Thinking about life after the military? ION-trained nutritional therapist Anastasis Tzanis knows the territory. Before he ever set foot in a clinic, he served as a paratrooper in the Greek special forces, then spent six years trading currency derivatives in the high-pressure world of finance. We spoke to him about leaving a demanding career behind, retraining as a nutritional therapist, and finding a profession that finally brought together mind and body.
From the regiment to the trading floor
Tzanis’ journey began with an economics degree that left him restless.
“I was studying economics and I thought there was too much time spent in my mind,” he says. “So I decided to do something more physical, such as spend one year in the special forces in Greece.”
For a young man living almost entirely in his head, the physical demands of airborne training were exactly the corrective he needed. The year as a paratrooper delivered the discipline and physicality he’d been craving.
But before long, the other side of his personality began demanding attention.
I was missing the mental stimulation that one can get from using their mind.”
After completing his military service, he swung back in the opposite direction, completing a master’s in finance in the US, returning to Europe, and becoming a trader specialising in currency derivatives. He spent six years in the industry and still speaks about it with affection. “I loved it, and I’m very grateful that I spent these years there.” Yet the same restlessness that had once pulled him out of economics resurfaced, this time with physical warning signs. After a year of relentless physical training in the forces, he found himself spending all day sitting at his desk and not using the body. He started seeing that this could take a toll on his health. “I was saying at the time that if I was to stay in this job forever, I’d get some heart condition.”
Around the same time, Anastasis contracted glandular fever, a contagious viral infection caused by the Epstein-Barr virus, leading to symptoms including a severe sore throat, extreme fatigue, fever, and swollen glands. It floored him for months. “It definitely took its toll on my health. I put on some weight.” Looking for answers, he began experimenting with fasting, and found it made a big difference to his health. That’s when he decided to formalise what he was learning through nutritional therapy training.
The double edge of adaptability, a lesson from high-pressure careers
People often ask how hard it was to walk away from finance, expecting a story of crisis and reinvention. In his case this transition was very organic and natural. Anastasis says: “I’d shifted my interest from banking, which I loved, to wanting something more.” What he wanted, specifically, was to help people.
I wanted to not look after accounts and transactions and indices, things that don’t have a soul. It’s very different when you work with an individual, someone with a family, with a life, with challenges, and you’re helping them live life on their terms without health issues.
He’s now works on the other side, supporting people still in that high-pressure world. What he sees is a story about adaptability, the same quality that defines life in the forces, and how it cuts both ways. “Adapting is life-saving and amazing,” he says. “If you put me under pressure, I’ll take it. I might compromise some other functions, my ability to switch off, to rest, my digestion, but I’ll keep living.” The problem is the second kind of adapting, where the compromises start to feel normal.
“People start considering some of the problems that come from it as normal. Some men take for granted that to age healthily they have to be on hormone replacement therapy. I’ve seen that in people as young as 30.” That, he believes, is the shift people need to make sooner or later: recognising there’s usually a cost to forcing the body to function through unnatural intervention, and that lifestyle still has a part to play.
Inside the clinic: who he helps and how
Today, Anastasis’ finance background hasn’t gone to waste, but much of his practice has ended up focused on women’s health, just because, he says, women tend to be more open. “I think women are much more open, and this makes a big difference.” That openness lets him work with the fuller picture, not just what someone eats but how they eat when stressed, angry or under social pressure. He sees plenty of clients who arrive only when something has finally given way.
People usually come with complaints like fibromyalgia, fatigue. This manifests because they’re bottling a lot of problems over long periods, and then the whole system crashes.
The earlier symptoms were there all along, he says, they’re just very good at ignoring them, an observation that may ring true for those used to pushing through.
Becoming an author, and what ION training gave him
Alongside his clinical work, Anastasis is also a published author. His first book, Breathing For Yoga: Applying The Science Behind Ancient Wisdom In A Modern World, explores breathwork and yoga, and he’s now writing a second, which he hopes to release this year. That first book carries around 600 references, the tip of a much larger iceberg. “For every ten papers you read, maybe one is worth mentioning. So you can imagine the number.” He traces that appetite for rigour straight back to his studies.
After returning to London from the US, he discovered ION while researching training options in nutritional therapy. The institution consistently came up among the leading providers in the field. He completed the access course to bring his chemistry and biology up to standard, then the diploma, graduating in 2012. What stuck with him most wasn’t any single nutrition fact but rather the programmes focused on primary research from the outset. “That was very, very useful.”
Advice for service leavers and veterans considering nutritional therapy
His advice for anyone considering the path, especially the veterans and serving forces personnel who can study at ION with dedicated support, is:
If anyone wants to pursue this, they should do it because of their personal interest, whether it’s a personal health challenge or wanting to support people in their profession.
Treat it as a learning experience first, he says, and the door to a profession tends to open later, if you want it to. For those leaving the forces, that often means starting with your own health, drawing on the discipline you already have, and discovering a second career that turns hard-won resilience into helping others.
So after a career that swung from the regiment to the trading floor to the clinic and the writing desk, is this the most fulfilling work he’s done? He doesn’t hesitate.
I do enjoy consultations. It’s a big passion of mine. It’s a bit of a cliché to say we’re changing people’s lives, but I think we are. That’s very rewarding.
Thinking about life after service? The discipline and resilience you’ve already built could be the foundation of a rewarding new career. At ION we offer courses to become a nutritional therapist and/or nutrition and lifestyle advisor, with dedicated support for veterans and serving forces personnel.
