Hello! I am Janel Ferrin Anderson and I am obsessed with understanding the body and what impacts it. I am a Functional Medicine Nutritionist, a Board Certified Holistic Nutritionist, I have my Doctorate in Natural Medicine, I’m a Family Herbalist, and Ayurvedic Yoga Therapist- I am always asking why. I help people explore “what is going on in there?” so they can make nutrition, lifestyle and supplement changes to function their best and feel empowered and in control of their own health.
I believe there is a missing part in our healthcare system and I am here to do my part to fill it.
It’s my goal to help people understand how nutrition and lifestyle interact with genetics and physiology (and vice versa) and how we can use them to shift the terrain in the body towards resilience and health. I also help people tune in and listen to what their unique body is saying.
There are several reasons this is my life work and why I am passionate about educating, supporting, and empowering people around health.
First off I have a son that was born with spasticity (a kind of cerebral palsy) after an in utero stroke while I was pregnant. When we were slapped with the life changing diagnosis like it was no big thing I felt 100% alone, shocked, totally unsupported, and with a million questions (even though we had awesome docs). We were thrown into the medical system and I felt like no one heard us, or cared about how we were unique, or wanted to talk about what we could do to impact his overall health. I knew intuitively that although we could not change his diagnosis there were things we could do to positively impact how he functioned. But no one was there to help us or look at the big picture and quite honestly these inquiries were dismissed as trivial. There was a huge void between the medical system and scientific daily steps to improve health and function (link here to blog on this).
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Another reason this is my life work is because I have always been intensely curious about ‘why’. “This yoga twist is detoxifying”- Why? “Make sure to get enough sleep or you might get sick”- Why? “Don’t eat gluten” – why? “This form of exercise is the best” why? Endlessly asking why simply because I am really driven to try and understand instead of agreeing blindly. Functional Nutrition is the perfect outlet for this. It is where my intensity becomes my superpower. I have never been able to take recommendations unless I understand why. I love systems and thinking into them. Now, after I have had the time to work with women for so many years, then gone back and studied not only natural medicine and herbs but also the science of functional medicine and holistic nutrition, that I feel empowered to help people use food and lifestyle as a tool to improve health. Not in a woo woo way but in a methodical and scientific way that includes asking people to tap into their own intuition and body awareness and take steps to resolve the underlying cause of symptoms and dis-ease.
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It is shocking how much we do not know about our own body. I spent a decade in my early years working in the birth world as a doula, a prenatal/postpartum yoga therapist, and a childbirth educator and saw a huge gap in health care that needed to be filled. Despite great docs and midwives, women weren’t being educated and empowered about their own bodies, weren’t informed that symptoms were often a sign of imbalances that they could do something about with simple changes before medical intervention was needed or alongside medical intervention. Some women were suffering needlessly from symptoms of hormone imbalance where nutrition and lifestyle could help. Now, going through perimenopause myself and having teen daughters I am shocked and appalled that we as women do not know about our own body, how it changes, and what impacts it and I am hell bent to fill this void.
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Are you on board? Stoked? Ready to take charge of your health? It is quite an empowering approach to health.
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There are a million awesome doctors and nurses out there doing great work. I am married to an Emergency Department Physician who is a big thinker and a brilliant physician. They are great at acute care. There is just a missing void in healthcare today, to help people understand the physiology of their body, to give people the appropriate time they need to feel heard, to see the whole person, to explore how food/lifestyle can directly affect health, to consider what is driving symptoms and disease, and to help people make sustainable daily changes! I am happy to work with any kind of physician or health care practitioner on your team.
Looking at the whole person, being curious, and coming back to the physiology, what’s actually happening in the body and how various inputs and genetics are affecting our physiology, is a way to talk about health in a way that moves us forward in an empowered and individualized way. Physiology is the “nature” of the body, no judgment needed, its just about getting curious around what’s happening in there and then we get to decide how to impact it.
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When not obsessing over the human body and how it ticks I can usually be found playing in the mountains with my friends and family. I adore the wild and the pace of nature- sunrises, sunsets, deep river canyons, high alpine peaks, granite walls, the moon, dirt, cold mountain lakes, deep snow, cold rain, hot sun and everything in between. I love moving my body in the mountains, cooking delicious food, loving my people, and sleeping hard.
I am currently a member of the National Association of Nutrition Practitioners, Functional Nutrition and Lifestyle Practitioners, as well as part of several other Health Practitioner Forums so I can stay current and connected on new science and clinical evidence. Needless to say, I am a die hard lifelong learner endlessly asking WHY and then helping you make changes to optimize your health.
I would be honored to be a part of your health journey!
Janel’s Health and Wellness Education and Experience-
Fall 2021- Therapeutic Nutrition and Supplements in Practice, Advanced Certification Program. Josh Gitalis
Fall 2020- FNLP (Functional Nutrition and Lifestyle Practitioner) advanced certificate program at Functional Nutrition Alliance
2019-2020- Bioindividual Nutrition Institute- Certified Practitioner Program. Graduate work digging deep into the biochemistry of specific diets such as Fodmaps, Gaps, Oxalates, Salicylates, SCD, Histamines, ketogenic, AIP, etc.
2018-2019- Certified Holistic Nutritionist- Bauman College, Oakland CA
2018- Functional Medicine Internship at Reno Integrative Medicine with Dr. Bruce Eichelburger, Reno NV
2018- Functional Medicine Internship with Dr Dale Kelly at Balanced Health Solutions, Reno NV
2018-2020- Functional Nutrition Program- Functional Nutrition Lab, Andrea Nakayama- 3 years of Full Body Systems
2014-2018- Doctorate Program, Doctor of Natural Medicine PhD- University of Natural Medicine
2017- Certified Family Herbalist- School of Natural Healing, SLC UT
2014- Herbal Studies Courses- The School of Natural Medicine International, Aurora CO
2013- Ayurvedic Yoga Therapy- Rocky Mountain Institute of Yoga and Ayurveda and Ayurvedic Mandala Training Center- Mountain Rebalance was born as an Ayurvedic Yoga Therapy Business back in 2014
2006- Certified Birth, Postpartum Doula and Childbirth Educator- Childbirth International and Boulder Doula Circle – I taught classes, attended almost 50 births in hospitals and homes, and started a Birth Collective in Colorado
2004- Certified 200 hr Yoga Teacher- Shoshoni Yoga Institute, Nederland, CO
2000-2002- PreMed- Fort Lewis College, Durango CO
1999- Bachelors Degree in International Development- MSU MI
“Adopt the pace of Nature, her secret is patience.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” -Hippocrates
You are not what you eat but instead what you absorb and what toxins you keep out.
Please call or email for more information
janel@mountainrebalance.com