"You aren't just what you eat. You are what your body can do with what you eat." - Andrea Nakayama, leader in the Functional Nutrition field and founder of Functional Nutrition Alliance.
Hi, I’m Carla Ferrara, Functional Nutrition and Lifestyle Practitioner and Complex Chronic Disease Practitioner. I help empower people to recognize their strength in order to achieve a healthier state, both in mind and body. My passion is to help people of all ages become more aware of the ways they can enrich their health and their lives by connecting how they feel with their food, their lifestyle habits, their movement, their relationship with the natural world and their spirituality.
Through online programs and private sessions, I help them discover hidden reasons why they are in a complex chronic state of health or just don’t feel their best, so they can make life-giving changes with a plan that’s exclusive to them.
All my life, I’ve had this unsettling awareness of how our environmental resources and foods were such an integral part of our health yet taken for granted. I spent lots of time outside in nature and worried about protecting our Mother Earth from the ways we take her for granted.
My focus on eating natural foods rather than processed became a priority years ago. This quest set me on a long confusing path. Manufactured foods that are quick and tasty had become the norm. In fact, many of these foods were and still are part of our coveted traditions.
I was “super healthy” on the surface, but despite my strong willpower, regular exercise and healthful choices, I felt sick a lot of the time. Confused but extremely determined, I began to seek non-traditional answers that did not require prescription meds or cookie-cutter solutions.
For over a decade, I worked as a Systems Design Engineer. This occupation taught me how to look at an overall design idea, break it down into manageable pieces, and then figure out how it all works together, including the human intervention piece. Soon I learned how to look at the body in the same way, seeking to understand how the many different body systems and functions interact and contribute to overall wellness. I began learning how to search for the ‘roots’ of the problem and how this can be very different for every system, every body.
Approaching my health with an engineer mind led me to answers. Turns out, I had hypothyroidism and adrenal fatigue. To heal myself, I went back to school. After graduating from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition, I became a Certified Health Holistic Coach.
This newfound knowledge led me to advance my studies with Functional Nutrition Alliance, a company led by Andrea Nakayama that teaches functional nutrition, physiology and functional medicine concepts. That’s when I learned more about Hashimoto’s, the autoimmune disease that attacks the thyroid and leaves the most “healthy” individuals in need of specific care. My adrenal and thyroid issues now had a name. This helped me to understand what my body was asking of me and how to respond appropriately. This extra-vigilant care taught me how to guide others to the conclusions they sought for themselves.
After I felt like I was ‘managing’ my Hashimotos, I started feeling sick once again, but I knew it was different. After years of questioning and searching for answers, I was diagnosed with chronic Lyme Disease. I had to dig in once again to educate myself. It was at this point I started clinical training from a Traditional Chinese Medicine perspective with Hillary Thing at Uprooting Lyme. What I learned helped position me to address any chronic condition including the multiple infections found under the Lyme disease umbrella. I started to research and incorporate movement and how to use your fascial system to help heal chronic pain and illness. Engaging in appropriate movement (i.e. yoga and the MELT Method) and deeper stress management was an added keystone in the Lyme disease healing process for me. With this knowledge along with the help and support of several practitioners and doctors, I put the pieces together and worked my way back to a healthier state.
My next challenge was mold toxicity, which is another complex chronic condition. This required a different approach in that I had to make major life changes, but I could use my experience as a foundation. I have learned through it all and wish to impart what I have learned to help others.
Since my years working as an engineer, my entire focus has been on my kids, my health, staying curious, keeping up with advancements in healing and educating others. Besides my more academic health education, I broadened my knowledge and experience in the following ways:
Teaching fitness classes and serving as a Certified Personal Trainer
Exploring different energy medicine modalities
Volunteering in our state natural resource programs and helping others to connect to our natural world
Facilitating local domestic abuse programs
Facilitating local family mediation programs
Managing and coordinating teams for a school creative enrichment program
Following the local food movement and playing an integral role in creating a local food co-op
Studying and teaching classical yoga
Today, I’m confident in my ability to care for myself and guide others to do the same. Autoimmune diseases and the aftermath of chronic Lyme and Mold disease take a crazy amount of self-care, but I now understand that some conditions are beyond willpower or the desire to change. They take a very specific approach that often include addressing: what we eat, how we digest what we eat, how we move, how we think, our exposure to toxins and how our body reacts, how our microbiome influences our body functions, how our fascia system influences all our other systems, and how we interact with the world around us. The pathway and tools are different for everyone.
I relish meeting those who are courageous and open-minded enough to make changes to heal themselves. If I can be of service to them, that’s about the greatest thing I can imagine.
Is your body trying to tell you something?
Do you want to listen to what it’s trying to say?
Do you want to learn about what your body is telling you and help yourself heal?
Healing begins with the mind-body-nature connection. Once we make that mind-shift, a safe space for personal healing is created.
Carla Ferrara earned a BS in Electrical Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, an MS in Electrical Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and worked in various fields such as aeronautics and secure communications. After receiving certification as a Certified Holistic Health Counselor at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, she completed Full Body Systems course and then received certification as a Functional Nutrition and Lifestyle Practitioner from Functional Nutrition Alliance. She furthered her studies by completing:
Hashimoto’s Practitioner Training Program at Hashimoto’s Institute
Yoga RYT 200 certification at YogaLife Institute
Holistic Lyme Disease Practitioner training at Uprooting Lyme
Advanced Clinical Training in Complex Chronic Disease at Uprooting Lyme
Environmental Health Certification with Lara Adler
MELT Instructor Training with Sue Hitzmann
SIBO PRO Course with Dr. Allison Siebecker
