up in their body under control so that they can enable, even though it’s already there, it’s just not being able to work properly, their universe-given, God-given, whatever you subscribe to, ability to heal. And this is not hippie woo-woo.
FDN Recognizes the Body’s Innate Ability to Heal
It’s amazing to me how many people don’t get this, and they think that’s like woo-woo. I can prove it to you that the innate healing ability exists. It’s happened to every single person who’s listened to this. You can prove it to every single person that you ever talked to about this if they challenge you that the body can’t do that.
You ask them, have you ever had a paper cut or a broken bone? Paper cut is probably the most common one. You don’t have to tell your finger to do anything. Just go to bed a few times and it rests and repairs. Then you’ll wake up one morning and notice, ah, wow, it has a scab. Then you wake up the next morning, you notice, wow, this is looking a lot better. A couple weeks goes by, and you can’t even remember exactly where that paper cut was, cause now it looks completely better.
Similar to a broken bone. I mean, yes, we get a cast, we put it in place. But the cast did not regrow your bone if you don’t realize. The body, what it did is it knows what to do. It actually heals that together and refuses your leg and makes you healthy again or whatever broken bone it might be. I was thinking about a leg in my head. You get healthy again.
That’s not woo-woo. That’s something that we’ve grown up with and every single one of us has experienced in some way or another. The body does have an innate healing ability. We help you access that.
Why FDN is Different: Helps Clients at a Deeper Level
We’re not going to treat the symptoms; we’re not going to treat the diagnosis. We don’t care about that. We want to know where are the healing opportunities? Where is your lifestyle stuff wrong? We’re going to help you get both of those on track.
When you do that and you give it enough time, just as surely as that healing of the paper cut happens, just as surely as your broken bone gets better, the symptoms get better. The diagnosis gets better. That is the difference between Western, functional, and FDN. FDN, that’s completely different than those two, if you haven’t noticed.
So, that’s the fifth reason that really differentiates us. I’ve noticed a few functional medicine programs that yes, they teach labs. Yes, they teach all this good stuff. But they’re treating symptoms and paperwork. That is not what we’re doing. If that’s what you want to do, I mean, it has its time and place. There’s certainly a demand for it. Most people want the quick fix. It’s not really a fix, it’s more of a band-aid. But most people want that.
If you want to go work with those people, you’re completely entitled to do it, and I wish you nothing but the best. However, if you want to help people at a deeper level and allow them to enjoy the short time that they have on this earth to the fullest, maybe you want to learn FDN too.
Conclusion
Those are the five things that I think separates us from every other program out there. I’m sure there are more, but those are the top five that I think of and that really sold me on this course being correct for me.
If you have any questions about what we’re talking about, just so you guys know, there’s always a couple of places to reach us. The best one is probably at FDNtraining on Instagram. That’s at FDNtraining on Instagram. You can shoot us a direct message there. We have real human beings that talk to you on the direct messages. It is not a chat bot. We do nothing like that. We have an actual staffed person who will talk to you on the DMs and answer any questions that you have.
So, go check us out there if you have any follow up to what we talked about today. I am looking forward to talking to you guys again soon. I will be back with our 200th episode next time, which is absolutely, again, it’s crazy to think that we’ve been doing this for this long. 200 episodes is a lot for a podcast. I’m excited for 200 more after that and I can’t wait to show you guys what we decided to do for this. Have a great week, and I will talk to you soon.
You can always visit us at functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com.
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