Advanced Holistic Nutritional Therapy Year

Advanced Holistic Nutritional Therapy Year

Become a very effective healer

Imagine being able to give detailed nutritional advice, describe or show clients how to cook their foods for maximum healing affect, advise on specific exercises to speed up healing, address and help emotional difficulties, recommend healthier lifestyle changes, and help people find their deeper purpose and direction in life. This is what being a holistic healer is about.

Modern society has artificially separated these different aspects of healing into different specialities with different trainings. So when we have problems we may need to go and see a range of therapists, but none can give the whole picture of what is causing our problems and a holistic path to health.

This training uses the traditional medicine of the Far East from countries like China and Japan, which have studied for several thousand years the food, lifestyle, emotional and spiritual causes of disease. The depth and breadth of this understanding is far beyond current modern scientific medicine in understanding the causes of most illnesses in our daily way of eating and living, our emotions and mental beliefs about ourselves and life.

The macrobiotic approach to health and healing was started by the Japanese couple George and Lima Ohsawa, who were some of the first to bring the wisdom of Far Eastern medicine to the West in the first half of the 20th century. The macrobiotic approach gives a very effective approach in maintaining good health, and healing a wide variety of health problems, and has been further developed up to the present time into a very practical and well-tried system of healing.

This Holistic Health Consultant Year course will teach you how to use a variety of healing modalities to offer healing of many of today’s common health problems, enabling you to offer a
pathway of healing to many clients that may have been suffering chronic health problems for years. It will give you some amazing skills in helping others heal themselves physically and emotionally, and become more in touch with their true aliveness and purpose in life.

The IMS’s professional training is divided into three parts:

• Year 1 – Holistic Nutrition & Cooking Year (Qualify in Holistic Health and Healing Chef Guide).
• Year 2 – Holistic Nutritional Therapy Year (qualify in three healing arts – Health Coach, Healing Chef & Wellbeing Shiatsu practitioner).
• Year 3 – Holistic Health Consultant Year (qualify as an accredited Holistic Health Consultant & Medicinal Cook)

How you will learn

The course is spread over 16 months with nine 4 day on site modules, followed by 2 days of practical and theoretical assessments. You will be giving holistic health consultations throughout
the course, both under supervision during teaching modules, and at home. You receive detailed feedback on all your clients, and there are online supervision sessions for discussing the best waysof guiding your clients.

There are 18 hands on medicinal cooking classes learning to prepare individually tailored meals. You will also be cooking for some of your clients, developing your medicinal cooking skills.

The school started this training in 2003, and has been continuously updating and expanding thetraining. You will receive 500 pages of course notes, medicinal recipes and other learning
materials.

You will have access to Third Year Resources, with additional teaching videos and materials, consultation and shiatsu treatment forms and client Recommendations Booklets.

Your own personal development forms an important part of this course, to deepen your own experience of physical and emotional healing, making you a more effective healer of others. Thereis deeper learning of emotional counselling skills, and of personal tutorial sessions.

Advanced Holistic Nutritional Therapy Year

The skills you will be learning

As this is a training in holistic healing, you will be learning a wide range of skills including:

• In-depth Oriental medical understanding of how the body functions, on creating a healthy internal balance, and the causes of disease.
• Refine your practical and intuitive Oriental diagnosis skills, to ascertain people's true state of health and internal imbalances.
• To give an holistic explanation of the causes of a clients' health, lifestyle, diet and emotions are all connected and affecting each other.
• To give detailed dietary advice, using the school's guidance notes for clients.
• To give advice on changes to people's life style to accelerate healing.
• To advise on specific meridian stretches and stimulation to aid balance and healing.
• To give deeply effective shiatsu bodywork for a range of health problems and to rebalance the body and mind.
• To use food as medicine to bring about specific healing effects on the body.
• To make teas and use a range of compresses and other home remedies to alleviate specific symptoms.
• To give emotional counselling and release long held destructive patterns.
• To help clients get in touch with their deeper self and life purposes.
• How to set up your own business as a complementary health practitioner, healing cook, your own teaching centre etc.

Accreditation of your learning

We train you to the standards set by the international professional accreditation body the Macrobiotic Association, which has ratified this training course. As an IMS graduate you can be accredited by the association and become a Practitioner Member as a Holistic Health Consultant & Medicinal Cook.

What You'll Get

This course will take you on an ever deepening journey into your own healing whilst developing and strengthening your skills in being able to help others heal more complicated and serious health problems. It will also open up a new career path in Holistic Health Consulting, Medicinal Cooking and Shiatsu bodywork.

Holistic Health Consulting

This aspect of the training enables you to guide clients on a healing path using detailed dietary and lifestyle advice, and when appropriate emotional healing. It includes deepening your understanding of food energetics and the alchemy of cooking, learning how to design menus with specific healing properties, diagnosing imbalance and illness, men and women’s health challenges, and Western physiology and pathology.

Medicinal Cooking

Involves understanding the uses of specific foods, cooking techniques, recipes, flavours and teas to promote balance and heal many health problems. It enables you to integrate healing knowledge with cooking skills.

• Refine your cooking skills and learn how to cook and design menus for specific illnesses and individuals.
• Learn how to use special dishes, drinks and condiments for healing purposes.
• Practice hands-on cooking for different imbalances and health problems in our purpose built kitchen.

Shiatsu Therapy

Your  Wellbeing Shiatsu skills learnt on the Year 2 course are further developed with particular attention to:

• Alleviating a variety of back, knee, shoulder, neck and other musculo-skeletal problems
• Give shiatsu for a range of digestive problems
• Helping a variety of female and male reproductive system problems
• A range of other respiratory and other internal health problems

There is the option during the Year 3 course to take your skills to a higher level to become a Shiatsu Therapist, able to work with clients with a range of different health problems. To achieve this you need to gain more experience by giving more shiatsu treatments at home (which you can charge for during this year) and attend an additional 5 day teaching module at the school.

If you decide to take this option, you will be gaining two major qualifications during the IMS 3 ½ year training programme.

Course structure

The Holistic Health Consultant Year consists of 36 days in nine 4 day modules, with the final assessments being held over two days.

• Each day begins with before breakfast do-in, breathing exercises, meditation, shiatsu or other embodiment practices.
• Morning theory classes in many aspects of holistic healing.
• Afternoon classes, mostly in medicinal cooking, or sometimes other workshops.
• Some evening practice classes or further teaching.

This training course is not just an intellectual study of how to help people, but a practical study of health and life. If we are going to truly assist other people with their healing, we need to be fully engaged in our own on-going healing journey.

Why Study with the IMS?

We attract students from all over Europe and sometimes further afield to this training, due to its unique approach offering a full range of holistic healing skills.

Whether you are looking to augment an existing career in health, or are looking for a new path that meets your heart’s desire for offering deeper holistic healing to people, this course will give you the knowledge and skills to create the business you are wanting.

You will be taught by a team of teachers led by Oliver Cowmeadow, who has over 40 years experience of teaching as well as guiding thousands of students and clients towards greater health. He is one of the country’s leading practitioners of holistic medicine and macrobiotics. Find out more about Oliver and the other teachers for this course on our teachers page

While teaching in-depth theory, this course emphasises practical application of all it teaches, so you develop great confidence in offering your healing skills.

After graduating the school offers on-going supervision, study and support for your continuous professional development.

You can learn about what some our our graduates have achieved here.

Prerequisites for IMS’s Holistic Health
Consultant Year

You need to have completed the Holistic Nutritional Therapy Year or equivalent studies elsewhere prior to booking this course. We welcome students who have studied in other educational centres and wish to join our in-depth Year 3 course. Please contact the school to arrange a time to talk with the school principal Oliver Cowmeadow to see if your studies have sufficiently covered the IMS teaching on its Year 1 and Year 2 courses.

Advanced Holistic Nutritional Therapy Year

Course times, fees & booking

Timings

 Next course begins February 2026.

Fees

The course fee is £4680, with the option of spreading payments over 16 monthly instalments. There’s a £750 deposit to secure your place.

Accommodation

We have various options for accommodation on site, please email us to request accommodation and prices.

Cancellation Policy

All courses and accommodation are subject to the school cancellation policy, which includes changing dates. Please click here for details before booking.

Apply or find out more

To secure your place,  please download the Course Details and complete the form at the end. If you have any questions, you can book a conversation with Oliver Cowmeadow here.

Course Details

Training Pathway

Holistic Nutrition
& Cooking Year

Starting February 2026 (online)
or April 2026 (residential)

Holistic Nutrition for Body & Soul

• For personal development, growth
  & healing
• Pre-requisite for further training
   

What you'll learn:

• Improve you health & wellbeing
• Develop a solid foundation in macrobiotics & Oriental philosophy & medicine
• Improve cooking skills
• Personal development & emotional healing

Holistic Nutritional Therapy Year

October 2025 (residential)

Qualify as a:

• Holistic Health Coach
• Healing Chef
• Wellbeing Shiatsu Practitioner
   

What you'll learn:

• Offer health & food coaching to individuals & groups
• Cook for Individuals, retreats & groups
• Give shiatsu treatments for wellbeing & relaxation
• Give cooking classes & demonstrations

Advanced Holistic Nutritional
Therapist Year

February 2026 (residential)
 

Qualify as a:

• Advanced Holistic Nutritional Therapist
• Medicinal Chef
• Shiatsu Therapist (with 5 days additional Tuition)

What you'll learn:

• Give personal sessions of in-depth dietary, lifestyle, exercise & emotional guidance
• Cook medicinally to help heal many health problems
• Use shiatsu as therapy for a wide range of health problems